Ferdinando Rosellini

Ferdinando Pio Rosellini (1814–1872) was an Italian mathematician and botanist.

Life and work The son of a wealthy family of merchants of Pescia, his elder brother was the Egyptologist Ippolito Rosellini. He studied mathematics at the University of Pisa, and mathematical physics at the University of Florence under Leopoldo Nobili.

From 1836 he was the tutor for the four sons of Giorgio Doria in Genoa; one of them became the known botanist Giacomo Doria, the namesake of the Natural History Museum of Genoa.

In 1844, botanist Giuseppe De Notaris published a genus of fungi, in the family Xylariaceae, called Rosellinia in Ferdinando's honour.

In 1846, three years after the death of his brother Ippolito, he married his widow and adopted his three sons: Eugenio, Angela and Giovanbattista.

In 1848, during the Revolutionary period, he was very active in politics; he was a member of the Circolo Patriottico Milanese, and editor of the political journal La Croce di Savoia.

In 1853 he was appointed director of the Istituto di Commercio e Industria of Turin, founded by Cavour. From 1859 he was director of Istituto Tecnico Leardi in Casale Monferrato where he had as a student a young Vilfredo Pareto. After his death in 1872, his herbarium and manuscripts remained in the 'Istituto'.

In 1921, botanist Edvard August Vainio published Roselliniella a genus of fungi, (in the Hypocreales order). Then in 1986, botanist Rolf Santesson published Rosellinula a genus of fungi, (in the class Dothideomycetes). Lastly, in 1990, Mario Matzer and Josef Hafellner published both Roselliniomyces and Roselliniopsis (two fungi genera from order Sordariales), also named in Ferdinando Pio Rosellini's honour.