Giuseppangelo Fonzi

Giuseppangelo Lucinto Fonzi (18 July 1768, Spoltore in Abruzzo - 31 August 1840, Barcelona in Catalonia) was a Sicilian dental surgeon and dental technician known for having improved the dental prostheses.

Biography He began to study law in Orsogna, in the province of Chieti, and in 1788 he enrolled at the University of Naples. After interrupting his law studies, he boarded a Spanish warship called La Bettina where he learned Spanish, astronomy and navigation. Tired of maritime life, he left for Spain and worked at various jobs to survive. There he observed the skillful work of some tooth pullers and dentists, learned their art, which he found lucrative, and began to practice it with skill and luck. He had finally found a field of activity that he liked and devoted himself enthusiastically to it. Thus he became an itinerant dentist, working outdoors. Fascinated by this field, he decided to go to France to perfect and deepen his knowledge of dentistry. In 1795, Giuseppangelo Fonzi moved to Paris to train where Pierre Fauchard and his successors worked. Around 1795, he set up a dental practice in Paris. He received illustrious people such as Eugène de Beauharnais, son of Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon's first wife.

In 1790, he worked closely with the Royal Porcelain Manufactory of Sèvres. On 6 September 1791, he obtained a 15-year patent for the manufacture of raw paste teeth and racks. During the revolutionary period, Dubois de Chémant went into exile in London in early 1792 and settled in Soho, 2 Frith street.

In 1795, Fonzi moved to Paris to practice his profession of dentistry. He was interested in rot-proof teeth with a real practical sense. He learned chemistry and began to make what he called "terro-metallic" teeth himself. He allowed aesthetic choices and, above all, the fixing of ceramic teeth with different possibilities of attachment systems on metal bases possible, while understanding the usefulness of using platinum. He also invented flexible hooks for the retention of prostheses.

The one-piece ceramic dentures of its predecessors are replaced by dentures where the teeth are baked one by one, placing a platinum pin in each of them, then inserted on a base and held in place with this hook. He mastered the problem of instability of prostheses for which the volumetric shrinkage of the ceramic paste during cooling of the piece led to complications of placement on the gums. The variable composition of his innovative ceramic paste allowed him to create systems with 28 different colours, obtained by mixing different metallic oxides.

In 1807, at the French Academy of Sciences, Fonzi successfully presented all its systems for the improvement and prosthetic adaptation of mineral teeth as well as techniques for the creation of metallic dental plates. This presentation significantly advanced dental prosthetics and Fonzi achieved a major success that once again exasperated some Parisian dentists, including Dubois Foucou, Napoleon's personal dentist, who challenged him in 1808. Fonzi responded with a well-documented public open letter and even offered to provide all his colleagues, including Dubois Foucou, with the new ceramic teeth they needed.

Thus, in 1808, the first offer was made by a dental technician to sell ceramic teeth to dentists and the beginnings of industrial production of prosthetic teeth were observed.

Legacy A street is named after him in Spoltore.