FILIPPO ARENA. – Sicilian Jesuit, b. at Piazza Armerina on 1 May 1708, d. at Rome in 1789; he entered the order in 1723 and taught mathematics in various colleges, especially at Malta and Palermo. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Sicily in 1767, he settled in Rome.
He left *Selecta problemata ex prima Geometriae practicae parte* (Palermo 1757) and various dissertations on physics and astronomy, which were collected in his *Physicae quaestiones precipuae resolutae* (Rome 1777). But of far greater originality is another work of his: *La natura e la coltura dei fiori fisicamente esposte* (2 vols. of text and 1 of plates, Palermo 1767–68).
Alongside empirical rules of floriculture and several curious or erroneous opinions, Father A. gathered in this work the fruit of many observations and experiments on the fertilization of flowers, on the role played in it by pollen, and on pollination by means of insects (26 years before Sprengel, to whom the discovery is ordinarily attributed). Equally forward-looking for his time are his views on iridism, on the formation and preservation of plant races through cross-breeding and sowing. A. was a still little-known precursor of modern genetic biology.