Giacomo Filippo Durazzo

Who was Giacomo Filippo Durazzo?

Giacomo Filippo Durazzo III was the head of the wealthiest 18th-century family in Genoa, Italy, and a notable naturalist and bibliophile. He was instrumental in organizing the natural history collections in the University of Genoa and the city's Civic Museum of Natural History.

Durazzo was the son of Marcello Durazzo and Clelia Durazzo. His descendents include Clelia Durazzo Grimaldi and Ignazio Alessandro Pallavicini, both naturalists in their own right.

Over the course of 30 years, Durazzo collected more than 4,000 books, as well as many specimens of minerals, fossils, shells, physical and electrical devices, etc. In the 1780s Durazzo established a natural history cabinet and a laboratory in his private villa of Cornigliano. Its collection was documented by English botanist James Edward Smith in 1787, but after Durazzo's death, it was not preserved.