Stanislao Cannizzaro and the Development of Chemistry in Palermo from 1862 to 1871

Stanislao Cannizzaro worked at Palermo University for about ten years. There he managed to establish a modern and well-equipped chemical laboratory. His international fame attracted co- workers even from abroad: Naquet, Lieben, and K\uf6rner came to Palermo to work with him. This greatly improved the quality of teaching and of research in Palermo, which became a worldwide acknowledged center of chemical culture. In Palermo, atomic-molecular theory was extensively taught and research was carried out on chemical atomicity (valence) and spatial structures of both aliphatic and aromatic organic molecules: K\uf6rner found the relative positions of substituent groups on the benzene ring, Patern\uf2 proved the equivalence of the four positions around each carbon atom. Thanks to Cannizzaro s and Patern\uf2 s efforts, a new journal, Gazzetta Chimica Italiana, was printed in Palermo. The journal collected original papers from Italian chemists, and summaries or translations of foreign ones. When Cannizzaro moved to Rome in 1872, Emanuele Patern\uf2, the youngest of his pupils, took his place. Eventually, Patern\uf2 also moved to Rome, and the leading role of Palermo in Italian chemistry faded