The Circolo Pisano and Pisa University
The Circolo Pisano and Pisa University
(Camilla del Grazia, University of Pisa)
The presence of the Circolo Pisano in Pisa coincided with a distinctive moment in Tuscan politics: the restoration of Lorraine rule after the Napoleonic period. This return brought, on the one hand, tighter control from the Habsburg authorities, closely connected to the Lorraines. On the other hand, the grand ducal family maintained its enlightened interest in the progress of science and technology. The University reflected this mixed climate: the grand dukes did not undo most Napoleonic reforms, apart from the brief closure of the Scuola Normale Superiore. Indeed, chairs in what we would now call the applied sciences flourished even further.
Many professors in these fields were cosmopolitan, often trained abroad, and had helped to implement the Napoleonic system, including the founding of the Scuola Normale. Their ties to French rule did not seem to hinder their careers after the Lorraines’ return. Some, such as the physicist Ranieri Gerbi, retained chairs at the University of Pisa once the Scuola Normale was dismantled. This required a shrewd balancing act but, in the conciliatory climate initially instigated by the return of the grand dukes, some intellectuals even managed to express political sentiments at odds with the new government (Commissione rettorale dell’Università di Pisa 1993).
This ambivalence makes the relationship between the Pisan Circle and university professors particularly intriguing, especially in light of the Circle’s sympathy for independence movements and Lord Byron’s involvement with the Carboneria. Percy Bysshe Shelley himself wrote to Thomas Love Peacock on 21 March 1821: “we are surrounded here in Pisa by revolutionary volcanos which as yet give more light than heat: the lava has not yet reached Tuscany. But the news in the papers will tell you far more than it is prudent for me to say; and for this once I will observe your rule of political silence” (Jones 1964: 276). One may ask, then, whether the “verse and prose from the South” expressed in The Liberal incorporated elements shaped by the University climate under the Lorraine restoration.
The answer can only be tentative. While the connections of the Pisan Circle with other émigrés in Pisa are well documented, its ties with local intellectuals remain less clear, with a few notable exceptions (Cline 1952; Rossetti Angeli 1973). The most valuable evidence in this respect is in a letter written by Mary Shelley to George Tighe, the Irish agriculturalist and husband of Margaret King, dated 12 January 1821. The couple, living under the name Mr. and Mrs. Mason to avoid scandal after their elopement, resided in Italy and shared a keen interest in science. Mrs. Mason, in particular, pursued medicine and, in Pisa, was close to the surgeon and radical thinker Andrea Vaccà Berlinghieri. The letter was discovered by Betty T. Bennett in the Dazzi family archive in San Marcello Pistoiese and published in 2001. It contains a list of seventeen professors of the University of Pisa, each accompanied by a brief description – often more an evaluation than a mere note, in Mary Shelley’s inimitable style. For instance, the name “Foggi” appears twice, with the sharp puns “the father of Fudge” and later simply “a Fudge” (pp. 29, 30). Of the seventeen names (possibly only sixteen, given this duplication) the briefest comments concern professors with whom the Pisan Circle was most closely connected. Vaccà Berlinghieri, professor of surgery and highly esteemed by the Shelleys, Byron, and Hunt for both his intellect and his radicalism, is noted only as “Vaccà. P. [professor] of Clinica & Operative Surgery” (p. 30).
Francesco Tantini, listed tersely as “Tantini. P. of Parteologia [pathology?]” (p. 30), was another frequent guest of the Shelleys, often accompanied by his wife, in Pisa as well as in fashionable locations such as Bagni di Pisa. He also introduced Claire Clairmont to the Bojtis in Florence, with whom she stayed when tensions with Mary grew. Ferdinando Foggi – the “Fudge” of Mary’s list – was Professor of Law and a regular contact of the Pisan Circle, providing both language lessons and a kind of courier service between Pisa and Florence, carrying parcels and volumes from one city to another.
