October 1687 Arriva a merchant case at the Medici Court, addressed nothing less than in Cosimoiii. The Cassa embarked in Hamburg on the “San Bernardo” ship was wrapped in an incerated canvas from which an smell of spices came out, what did it contain? Perhaps rare spices or … in reality inside the body of Niels Stensen was located more commonly called Niccolò Stenone and the “perfume” of the spices was to cover the smell emanated by the body of the Danish scientist. But what did this character now deceased to the Medici court …. at that time one of the stars of the moment was our Galileo Galilei attracted precisely for those innovations in the Scientific field Stenone who landed on February 28, 1666 in Livorno and then headed in Pisa To meet Galileo. But was in Florence that Stenone felt like his house so much so that he wrote “that Florence was his real homeland”, the same Grand Duke besides giving a monthly salary assigned him an anatomical laboratory in the Opinion of S.Maria Nuova .
His studies on anatomy are famous for the discovery for the partotoid duct (learned of Stenone) for the secretion of the parotid gland, and to the distinctions between secreting glands and lymph nodes up to the function of ovaries and uterine tube. The Parisian scholar Jean Chapelain wrote “there is no doubt: Stenone surpassed all the ancients and all the moderns in anatomy”. But his studies did not stop only at anatomy, but also to geology and paleontology, famous are the two studies on the dissection of the head of the fish (Canis Carchariae dissectum caput and Historia dissencest piscis ex canum genre, 1667). Until then, the legends on “glossoperes” that is shark teeth were circulating, but in the Middle Ages there were fossil remains in the shape of a cuspid to which magical and curative properties were attributed. Such fossils were so called for their shape that it resembled a tongue of petrified snake. An exceptional character, but he had a defect … It was Lutheran, even if most of the scientists did not matter anything, until convinced of changing religion inhabited his doctrine in 1667 to become a Catholic.
The first mass was celebrated in 1675 at the Church of the S. Annunziata and later in 1677 he was appointed bishop in the Patriarchate of Antioch and subsequently apostolic vicar of northern Germany. Finally he moved to Hamburg and Schwerin where he gave up the various titles, he lived almost in poverty, but Cosimo III his devoted faithful supported him until the death took place on 1686. And for the will of the Grand Duke the body was transported to Florence and buried in the basilica of S.Lorenzo, only in 1953 the body was translated into the right transept where it is still possible to see it .. In 1988 it was beatified by Pope John Paul II and in 2021 Stenone became patron of Italian geologists. The peculiarity was the tomb of Stenone or a Roman sarcophagus of the 4th century AD, but also by letters and tickets with intercession requests, prayers and thanks written by pilgrims from all over the world, including pupils, students, professors and other academic, posts On the lid. They come to the tomb to ask for the intercession of Stenone to obtain the thank you of God. In 2019 the body of Stenone was placed in a new modern chain.
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