L’Istituto Geologico dell’Università di Padova: Giorgio Dal Piaz, Giovanni Battista Trener, Antonio De Toni

Abstract

Original documents on the interventional activity of Giorgio Dal Piaz and Giovanni Battista Trener, brother-in-low of Cesare Battisti, before and at the end of the First World War are briefly reported. In 1897, Dal Piaz graduated from the University of Padova in Natural Sciences with Omboni (who wanted him to be his assistant), later taught there (1902) and, lastly, was Omboni's successor (1909) to the chair of geology. Formerly graduated from the Vienna University, in november 1914 Trener was employed in Venice at the Hydrographic section of the Magistrato alle Acque, directed by Dal Piaz. Among their numerous activities supporting the Italian intervention, the Comitato Pro Patria, the Patronato degli Irredenti and the University Battalion can be mentioned. Lastly, Dal Piaz and Trener enlisted in the army as volunteers at the war front, where Antonio De Toni, assistant of Dal Piaz at the geological cabinet of Padua, heroically lost is life.