Moisés Santiago Bertoni


Mosè Giacomo Bertoni, better known by his hispanicized name Moisés Santiago Bertoni, was a Swiss-Paraguayan naturalist, botanist and writer. While conducting research in eastern Paraguay in 1899, he was the first to describe Stevia.

Biography

Bertoni was born on 15 June 1857 in Lottigna, in the Swiss canton of Ticino, the son of Ambrogio Bertoni, a member of the Grand Council of Ticino, and Giuseppina Torriani. His father was an Italian patriot from Milan who participated in the Five Days of Milan and the First Italian War of Independence. Bertoni studied law in Zurich and natural sciences in Geneva. In March 1884, just shy of graduating in botany, he emigrated to Argentina, along with his family and some farmers from Blenio, to found an agricultural and scientific colony that would put anarcho-socialist ideals into practice; Bertoni gave up the project after being abandoned by his companions.
In 1887, Bertoni moved to Paraguay and, in 1893, settled near the Iguazu Falls, establishing the Guillermo Tell colony on the banks of the Paraná River, in a place still known today as Puerto Bertoni. He founded the National School of Agriculture in Asunción in 1894, which he directed until 1904, when he returned permanently to Puerto Bertoni. In the midst of the jungles of Alto Paraná, Bertoni studied botany, meteorology, agronomy, geography, zoology, and ethnography, tirelessly dedicating himself to research and science communication. This work eventually became more significant than his role as a colonist. Puerto Bertoni, supported by the work of Bertoni's large family, became an agronomic and scientific outpost with extensive foreign relations.
In 1918, Bertoni established the printing house Ex Sylvis in Puerto Bertoni, which went on to publish some of his most important works. Beginning in 1915, the region was hit by a long economic crisis that affected the colony: resources necessary to support research and publications became scarce, and Bertoni's thirteen children gradually dispersed. Bertoni died in poverty on 19 September 1929 in Foz do Iguaçu, across the Brazilian border, aged 72.

Legacy

On his death, Bertoni left behind an enormous number of unpublished manuscripts. His bibliography includes more than 500 publications, but his most ambitious work, the encyclopedic Descripción física, económica y social del Paraguay, planned for 18 volumes, remained unfinished. Bertoni's enduring fame in Paraguay, where he was nicknamed el Sabio, derives from his works on climatology, anthropology, and popular scientific writings on agronomy, as well as to his public image as a benevolent sage living in the woods.
Bertoni's botanical collections are conserved at the Sociedad Científica del Paraguay, and were afterwards restored by the Conservatory and Botanical Garden of the City of Geneva.

Works

  • 1878: Nuovo compendio di geografia—Bellinzona : Colombi
  • 1882: Revista Científica Svizzera
  • 1886: Moises Bertoni, La Voce del Ticino
  • 1901: Almanaque agrícola paraguayo -- Puerto Bertoni: Printing and Publishing Former Sylvis, - 250 p.
  • 1903: Agenda agrícola del Paraguay -- Puerto Bertoni: Printing and publishing Former Sylvis, - 360 p.
  • 1903: Agenda y mentor agrícola
  • 1903: Agenda y almanaque agrícola paraguayo: conteniendo la indicación de los trabajos agrícolas de cada mes -- Asunción: Tall. National H. Kraus - 360 p.
  • 1904: Meios praticos para combater o gorgulho do milho - 2nd ed. -- Assumption: H. Kraus - 360 p.
  • 1905: Plantas usuales del Paraguay: Alto Paraná y Misiones; nomenclatura, caracteres, propiedades a aplicaciones según los estudios del autor, o datos de personas fidedignas o el uso que de ellas hacen los indios, incluyendo un estudio físico e industrial de las maderas
  • 1905: La enseñanza agrícola -- Asunción: Tall. National H. Kraus - 100 p.
  • 1907: Resumen de geografía botánica del Paraguay -- Asunción: s.n.
  • 1909: La cubierta verde y la supresión de la escarda en las plantaciones --: S.n. - 18 p.
  • 1910: Plantae Bertonianae: les onothéracées du Paraguay—Asunción: Tall. National H. Kraus - 22 p.
  • 1910: Descripción física y económica del Paraguay: Plantae Bertonianae -- S. L.: s.n., 20 p.
  • 1911: Contribución preliminar al estudio sistemático, biológico y económico de las plantas paraguayas 2nd ed. -- S.L.: s.n..,
  • 1911: Nuevo método para el cultivo del banano: práctica del rozado sin quemar -- Puerto Bertoni: Printing and Publishing Former Sylvis, - 14 p.
  • 1912: Contribución al estudio de la gomosis del naranjo y su tratamiento -- Assumption: The Printing beehive - 1 pl, 13 - 4 p.
  • 1913: Fauna paraguaya -- S.L.: S. N.
  • 1913: Descripción física y económica del Paraguay -- Asunción: Brossa
  • 1914: Ortografía guaraní sobre la base de la ortografía internacional adoptada por los congresos de zoología y botánica, con arreglo a la ortografía lingüística adoptada por el congreso científico internacional de Buenos Aires y a la generalmente seguida por los lingüistas estadounidenses
  • 1914: Summary of prehistory and protohistoria of countries Guarani: lectures given at the National College of the second lesson of the Asuncion on July 26, 8 and August 21, 1913. -- Asunción: J.E. O'Leary. -- 1 PL., XLV, 162 p.
  • 1914: Ortografía guaraní sobre la base de la ortografía internacional adoptada por los congresos de zoología y botánica, con arreglo a la ortografía lingüística adoptada por el congreso científico internacional de Buenos Aires y a la generalmente seguida por los lingüistas estadounidenses -- Asunción: M. Brossa, 1914. - 22 p.
  • 1914: Extended Edition part of the monograph Plantas usuales: introducción, nomenclatura, y diccionario de los géneros latino-guaraní de la obra Descripción física y económica del Paraguay
  • 1914: Resumen de prehistoria y protohistoria de los países guaraníes. -- Assumption: J.E. O'Leary. -- 1 PL., XLV, 162 p.
  • 1914: Las plantas usuales del Paraguay y países limítrofes: caracteres, propiedades y aplicaciones con la nomenclatura guaraní, portuguesa, española, latina y la etimología guaraní incluyendo un estudio físico e industrial de las maderas. -- Asunción: M: Brossa. - 78 p.
  • 1914: ''Descripción física y económica del Paraguay, numeración novenal 31; introducción, nomenclatura y diccionario de los géneros botánicos latino-guaraní''