Pier Andrea Saccardo

Pier Andrea Saccardo (23 April 1845 in Volpago del Montello, Treviso – 12 February 1920 in Padua) was an Italian botanist and mycologist.

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Life

Saccardo studied at the Lyceum in Venice, and then at the Technical Institute of the University of Padua where, in 1867 he received his doctorate and in 1869 became a professor of Natural History. In 1876 he established the journal Michelia which published many of his early mycological papers. In 1879 he became a professor of Botany and director of the botanical gardens of the university.

Saccardos’ scientific activity focused almost entirely on mycology. He published over 140 papers on the Deuteromycota (imperfect mushrooms) and the Pyrenomycetes. He was most famous for his Sylloge, which was a comprehensive list of all of the names that had been used for mushrooms. Sylloge is still the only work of this kind that was both comprehensive for the botanical kingdom Fungi and reasonably modern. Saccardos also developed a system for classifying the imperfect fungi by spore color and form, which became the primary system used prior to classification by DNA analysis.

Selected publications

Indispensable in the history of mycology is his master work Sylloge fungorum omnium hucusque cognitorum (Padua 1882-90, in nine volumes) followed by the 1931 edition in 25 volumes.

Books

• Prospetto della Flora Trivigiana (Venice 1864)
• Bryotheca Tarvisina (Treviso 1864)
• Della storia e letteratura della Flora Veneta (Milan 1869)
• Sommario d'un corso di botanica (3rd ed., Padua 1880)
• Musci Tarvisini (Treviso 1872)
• Mycologiae Venetae specimen (Padua 1873)
• Mycotheca Veneta (Padua 1874-79)
• Michelis, commentarium mycologicum (Padua 1877 to 1882, 2 volumes.)
• Fungi italici autographie delineati et colorati (Padua 1877-86, with 1,500 tables)

References

• Davis, J. J. (August 1920) "Pier Andrea Saccardo" Botanical Gazette 70(2): pp. 156-157
• Dörfelt, Heinrich and Heklau, Heike (1998) Die Geschichte der Mykologie (The History of Mycology) Einhorn-Verlag E. Dietenberger, Schwäbisch Gmünd, ISBN 3-927654-44-2

This article is based, in part, on information from the Meyers Konversations-Lexikon of 1890.