Francesco Rossetti

Who was Francesco Rossetti?

Francesco Rossetti was a notable Italian experimental physicist.

Son of Giovanni Battista, he started his education in his natal town Trento. He then attended the University of Padova and, from 1854 to 1857, the University of Vienna, where he heard classes in mathematics, chemistry and physics, and graduated in physics and mathematics. Among his fellow students there were Josef Stefan and Ernst Mach. In 1857 he became a teacher at the Liceo di Santa Caterina in Venice. In 1860 he was hired by the University of Padova. Having obtained a year's leave by the Austrian government, he spent 1864 in Paris working in the laboratory of the physicist and chemist Henri-Victor Regnault. In 1866 he became extraordinary professor and in 1880 full professor of experimental physics at the University of Padova. He has been the dean of the faculty of science from 1876 to 1885. He has been member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1879, of the National Lincei Academy since 1882, and of other important Italian and international scientific academies and societies.

His scientific activity mainly concerned electrostatics, electrochemistry, and thermometry of flames. He published 42 papers. In 1862 he was the doctoral advisor of Andrea Naccari.