Alberto Gianni

Alberto Gianni (26 April 1891 – 7 December 1930) was an Italian

Early life and career

Gianni was born in Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy. He served as a soldier during the Italo-Turkish War and World War I, becoming a diver after seeing divers on warships. In 1911 he plugged a leak on the Italian battleship Regina Elena after it had collided with the Saint-Bon in stormy seas. In 1916 he suffered from decompression sickness after participating in a submarine recovery in La Spezia.^[1]

Diving equipment

Gianni is best known for building a

Another of his major achievements was the "torretta butoscopica", (direct translation: exploration turret), a one-man atmospheric pressure underwater observation chamber deployed by a lifting cable from a ship, provided with a telephone, and supplied with breathing air from the surface, which he designed, built and tested.[1]

Recovery operations

Gianni gained international fame for his work as a diver. He worked on the case of the Spanish steamship Cruz, sunk on Scoglio del Catalano (Catalan Cliff) on the west coast of Sardinia. Because the shipwreck seemed suspicious, British insurers sought divers able to check it, but none accepted the job due to its technical difficulty. Gianni accepted on condition that he would receive twice the compensation offered because of the difficulty of the job. The request was accepted and Gianni accomplished his task, finding the intentional nature of the shipwreck. He then appeared in court in London to confirm the findings, earning recognition for himself and the superiority of Italian divers.^[1]

Another famous case was the recovery in Lake Como of the Lariana company's boat Lecco, sunk on the evening of 18 February 1927 in the port of Como.^[1]

Gianni's most widely known achievement was probably the discovery of the wreck of the

After locating the SS Egypt, due to bad weather and the inability to carry out its recovery, while waiting for suitable weather conditions, the SO.RI.MA. company got the job to carry out some recovery operations near the island of Belle Île, south of Brest, sending the ship Artiglio with Gianni as head of operations. Gianni died on 7 December 1930 during the dismantling of the SS Florence H., sunk full of explosives and ammunition. The Artiglio was swept away, destroyed and sunk by the explosion. Two other famous divers, Alberto Bargellini and Aristide Franceschi, and nine other crew members perished with Gianni.^{[4][5][citation needed]} The tragedy occurred at a time of great euphoria given the real possibility of recovering the valuable sunken treasure of the Egypt.

The gold of the Egypt

The recovery of the Egypt's treasure was then carried out by the SO.RI.MA. company outfitting a new ship, called the Nuovo Artiglio, for the occasion.

• Decompression chamber
• Underwater diving

References

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