Quick Facts
Biography
Giuseppe Raddi (9 July 1770 in Florence, Italy – 6 September 1829 the island of Rhodes) was an Italian botanist.
Biography
Raddi was apprenticed to a druggist, but obtained employment in the Museum of Natural History of Florence. Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, afterward became his protector, and in 1817 sent him to Brazil to study the cryptogams of the country. Raddi explored the basins of Orinoco and Amazon Rivers, and formed a collection of plants and animals.
In 1828 he was appointed a member of the commission that was charged with studying the Egyptian hieroglyphs under the direction of Champollion, but he was taken sick and died in Rhodes on his return to Florence.
Although known mainly as a botanist, Raddi also studied reptiles, and from 1820 to 1826 named several new species of reptiles endemic to Brazil.
Writings
His works include Crittogame Brasiliane (2 vols., Florence, 1822) and Plantarum Brasiliensium nova genera et species novae vel minus cognitae in which he described 156 new species of ferns, etc. (1825).