Paolo Savi - Zoologist, geologist and museologist

An internationally renowned zoologist, geologist and museologist, Paolo Savi graduated in Physical and Natural Sciences from the University of Pisa at the young age of twenty.

The scholar dedicated the first part of his career to zoology and his main interest was undoubtedly ornithology.

In addition to his role as a university professor - he was an assistant in zoology in 1820 and held the chair of Natural History in 1823 - he held the position of Director of the Natural History Museum of Pisa, one of the oldest museums in the world, which he brought to international fame, thanks to the passionate enrichment of the collections and the excellent quality of the embalmings he carried out.

Starting in the 1830s, he turned his interests to geology.

And for the Montecatini spa it was a stroke of luck!

The geological studies pursued by Savi take on fundamental importance for the knowledge of the thermal springs and their characteristics.

From this knowledge and the clinical examples treated by the doctor Fedele Fedeli, the work Storia Naturale e Medica delle Acque Minerali dell’Alta Val di Nievole e speciale di Montecatini (1870) was born in 1870, accompanied by a topographic map of the springs and the related establishments, in which the origins and properties of the various springs were studied in depth.

After the publication of the volume, the frequenters of the “Bagni” doubled. This was certainly due to the dissemination work through pamphlets and articles in newspapers that, carried out by the two scholars in Italy and abroad, drew attention to Montecatini but the fame they enjoyed in the national and international scientific community of the time also had a great influence.

The success and diffusion of this treatise were so great that it convinced the Italian government to publish the second edition at its own expense in 1881.

So, when, in 1872, a new spring gushed forth inside the Tettuccio park, it was natural to baptize it with the name of Professor Savi who had died the year before and to remember him with an inscription dictated by Professor Fedeli: “Huc terrae viscerum investigatores Fontem nomen PAULI SAVI”, “In this place the scholars of the bowels of the earth (i.e. the geologists) at the source the name of PAOLO SAVI [gave]”.

A simple establishment was built around the source where, in a niche, a bust of the scientist was placed which became a destination of pilgrimage for scholars of geology including, in 1895, Professor Igino Cocchi who, very moved, recalled with heartfelt words the scientific and personal virtues of his dear friend.

Savi water has been unavailable for many years, having disappeared like many of the over 50 that populated the thermal basin.

But the face of the man who was one of the most important Italian scientists of the 19th century, especially for Montecatini, is depicted in one of the eight Robbian-style medallions that adorn the portico of the Terme Excelsior, alongside other figures who have positively marked the history of the spa town such as the grand-ducal architect Gaspero Maria Paoletti, Alessandro Bicchierai, the poet Giuseppe Giusti, Ugolino Da Montecatini, the doctors Fedele Fedeli, Pompeo della Barba and Michele Gaetano Livi.