Agostino Codazzi

Giovanni Battista Agostino Codazzi, in Spanish also Agustín Codazzi ( born July 12, 1793 in Lugo (Emilia -Romagna), Italy, † February 7, 1859 in Espiritu Santo, now the Agustín Codazzi, Colombia ) was an Italian military, geographer and cartographer.

He studied at the military school in Bologna and the Scuola di Artiglieria in Pavia. From 1810 he served in the Napoleonic army. He is said to have participated in the campaigns in Ulm, Dresden, Leipzig, Lutzen and Bautzen 1813/14. After Napoleon's fall, he went first to Constantinople Opel and then traveled with his friend Constant by Ferrari North Europe, until he arrived in 1822 in Italy.

In 1826 he traveled to Venezuela, where he offered his military skills Simon Bolivar. He was commissioned to map the area of Lake Maracaibo and the boundaries between Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. The government appointed him colonel and commissioned him with an atlas of Venezuela. From President José Antonio Páez, he received the citizenship. In 1842 he was inducted into the Legion of Honor. He proposed the creation of Colonia Tovar. After Páez fall, he fled into Colombian Cúcuta, where he worked as a cartographer for the government there.

In 1852 he inspected Panama for the British government. In 1857, he discovered stone sculptures on the Río Magdalena. He died of malaria in a village in the Colombian mountains, which was later named after him.

Posthumously

The Instituto Geográfico Militar was founded in 1935 in honor of 1950 in the Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi him (Brief description: IGAC ) renamed.

Publications

• Resumen de la geografía de Venezuela; 1841
• Resumen del diario del histórico ejército del Atlántico
• Obras completas de la Comisión Corográfica
• Obras escogidas: Prólogo de Enrique Bernardo Núñez