AMICI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. – Italian physicist, astronomer, mathematician, and biologist, born in 1786, died in 1863. He was distinguished by his introduction of the immersion objective (1840), later perfected by Abbe, and by his discovery of the germination of the pollen grain on the stigma, the course of the pollen tube into the interior of the ovule, fertilization, and the origin of the embryo in phanerogams (1822–39).
The A. was a committed Catholic.
BIBL.: F. Palermo, in Bull. di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche, published by B. Boncompagni, 3 (1870), p. 220; F. Auerbach, Ernst Abbe, Leipzig 1918, p. 274 ff.; G. Briosi, Atti dell'Istituto botanico di Pavia, 1, 2ª XI (1908); (Memorie, 39), Pisa 1928.