Stanislao Cannizzaro
Stanislao Cannizzaro (Palermo, 1826 – Rome, 1910) was one of the greatest Italian chemists and a politician of the Risorgimento. He is universally remembered for the "Cannizzaro reaction", the disproportionation of aldehydes lacking hydrogen in the alpha position that bears his name. His decisive contribution to science was, however, theoretical: in the "Outline of a Course of Chemical Philosophy" (1858) he took up and made coherent Avogadro's hypothesis, clearly distinguishing the concept of atom from that of molecule and providing a rational method for determining atomic weights. He diffused these ideas at the Karlsruhe Congress of 1860, profoundly influencing the development of the periodic table. Senator of the Kingdom of Italy, he taught in Genoa, Palermo and finally at the Sapienza in Rome, leaving his chair only in 1909.
The farewell
10 maggio 1910 · Roma
Stanislao Cannizzaro died in Rome on 10 May 1910, at the age of 83, after leaving his post at the Sapienza the year before. In 1926 his remains were transferred to the church of San Domenico in Palermo, a shrine that preserves the most illustrious Sicilians. There he rests, accompanied by the commemorative monument created by sculptor Giovanni Nicolini.
