Alberto Fortis

Alberto Fortis (* October 11, 1741 in Padua as Giovanni Battista Fortis, † October 21, 1803 in Bologna ) was an Italian clergyman, natural philosopher and polymath. He has published several books in which he presented the results of his research trips. He touched up a whole set of knowledge areas, especially geography, geology, biology, ethnography, literature and history.

Life

Fortis grew up in Padua, studied theology and entered the religious institute of the Augustinian Canons. In Rome he studied languages ​​and science. He then taught at the University of his native city of Padua. After his canons was dissolved in 1772, Fortis devoted exclusively to his scientific work. From 1778 to 1781 she lived and worked, the scholar in Spalato, the next ten years he was in the service of the King of the Two Sicilies and lived in Naples. He then returned to the University of Padua. After the fall of the Venetian Republic, he went to Bologna.

On his expeditions undertaken since 1765 he visited Venice, Istria and Dalmatia as well as central and southern Italy. Fortis was interested in doing for geological phenomena, archaeological artifacts as well as costumes and folk songs of the locals. Considerable space took in his work on agriculture. In Enlightenment fashion, he wrote about how the natural conditions would be economically best to use. In the field of geology interested Fortis particular the volcanism and the damage caused by these rock formations. About his scientific work he conducted an extensive correspondence with scholars in Italy, Germany, France, England, Switzerland and Dalmatia.

Viaggio in Dalmazia

The greatest success in the public had with the 1774 Fortis published in two separate volumes, Viaggio in Dalmazia. This work was based on studies that he had carried out in 1771 to 1774 on the spot. Significant parts of the book brought Fortis also when staying in the Dalmatian cities to paper. Travel to Dalmatia gave the scientifically interested contemporaries a wealth of information about a forgotten country and its population. Fortis described the nature of Dalmatia, the towns of the country, the lifestyle of the Slav peasants and provided information on the history from antiquity to the 18th century.

Viaggio in Dalmazia is a book of applied science in many areas. Fortis wanted the Venetian authorities, who ruled at that time in Dalmatia, give advice, as might be the province developed and economically better utilized. The main focus treated Fortis agriculture and fishing. He proved to be a moderate physiocrat. As such, he pointed agriculture, although the primacy in economic development, but he also held the revival of trade and craft necessary and possible.

Fortis ' book made the European reader acquainted with the Croatian and Bosnian literature and epic. As the first he published a translation of the famous ballad about Hasan Aga ( Hasanaginica ), which is considered one of the finest works in Bosnian language.

Viaggio in Dalmazia was French and English translated within a short time from Italian to German and read throughout Europe. If there is no more influence exerted on the Venetian administration in Dalmatia, because the Venetian Republic went down in 1797, yet have the administrative officials of the subsequent rulers of Dalmatia - Napoleonic France and since 1814 the Austrians - Fortis a long time and one of the main sources of information about the country people, culture and history of Dalmatia used.

Works

• Saggio sopra l' isola d' Osservazioni di Cherso ed Ozero. Venezia 1771st
• Viaggio in Dalmazia. 2 vols Venezia 1774th ( emphasis Munich 1974) German edition: Travel in Dalmatia. Bern, 1776.
• French edition: Voyage en Dalmatia. Bern in 1778.
• Engl. Edition: Travels into Dalmatia. London 1778.
• Croatian edition: Put po Dalmaciji. Zagreb 1984.

• German: Mineralogical travels through Calabria and Apulia. In letters to the Earl Thomas perch bass in Ragusa. Weimar 1788.