CANNIZZARO, STANISLAO. — Great Italian chemist, b. 19 July 1826 in Palermo and d. 10 May 1910 in Rome, one of the most outstanding figures of the 19th century. He is especially remembered for the *Sunto di un corso di filosofia chimica* made at the University of Genoa and printed as a letter to Prof. DeLuca in *Nuovo Cimento*, 7 (1858), pp. 321-66.
This *Sunto*, later illustrated by C. at the Karlsruhe Congress (1860), served to clarify the importance of Avogadro’s law and to secure the triumph of Gerhardt’s views, imposing on all the distinction between molecules and atoms and defining with his own precise concepts what was to be understood by atomic weight. Alongside this universally recognized merit, other important contributions to the progress of organic chemistry must be recalled: suffice it to mention the discovery of the first aromatic alcohol, benzyl alcohol, obtained by a reaction that bears his name, and the researches on santonin.