Mario Betti

Mario Betti was undoubtedly one of Hugo Schifif s outstanding students the academic world was not slow to recognize this fact when the post became available, Betti was appointed to the enviable position of successor to Giacomo Ciamician (1857-1922), acknowledged by many as Italy s greatest chemist, at the University of Bologna. 

Betti was born in Bagni di Lucca 21 March 1875. He and his twin brother Adolfo (1875-1950), later an accomplished violinist, inherited their father s, Adelson Betti s, family pharmacy. 

Betti was also attracted to physical organic chemistry, a field that was then begiiming to evolve. He was also active in the field of heterocyclic chemistry, in 1907 devising a method to prepare naphtho-isoxazine [9, 10] derivatives. He was also interested in the relationship between chemical constitution and optical rotation, demonstrating that the degree of rotation is related to the physical-chemical characteristics of the substituents on asymmetric carbon atoms and not to their mass [11], as had been claimed in 1890 by the Swiss chemist Philippe A. Guye (1862-1922). 

In 1929, Betti was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences in the University of Bologna, and due to his scientific renown, he was named a national member of the Accademia dei Lincei in 1932. He also became a member of the Higher Council of National Education, the Committee of the Chemical National Research Council, and the Council of the Union Internationale de Chimie. In 1939 he was appointed Senator of the Kingdom of Italy (Fig. 4.4), and in that capacity was active in parliamentary commissions on corporate economy. 

Mario Betti, a highly skilled chemist in organic synthesis, possessed great familiarity with the synthesis of chiral molecules, a field that he had cultivated since 

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Figure 4.2 From left to right Mario Betti, Chandrasekhara Raman, Alessandro Ghigi (Rector), and Giovanni Battista Bonino at the chemical institute of the University of Bologna in 1937. (Courtesy of Andrea Concolato.)...

Bonino recalled his acquaintance with Betti on its commemoration at a solemn ceremony at the University of Bologna on January 9, 1943. BPDB, G. B. Bonino, Mario Betti, Commemorazione letta nellAula Magna della Universita di Bologna il giorno 9 gennaio 1943-XXI. ... 

In the early 1900s, the distinguished Italian chemist Mario Betti demonstrated that 2-naphthol (1) can be a good carbon nucleophile toward imine 3, produced from benzaldehyde and aniline. Although the Betti reaction is mechanistically related to the Mannich reaction, Betti s work preceded the development of this more widely known reaction. ... 

Fig. 4.4 Mario Betti (left) shown in his senatorial robes at the University of Bologna, ca. 1937. To his left 1930 Nobel Laureate for physics, Sir Chandrasekhara Raman (1888-1970), A. Ghigi (1875-1970), Rector of the university in his Fascist uniform, and G.B. Bonino (1899-1985)...

Although Betti and Lucchi published only two notes on this fascinating topic, their work was known and discussed by many colleagues in the years leading to World War 11. Professor Ryoji Noyori (b. 1938), when he received both the chemistry Nobel Prize in 2001 and the University of Bologna s Laurea ad Honorem in 2003 for his studies of asymmetric catalysis, pointed out in his keynote addresses on both occasions [18] that the first example of asymmetric catalysis had appeared in the literature with a paper written by Mario Betti over 60 years earlier [15]. 

Less than two years after the publication of his first note on the topic, at the height of World War II, Mario Betti died, at 67, in Bologna of an incurable disease. Not even a month before his death on 19 April 1942, he and Lucchi presented a... 

Mario Betti would have been gratified to know that his novel research is enjoying a 21st-Century renaissance as it supports new and exciting applications. Reference [2] acknowledges his seminal work, and Cardellicchio and co-workers report [20] ... 

Although he Uved most of the year in Genoa as a university professor, Pellizzari, who was unmarried, customarily spent his vacations in Florence in his relatives home and in that laboratory, located in Via Gino Capponi, where years before he had graduated in chemistry. Despite the fact that he was middle aged, he fraternized with the younger chemists, and was quick to realize the exceptional ability of Mario Betti (1875-1942) Pellizzari invited him to become a member of his team. 

Fontani M, Costa M (2010) Allievi di un ingombrante maestro Mario Betti e Adriano Ostrogovich. La Chimica e I lndustiia 6 116... 

Betti, Mario, Nel secondo centenario della istituzione della prima cattedra... 

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