Giovanni Battista Traverso

Giovanni Battista Traverso was an important mycologist and plant pathologist on the early 1900s. He was born in Pavia, Italy on October 25, 1878 and died on January 22, 1955 (Baldacci, 1959). He was interested in the flora since his early years what could be seen on his prints that he gave to the catalog of the vascular plants of Pavia in 1898 (Flora urbica pavese) (Traverso, 1898; Stafleu, and Cowan, 1986).

Traverso completed his major in natural sciences at University of Pavia in July 1900. By that time he was also professor of botany and director of the Italian Cryptogamic Laboratory. His first advisor was Giovanni Briosi, who created a peaceful atmosphere of work at the University of Pavia where Traverso had the opportunity to publish his works with botany and mycology (Baldacci, 1959).

After his graduation he worked at the Agricultural Experimental Station in Modena, Italy, for a short period of time and moved to Padua, Italy, to work with Pier Andrea Saccardo who was a botany professor (Baldacci, 1959). At that time they published some works together: Contributions to the mycology of Sardinia (“Contribuzione all flora micologica della Sardegna”) in 1903, and Arrangement and nomenclature of mycological groups in the ‘cryptogamic Italian flora’ (“Sulla disposizione e nomenclatura dei gruppi micologici da seguirsi nelle ‘Flora italica crytogama’”) in 1907.

In 1905 he obtained a degree of general botanist and worked until 1914 as Saccardo’s assistant at the University of Padua, where he started working with mycology and formed the Italian mycological school (Baldacci, 1959). Most of his published works are from these years.

In 1915 he got a job of vice-director at the Station of Plant Pathology in Rome, Italy. At the Station he had a chance to meet a great professor advisor, Giuseppe Cuboni, who was dedicated to the research new pathways of plant diseases (Baldacci, 1959).

The greatest of his works on plant pathology are dated from this period, which includes the studies on downy mildew of wheat (Sclerophthora macrospora), “ink disease” on chestnut trees caused by Phytophthora sp., certain bacterial diseases, as well as significant works of mycology (Baldacci, 1959), including 77 described species, and published works on the mycological classe of Sordariomycetes (or Pyrenomycetes), and on the families Xylariaceae, Valsaceae, and Ceratostomataceae.

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