Other figures receive lengthier descriptions, though not always flattering. Giovanni Rosini, who in that same year would publish Shelley’s Adonais, is described as “P. of Bellelettres. great pretensions horridly disagreable – Eloquent in the modern Italian style” (p. 30). Francesco Pacchiani, Professor of Theoretical Physics, fares better: “l’uomo di spirito in un ospedele [sic] dei pazzi [the only wit in an asylum],” and, along with Giuseppe Piazzini, Professor of Astronomy, “the only ones in the University that have any ideas – Pachiani has the most genius” (p. 29). Famously, however, this good grace was short-lived: the Shelleys and Claire quite soon began to notice Pacchiani’s self-serving attitude and his attachment to quattrini (money), eventually nicknaming him “il Diavolo Pacchiani,” a Miltonic charmer whose rhetoric masked poverty of spirit.
The most striking feature of the letter is its recipient. Mrs. Mason played a key role in introducing the Pisan Circle to figures such as Vaccà, Pacchiani, Tantini, and Foggi. Her husband, too, likely knew most of those mentioned. Why, then, would Mary take the trouble to compile and send this list to him?
One possibility is a political subtext: the letter may signal an interest in identifying professors with radical or republican sympathies. While the historical information available on the single personalities shows no special uniformity, Mary’s language sometimes suggests a political lens. Of Pietro Paoli, Director General of Education in Tuscany, she writes: “clever – a critical author – a muffy old fashioned man. Fuore del suo matematico è uno zero” [except for his mathematics he is a zero] (pp. 28-29). The contrast between “clever” and “critical” on the one hand, and “old fashioned” on the other, together with the final assessment that in everything but his science he is “a zero” is certainly striking, perhaps hinting at reactionary conservatism. Similarly, Giuseppe Branchi, Professor of Chemistry, is described as “a clever upright man – good natured – not very profound in science” (p.29).
This ambivalence recurs throughout the list. Ranieri Gerbi, who survived the dismantling of the Napoleonic system largely unscathed, and Foggi, “Fudge” himself, are both called bacchettoni (bigots), though Gerbi is also “clever & acute” and Foggi “goodness itself” (p. 29). Giovanni Pieraccioli is introduced first as “a Priest,” then as “P. of high Mathematics,” at once “deep into his science” and “a contadino,” a peasant (p. 30). Piazzini is noted as “An Infidel & a Republican very clever & very idle – a correct exact head – agreable but reserved. fearful [sic] of trouble, cold, trouble enemies & ill health” (p. 29). Remarkably, he is also, with Pacchiani, one of the professors said to have “any ideas.” Why would Mary emphasise Piazzini’s Republicanism and atheism while remaining silent on Vaccà’s similar leanings, which she herself records elsewhere, is puzzling: perhaps a matter of the Masons’ familiarity with Vaccà and not with Piazzini.
Concise by its very nature, the list ultimately gives few clues as to its purpose. It may reflect the caution imposed by Austrian surveillance, or it may have been simply a social register. What is clear, however, is the strong representation of scientists among the professors Mary describes. This pattern aligns with Mrs. Mason’s own circle at Casa Silva, her residence in Pisa, which gathered radical thinkers with scientific interests, reflecting her interests in medicine and her husband’s focus on agriculture (Curreli 1997). It also mirrors the broader Romantic engagement with science, an area of inquiry that continues to yield rich insights today.
Works Cited
Bennett, Betty T. and Shelley, Mary, “‘The Science of Letters’: Six Unpublished Mary Shelley Letters”, in Keats-Shelley Journal, 50, 2001, pp. 27-34.
Cline, Clarence Lee, Byron, Shelley and their Pisan Circle, Cambridge, Harvard UP, 1952.
Commissione rettorale dell’Università di Pisa (eds), Storia dell’Università di Pisa, Edizioni? Plus, 1993, 2 vols, vol. II.
Cunningham, Andrew and Jardine, Nicholas. (eds), Romanticism and the Sciences, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1990.
Curreli, Mario, Una certa signora Mason: Romantici inglesi a Pisa ai tempi di Leopardi, Pisa, ETS, 1997.
Holmes, Richard, The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, New York, Harper Press, 2008.
Rossetti Angeli, Helen, Shelley and His Friends in Italy, New York, Haskell House, 1973.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. F. L. Jones, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1964, 2 vols, vol. II.
Ultimo aggiornamento
07.10.2025