Giuseppe Monti

Giuseppe Monti (27 November 1682 – 29 February 1760) was an Italian chemist and botanist. He was a professor of botany and from 1722-1760 director of the Bologna Botanical Garden. The plant genus Montia is named in his honour. His son Gaetano Lorenzo Monti (1712–1797) was also a botanist who continued work at the same botanical garden.

Monti discovered a fossil jawbone in the Alps and used it as support for the Biblical flood and both he and his son were among the last defenders of diluvianism among the naturalists of the period.

Monti was considered one of the great botanists of the period and his works were a major source for Carolus Linnaeus.

Works

Monti's works include:

• De monumento diluviano nuper in agro Bononiensi detecto : dissertatio in qua permultae ipsius inundationis vindiciæ, a statu terræ antediluvianae & postdiluvianæ desumptae, 1719
• Catalogi stirpium agri Bononiensis prodromus gramina ac hujusmodi affinia complectens... Bologna, 1719
• Plantarum varii indices ad usum demonstrationum quae in Bononiensis Archigymnasii Publico Horto quotannis habentur. Iis praefixa est dissertatio ibidem habita anno MDCCXXIII ad easdem demonstrationes auspicandas 1724
• Exoticorum simplicium medicamentorum varii indices ad usum exercitationum quæ in Bononiensi scientiarum & artium singulis hebdomadis habentur. 1724
• Plantarum genera a botanicis instituta juxta Tournefortii methodum ad proprias classes relata. 1724
• Indices botanici et materiae medicae quibus plantarum genera hactenus instituta. 1753 – with his son Gaetano Lorenzo Monti