Moisés Santiago Bertoni
| Moisés Santiago Bertoni | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Mosè Giacomo Bertoni June 15, 1857 Lottigna, Switzerland |
| Died | September 19, 1929 |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Known for | Writer, botanist |
| Notable work | Nuovo Compendio di Geografía, La voce del Ticino |
Mosè Giacomo Bertoni (15 June 1857 – 19 September 1929), known in Spanish as Moisés Santiago Bertoni, was a Swiss botanist of Italian descent. He emigrated to South America in 1884 and lived in Paraguay from 1887 until he died in 1929.
Bertoni work and researched in botany, meteorology, and anthropology. He discovered and classified many new species of plants and left a collection of more than 7000 vegetal species and about 6500 insects. One of the plants he studied in depth was ka'a he'ê (Stevia rebaudiana), a herb indigenous to Paraguay, which became important as a non-caloric sweetener, reputed to be 300 times sweeter than sugar. He also scientifically classified yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis).
He was born in the small village of Lottigna, in canton Ticino in the Italian-speaking region in Switzerland, on June 15, 1857, the son of Ambrose Bertoni, a lawyer, jurist, and official, and Josefina Torreani, a teacher from Milan.
His primary and secondary studies were completed in the Lyceum, Lugano.
In 1874 he founded, in collaboration with his mother, the first meteorological observatory of his hometown, Lottigna. In 1875, he started his studies in law and Natural Sciences in the University of Geneva. In 1876 he enrolled in the University of Zurich, where he met biochemistry student Eugenia Rossetti, whom he married the following year.
He left Switzerland for Buenos Aires, Argentina on March 3, 1884 on the steamer Nord Americas with his wife, their children Reto Divicone, Arnoldo da Winkelried, Vera Zassoulich, Sofía Perovskaya (Helvecia) and Inés, his mother Josefina Torreani (who left behind her husband Ambrose and his youngest son, Brennan), and some 40 farmers.
On March 30 they landed in Buenos Aires, and were interviewed by the chairman of the Nation, General Julio Argentino Roca, who provided the means to travel to and colonize the province of Misiones. They arrived in the territory of Santa Ana and Bertoni began work in agriculture, botany, zoology, meteorology, and ethnography.
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