BANCALARI, MICHELE ALBERTO. - Piarist physicist, b. at Chiavari on 20 Feb. 1805, d. at Genova on 10 Aug. 1864. He taught physics and mathematics in various colleges of Liguria, but especially at Chiavari, whence in 1846 he moved to Genova, having been appointed to the chair of experimental physics. He became known among Italian and foreign scientists above all for his discovery of the diamagnetism of gases, which he personally communicated to the congress of scientists at Venezia in 1847. The English journal Philosophical Magazine, 31 (1847), was the first to publish, and did so definitively, B.’s discovery; and three years later this priority was again acknowledged by the eminent physicist Faraday in a memoir published in the Philosophical Transactions. B. also published three important memoirs on the molecular forces of bodies.
#### BANCAROTTA: V. FALLIMENTO.