Luca Ghini

Luca Ghini (* 1490 in Casalfiumanese at Imola † May 4, 1566 in Bologna) was a physician and botanist. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Ghini ".

Life and work

Ghini studied medicine at the University of Bologna, where he achieved his PhD in 1527. In February of the same year he received a teaching position to which he abandoned in 1533 because of disputes with the Senate of the University. In 1534 he received a Cattedra in medicine for the teaching of medicinal plants, which was, however, subordinate to the general medical department. It was not until 1539, he received a five-year contract for lectures de simplicibus medicinalibus with an increased content. In the summer of 1543 he accepted a call to the Duke of Florence, Cosimo I, to the University of Pisa at that turned to Ghini, as Leonhart Fuchs had declined the offer. The tasks in Pisa also included the establishment of a botanical garden, for which there is no official founding, however, payments to Ghini made ​​for it already in 1543 At the end of the contract with Bologna -. Better provision of the Senate for an extension Ghini refused - he went 1544 to Pisa. Excursions for the procurement of plants led Ghini and his students on Elba and in 1554 to Mount Baldo on Lake Garda, which was attended among others Ulisse Aldrovandi, Andrea Alpago and Francesco Calzolari. Calzolari, a pharmacist from Verona, published a detailed report in 1556 about Venice: Il viaggio di Monte Baldo. As a consultant Ghini also worked for the Botanical Gardens of Florence and Padua, whose first prefect his pupil Luigi Squalermo, called L' Anguillara was. Squalermo Ghini had already supported the construction of the garden in Pisa.

1554 Ghini returned at the instigation Aldrovandi back to Bologna. 1555/1556 he held the evening lectures in medicine. He died in poverty and was buried in the Servite church.

Ghini had published nothing during his lifetime, his papers were scattered. Therefore, only a few of his works are known to have been published by other scholars, among others, by Pietro Andrea Mattioli.