Alessandro Bicchierai – Doctor

Born in Lastra a Signa on September 11, 1734, Alessandro Bicchierai began his studies with his uncle Giuseppe, a doctor of theology, and later moved to Pisa where he studied Philosophy, Physics and Mathematics.

Initially intended for Law, he later preferred to switch to Medicine, and studied Chemistry and Natural History.

As a doctor he was mainly active in Florence, where he gained fame, becoming Consultant and attending physician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand III, and "Censor of physical and medical works" to be printed.

He was also the personal physician of Lord George Cowper, a scientist and patron, who worked at the Tuscan court to ensure that he was given a position.

Bicchierai put together an excellent library, a scientific cabinet, and numerous "pieces" of natural history, setting up a museum and conducting studies that were a prelude to modern chemical analyses.

Clinician at the Hospital of S. Maria Nova in Florence in 1773, his anatomical works on the nervous system and pregnancy, prepared in wax, were placed in the Physical Cabinet of Florence (Museo della Specola) and gave rise to all the material that would flow into that location.

A member of numerous academies and scientific societies (Cimento, Collegio medico fiorentino, Società botanica fiorentina, Georgofili,) Bicchierai had contacts with scholars and men of letters from all over Europe.

From 1775 to 1797, using English construction and measurement instruments, he conducted observations on meteorological ephemerides, recording temperature, barometric height, wind direction and sky conditions, unfortunately largely lost.

In 1778 he published Dei Bagni di Montecatini: Trattato di Alessandro Bicchierai fiorentino, Florence, for Gaetano Cambiagi grand-ducal printer, 1788. The work was written by Bicchierai at the same time as the construction of the Montecatini spa in Valdinievole. The dedication is to Pietro Leopoldo, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who had sponsored the spa and commissioned the work.

The text reports the studies on the waters of these springs, the historical sources and the therapeutic results obtained in a series of patients and in response to the analysis of the waters, records a whole series of pathologies that can benefit from these springs.

The volume was printed by the grand-ducal typography of which Gaetano Cambiagi had the privilege. The work is cited among the language texts by the Accademia della Crusca.

In 1780 he was Extraordinary Lecturer at the University of Pisa.

He died on March 13, 1797, from “acute nervous fever” and was buried in S. Martino a Gangalandi, a locality in the municipality of Lastra a Signa in the province of Florence.