Early Life and Career

Luigi Vittorio Maria Rolla was bom in Genoa on 21 May 1882, the next-to-last son of Giuditta Boggiano (1848-1902), from La Spezia, and Giovanni Rolla (1839- 

Back in Genoa in the summer of 1909 he continued to work at the university until 1915, when he was called to the front as an artillery officer. During that lime he worked in the photo-telemetry service initiated by Antonio Garbasso (1871-1933). Back in Genoa in 1919, along with Luigi Belladen he devoted himself to a thorough study of thallium selenides. The close of what RoUa himself described as the first period of his life, ended in 1921. 

000 lire the Mining Society of Montevecchio and other philanthropists contributed a total of 70,000 lire, while the Ministry of Education committed 

Ever since his arrival in Florence, Rolla conducted research on the group of rare earths with the specific intention of isolating the element possessing atomic number 61. He smdied new methods of fractional crystallization, the method of choice for separating rare earth elements. He worked first with small, then with immense quantities of material so that in the 1930s the Instimte possessed, as its Director declared with great pride, the richest and purest collection of cerium oxides in the world [147].  

A glance at the impressive list of publications (about 200 within 1924—34) prompted one to realize the high standards as well as the rapid pace at which the Institute s scientific activity unfolded, and not only in the field of the rare earths. 

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