author
Filippo De Filippi
1814–1867
A 19th-century Italian zoologist, physician, and traveler, he helped bring natural history to a wider public and became one of the early Italian voices engaging with Darwin’s ideas.
1 Audiobook
Note di un viaggio in Persia nel 1862
by Filippo De Filippi
About the author
Born in 1814, he trained in medicine at the University of Pavia before building a career in zoology and comparative anatomy. He worked in Milan’s natural history collections and later succeeded Giuseppe Gené as professor of zoology at the University of Turin, where he became an important figure in Italian science.
He was known not only as a researcher but also as a traveler and lively science writer. His journeys included a government mission to Persia in 1862, and he later joined the round-the-world voyage of the Italian warship Magenta to study animal life beyond Europe.
His career ended during that expedition: he died in Hong Kong in 1867. Remembered as a doctor, zoologist, and explorer, he also stands out as one of the earlier Italian supporters of evolutionary thinking in the years after Darwin.