Bernardo Dessau, fisico, scienziato, maestro, da Bologna a Perugia tra i marosi del secolo breve

Abstract

Seventy-five years ago, Bernardo Dessau passed away. He had been the sole professor of Physics at the University of Perugia for thirty years. With this brief contribution we intend to repay a debt of gratitude, first of all because his scientific merits were probably underestimated, having spent the first fifteen years of his career under the shadow of the great Augusto Righi in Bologna, where he also witnessed meetings with the young Marconi. He was then relegated to the Faculty of Medicine of Perugia, without a real laboratory, disregarded by the national scientific community and unable to move to better equipped locations. Nevertheless, he proved to be a gifted teacher and popularizer of science. He published a comprehensive three-volume physics textbook that was widely used in Italy and abroad. Despite becoming an Italian citizen in 1894, Dessau's German origins led to his suspension from service during World War I. Furthermore, his Jewish identity made him a target of Nazi-fascist antisemitism. He was dismissed from both the University of Perugia and from the Italian Society of Physics, of which he had been a member since its beginning, fortunately escaping deportation.