TOZZI, DON BRUNO

b. Florence, Italy, 27 November 1656; d. Vallombrosa, Italy, 24 January 1743)

botany.

Tozzi was the son of Francesco Simone Tozzi. Although his family was of modest means, Don Bruno was nevertheless able to pursue a formal study of philsophy and theology before his investiture, at age twenty, as a monk in the order of Vallombrosa. He was successful in the performance of his religious duties but repeatedly refused promotions. He eventually did become procurator general and abbot of the order. At the same time he managed too pursue his interest in botany. His ecclesiastical duties required frequent journeys, and he availed himself of the opportunity to study and collect plants as he made his way from place to place on foot.

An endowment allowed Tozzi to obtain a choice collection of scientific books. He was a teacher and friend of Pier Antonio Micheli, and their life long friendship was enhanced by the many excursions they made together collecting plants. Micheli named the rare genus Tozzia for his mentor.

Abbot Tozzi not only had a keen eye for finding and collecting plants, but he also became adept at watercolor illustration of phanerogams as well as cryptogamic species. A number of his works were devoted exclusively to fungi, lichens, algae, and bryophtes. He generously shared his collections and drawing with prominent botanical figures of the day, including William Sherard, who sent him books. He also kept an active correspondence and exchange of materials with Hermann Boerhaave, James Petiver, and Hans Sloane. Tozzi became well-known as an able teacher and authority on the Italian flora. As many as 200 plants are illustrated in his Catalogus plantarum etruriae et insularum adjacentium. Along with his friend Micheli, he was a founder of the Società Botanica Fiorentina, and he was elected to the Royal Society of London. He declined offers to teach in London because of advancing age and duties to his order. After retirement he began some folios of birds and insects, and devoted himself largely to his botanical interests until his death.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Tozzi’s contributions to botany are too numerous to list individually. Manuscripts by Tozzi not sent to his contemporaries are preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence. Some watercolor drawings sent to Sherard are at the University of Oxford. The Sloane collections in the British Museum (Natural History) include some of Tozzi’s color illustrations as well as some letters written to Petiver and Sloane. A nearly complete list of Tozzi’s works are cited in P. A. Saccardo and F. Cavara, “Funghi di Vallombrosa,” in Nuovo giornale botanico italiano e Bolletion della Società botanica italiana, n.s. 7 (1900), 272-310.

II. Secondary Literature. The number of works containing information on Tozzi is scarcely indicative of the importance of this man to early European botany. Holdings of Tozzi’s at the University of Oxford are listed by H. N. Clokie, An Account of the Herbaria of the Department of Botany in the University of Oxford, VIII (Oxford, 1964).

A tribute to Tozzi was made on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Micheli’s death in a small paper presented at the Italian Botanical Society by G. Negri, “Don Bruno Tozzi (1656-1743),” in Nuovo giornale botanico italiano e Bolletino della Società botanica italiana, n.s. 45 (1939), cix-cxiv.

A few insights concerning Tozzi and his works can be found in J. Proskauer, “Bruno Tozzi’s Little Mystery, or a Quarter Millenniun of Confusion,” in Webbia, 20 (1965), 227-239.

Dale M. J. Mueller