Caverni, Raffaello, Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia, 1891-1900

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                third of seven children of a modest family which owned a kiln and delivered
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                bricks and other construction material to builders, especially in Florence, with
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                their own
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                barocci,
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                the traditional two-wheeled carts which, horse-drawn and
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                balanced, have for centuries performed this task over the greater part of the
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                Italian countryside. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">Less sturdy than the other children, he was sent to the town
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                school where, it seems, he distinguished himself so well that at the age of
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                thirteen, having already decided on his vocation, he went to Florence to study. </foreign>
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                Since there was no seminary then, he became one of the young clergy of the
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                Cathedral and enrolled in the Collegio Eugeniano, an excellent school of
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                humanistic leaning, where he completed the entire course corresponding to
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                what would later be the Gymnasium. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">His success there seemed to point to the
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                concinuation of literary studies, but Caverni had already made another choice. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">
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                For three years after the Collegio he attended the public Scuole Pie, run by the
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                Scolopian Fathers at S. Giovannino. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">There he received a basis foundation in
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                what were to become his favorite subjects: philosophy, taught by the Rosminian
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                Father Zini, and physics with Father Cecchi who together with Father Antonelli
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                was to furnish the loggia dei Lanzi in 1860 with a pair of exceptional instru­
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                ments: a thermometer and a barometer with a face of more than 1.5 meters. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">
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                Then, instead of going to the University, for a few years he attended the
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                Istituto Ximeniano, also run by the Scolopians, where he had Antonelli for
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                astronomy and higher mathematics and Father Barsanti for mechanics and
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                hydraulics. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">And thus he became a priest with the hobby of philosophy and
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                science, following an inclination which seems traditional in the Florentine
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                clergy—the desire to reconcile what appears to be irreconcilable! </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">During the school year 1859-60, at the same time that the Granducal
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                government failed, the Archbishop of Florence sent him as professor of philos­
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                ophy and mathematics to the Seminary of Firenzuola, a sort of citadel in a
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                gorge in the Apennines, exactly halfway between Florence and Bologna. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">There
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                he was ordained on the second of June 1860 and there he spent, in great
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                serenity, a period which the young priests of the diocese considered a kind of
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                severe penance. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">During the ten years he remained there he studied nature with
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                enthusiasm, gaining thereby a rapid and complete maturity while filling entire
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                notebooks with observations, records, and meditations. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">But at the end of 1870,
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                shortly after Porta Pia, he was at last recalled from his exile of sorts and assigned
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                to a parish about 12 kilometers from Florence. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">As Father Givannozzi has
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                observed, this parish was small, well supplied, and conveniently close to the
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                libraries of the city, and this made it possible for him in the course of a simple
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                life to return again with zeal to his favorite studies, but without neglecting his
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                ministry. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">In that place, even less populous today, he is still remembered
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                with admiration, almost veneration, by the oldest inhabitants who used to
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                study catechism with him. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">Giovannozzi observes that he was “as good a
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                priest as he was a diligent scholar.” But he found neither one nor the other
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                occupation without its thorns and difficulties. </foreign>
              </s>
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