Francesco Maggiotto
Francesco Fedeli, nicknamed Francesco Maggiotto or also il Maggiotto (1738 – 13 September 1805) was an Italian
Life
Francesco Maggiotto was the son of
In the following years, his painting style became more detached and the
Later he adopted painting styles that somehow anticipated
Starting from the 1790s, he had a strong stylistic involution: this is the case of the Autoritratto con gli allievi Pedrini e Florian (1792).[3] Of considerable importance is the fact that in 1771 he was appointed master of painting in the Venetian Academy, of which he also became president (1790). There he had, among his pupils, some painters that would become prominent of Venetian neoclassicism, such as Lattanzio Querena, Giovanni Carlo Bevilacqua, Natale Schiavoni and even Francesco Hayez.[4] In 1796, he was appointed "inspector of public paintings in Venice" with the aim of reporting on the state of publicly owned paintings, a public office that he held even at the beginning of the French occupation[5] Maggiotto died in Venice on 13 September 1805.
Scientific interests
Maggiotto also carried out some experiments and built some machines in the field of
The electric machine
In a letter to abbot
Maggiotto, in the letter, explains how he carried out countless tests and, together with his brother, he built many models of electric machines capable of releasing the "
Some models of electric machines coupled several cylinders or discs but this, according to Maggiotto, did not proportionally increase the electrostatic energy accumulated and therefore the intensity of the spark. Maggiotto noticed the excellent properties of crystal in generating electrostatic energy by rubbing, but a disk or cylinder made of crystal could not be built since there is no crystal of this size in nature and, even if there was, it would be too expensive.[9]
Maggiotto's idea, which improved the efficiency of the machine according to his own experiments, was to use a single disc or cylinder (rather than many), using multiple materials and in particular
According to his experiments, the efficiency of the machine (and therefore the intensity of the electric discharge) was much greater than other machines and it achieved excellent results even with unfavorable environmental conditions such as the presence of high
The electric discharge generated and contained in the above pots was able to pierce "20 large sheets of carton paper, placed one above the other, which had the thickness of an inch and a half".
Works
- Saggj sopra l'attività della macchina elettrica costruita da Francesco Maggiotto ed alcuni riflessi attorno l'elettrico fluido. Venezia: Pietro Marcuzzi. 1781.
- Considerazioni elettriche. Venezia. 1781.[14]
- Maggiotto, Francesco (1781). Lettera di Francesco Maggiotto a Giuseppe Toaldo sopra una nuova costruzione di macchina elettrica.[15]
Bibliography
- Rodolfo Pallucchini (1960). La pittura veneziana del Settecento. Istituto per la collaborazione culturale Venezia-Roma.
- Rosaria Colaleo (2019). "L'antica università e la collezione del Gabinetto di Fisica e Mineralogia di Altamura". Altamura - Rivista storica - Bollettino dell'Archivio Biblioteca Museo Civico (60). Francesco D'Amato Editore: 27–41.
- Lucia De Frenza (2005). "Il patriota e la macchina elettrica. Alcune testimonianze poco note sull'interesse di Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi per la costruzione di strumenti di fisica". Anthropos & Iatria. 4: 82–88.
References
- ^ Pallucchini, p. 236.
- ^ "FEDELI, Francesco, detto il Maggiotto in "Dizionario Biografico"".
- ^ "FEDELI, Francesco, detto il Maggiotto in "Dizionario Biografico"".
- ^ Pallucchini, p. 236.
- ^ "FEDELI, Francesco, detto il Maggiotto in "Dizionario Biografico"".
- ^ https://www.treccani.it/encyclopedia/fedeli-francesco-detto-il-maggiotto_%28Dtionary-Biografico%29/ [dead link]
- ^ Colaleo
- ^ LetteraToaldo
- ^ LetteraToaldo
- ^ LetteraToaldo
- ^ LetteraToaldo
- ^ LetteraToaldo, p. 8
- ^ LetteraToaldo, p. 10
- ^ "Treccani - la cultura italiana | Treccani, il portale del sapere".
- ^ "Treccani - la cultura italiana | Treccani, il portale del sapere".