BRUGNATELLI, LUIGI VALENTINO. — Born in Pavia on 14 February 1761, died there on 24 August 1818; he was considered one of the foremost chemists of his time.
To him are owed the first applications of Volta’s pile to chemistry and the invention of electroplating, which gave rise to galvanoplasty. He studied gastric juice, saliva, calculi, uric acid, cork, suberic acid, potato starch, wheat starch, dextrin, gluten, fibrin, and casein. He founded the Annali di Chimica (Pavia 1790–1808) and the Giornale di Fisica, Chimica e Storia Naturale (there 1808–27). Noteworthy are his Elementi di Chimica (there 1795–97) and the Farmacopea Generale, which was translated into French (Paris 1811).
BIBL.: I. Guareschi, Supplemento annuale all'Enciclopedia chimica, 28 (1912), p. 404; G. Provenzal, Profilo di chimici italiani, Rome 1938, pp. 90–95; M. Giua, Storia della Chimica, Turin 1946, p. 89. Giulio Provenzal