Life and

Life and (a few) letters 15
towns, including Pavia. Leopoldo Maggi, just completing his second year as a
medical student in Pavia, was then drafted at officer’s rank into the French
Ambulance corps, a function he retained during the Italian war of Independence
(1859/60); a small but perhaps relevant detail about his commitment to the
patriotic cause. 41 Three weeks after the allied victory at Magenta, the French army
fought the Habsburg troops at Solferino and Sammartino, near Lake Garda. The
Swiss businessman Henry Dunant witnessed the aftermath of the battle, where
some 40,000 injured soldiers had been left behind after a day of fighting. The
experience of the ensuing suffering led Dunant to organise an international rescue
organisation, the Red Cross. In his Memory from Solferino (1862), Dunant drastically
describes the inadequacies of the existing ambulances, oxen carts, which were few
in number, gave little shelter, and moved extremely slowly from the battlefield. 42 It
is entirely left to our speculation to imagine nineteen-year-old Maggi providing
first aid to the victims during and after the carnage of the War of Independence,
an experience of which not a hint is given in any of his writings, though in general,
Maggi is never shy to sprinkle autobiographical information over his academic and
semi-popular writings.
After the war, while still a student, in 1860/61 Maggi became an honorary
assistant to Paolo Panceri (1833-1877), who served as assistant professor (assistente
effettivo) to the comparative anatomist, Giuseppe Balsamo Crivelli. 43 The following
year, when Panceri left for Bologna and later Naples, Maggi succeeded him as a
salaried assistant professor in natural history. In 1863, finally, Maggi graduated in
two disciplines, at a distance of six months, first in natural history, defending a
thesis On the circulatory system of the animals (26 January, M1), then in medicine with a
thesis On degeneration (26 July, M2). 44 His previous military engagement might help
explain the relatively long delay of his graduations, a full six years after taking up
his studies. A small autobiographical sketch, published in one of Maggi’s
obituaries, provides some further information about the intellectual pursuits
during his student years, a period which otherwise is not well documented:
41 “Mentre era ancora studente, nel 1859, veniva addetto all’ambulanza francese col grado di
ufficiale e vi rimaneva durante la guerra per l’indipendenza d’Italia”. Calvi (1884): table V. This
detail is curiously absent in all other biographical information, although patriotic commitment
was still perfectly respectable for Italian academics in the early twentieth century, as other
remarks in obituaries and reports attest.
42 On the experiences of Solferino and the subsequent campaign for the Red Cross organisation,
see Müller (1897), where an abridged German version of Dunant’s memoir is included.
43 Panceri himself did not have a chair in Pavia, contrary to the assertion in Barbagli (2006:351).
On Panceri, see Gasco (1878), Borrelli (1990-91).
44 References to Maggi’s published works are provided in shorthand, marked by the letter “M”
followed by the number which Maggi assigned more or less chronologically to each of his
writings in his printed publication lists (M272). A revised and updated bibliography of Maggi’s
works is provided after the general bibliography at the end of this thesis.