Bartoli, Adolfo

BARTOLI, ADOLFO. - Physicist and chemist, b. in Florence on 19 March 1851 and d. in Pavia on 18 July 1896; he is to be remembered for his works on electrochemistry, especially on the electrical conductivity of solutions, and for other notable studies on light and heat. In his papers on the constitution of electrodes (1882) he maintained that in a conducting liquid the dissolved substance is dissociated into parts which are made to migrate to the electrodes by the electric current and thus separated. This is Arrhenius's hypothesis, which took its name from the Swedish scientist who presented it again in 1884. Electrolysis suggested to B. a new method of synthesis of organic substances, working with carbon electrodes, on which subject he worked for many years in collaboration with his colleague and friend Giorgio Papasogli. B. won the chair of mathematical physics at the University of Palermo (1886), but he taught at Sassari, Florence and Catania, where he directed the Observatory. In 1893 he succeeded Giovanni Cantoni in the chair of physics at the University of Pavia.

Giulio Provenzal