Youth and education (1843–1864) Odoardo Beccari was born in
Florence as the third child of Giuseppe di Luigi Beccari and the first child of Antonietta Minucci. After he lost his mother in early infancy and his father in 1849, he was brought up by a maternal uncle Minuccio Minucci. From 1853–1861, he attended the prestigious secondary school Real Collegio in
Lucca. Here, one of his teachers was abbot Ignazio Mezzetti (1821–1876), a passionate collector of botanical specimens, who inspired him to pursue botany and assemble a
herbarium. He later named the genus
Mezzettia in his honor. In August 1861, he commenced his studies at the
University of Pisa. Here he quickly captured the attention of the naturalists
Giuseppe Meneghini and Pietro Savi. Very unusually, Savi made him assistant to the chair already in 1831. Beccari, however, was disappointed with the conventionality of the scientists in Pisa. Therefore, he quit his position there and changed to the
University of Bologna in March 1864, where he graduated in July of the same year.
First voyage to Borneo (1865–1868) After finishing his studies, Beccari got to know the young
Giacomo Doria in
Genoa, who had traveled widely in
Mesopotamia, and the two decided to conduct an expedition to
Sarawak in northern
Borneo, which was then poorly explored. To prepare for this voyage, Beccari stayed in London from February–April 1865 to study the natural history collections there, in particular at the
Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. There, he also met
Charles Darwin,
William and
Joseph Hooker, as well as
James Brooke, the first rajah of
Sarawak. Beccari departed from
Southampton on 4 April 1865, meeting Doria in
Suez. Calling in
Aden,
Ceylon and
Singapore, the two reached
Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, on 19 June 1865. For the first three months, they were also accompanied by Beccari's brother Gioavanni Battista, who then continued to
Japan. After a short productive period, Doria's health worsened dramatically by March 1866, forcing him to return to Italy. He worked mostly in a hut in the forest some 80 km from Kuching, in today's
Kubah National Park. In 1867, he visited
Batang Lupar, hunting and studying
Orangutans. Later in 1867, he also conducted a long and risky expedition into the interior of Sarawak. In 1866 he discovered and drew in his notebook the plant
Thismia neptunis of the family
Thismiaceae; only after 151 years, in 2017, was this discovery confirmed. He also discovered a new species of
Rafflesia, the largest-flowered plant genus, which he called
Rafflesia tuan-mudae in honor of
Charles Brooke , the second White Rajah of Sarawak, who at the time of the plant’s discovery held the Malay court title Tuan Muda Sarawak ("Young Rajah of Sarawak"). Beccari contracted
Malaria and
Elephantiasis and had to leave in January 1868, arriving in Italy on 2 March.
Florence and Africa 1868–1871 Back in Florence, Beccari published, on his own costs, a journal titled
Nuovo Giornale Botanico Italiano, which he edited from 1868–1871, which published original research by the most important Italian botanists of the day, including Beccari's own descriptions of his collections made in Borneo. Before his expedition to New Guinea, Beccari handed the management of the journal to
Teodoro Caruel. He also published his results in
Bolletino della Società Geografica Italiana. He collaborated with specialists to study particular groups such as seagrasses with
P. Ascherson,
pteridophytes with
Vincenzo de Cesati, mosses with
Hampe, lichens with
August von Krempelhuber etc. From February–October 1870, Beccari joined an expedition alongside geologist
Arturo Issel and zoologist
Orazio Antinori to
Eritrea. This came just two years after the purchase of
Assab marked the beginning of the
Italian colonization of Eritrea which would come into full swing in the 1880s. Apart from Assab, the party also visited the country of the
Bilen people, then called Bogos.
Expedition to New Guinea (1871–1876) On 26 November 1871 Beccari departed on a voyage to
New Guinea, then hardly explored, together with the
ornithologist Luigi D'Albertis. Since Western New Guinea was then already claimed by the Dutch, the voyagers had to call at
Batavia (Jakarta) to ask for permission for their scientific voyage and get hold of official maps. They also visited the botanical garden at Buitenzorg (
Bogor), Java and Beccari climbed
Mount Pangrango. By ship, the party, visiting on their way the islands
Flores,
Timor and
Ambon, reached
Sorong on the western part of the
Bird's Head Peninsula of
New Guinea in April 1872, 40 days after departing Ambon. In July, they left Sorong, reaching
Mansinam Island further to the east after 20 days. They especially studied the area near
Mount Arfak (2,955 m). After D'Albertis had fallen seriously ill, and they had managed to return to Ambon, he departed with the
Italian corvette Vettor Pisani which they chanced upon there. In total, Beccari had collected about 700 plant species during his voyage to New Guinea. On his own way back, he visited the
Aru and
Kai Islands, where he collected further specimens. In the Kai Islands, he suffered a shipwreck, but could save all his collections. He then continued to
Sulawesi, traveling around the island and reaching
Makassar on 15 August 1874. Beccari's funds were running out at that time, but after he had written earlier in the year to Doria in Genoa asking for help in acquiring funding, his friend convinced the city council of Genoa to finance a second expedition towards New Guinea. Since the season was not conducive to an expedition to New Guinea, he spent the summer in
Bali,
Surabaja,
Semarang, then proceeded through the interior of Java to
Bogor to sort his collections. He left Jakarta in October and sailed to
Ternate with a crew of 10. He visited many parts of northern West Papua, such as the
Schouten Islands, Dorei (
Manokwari) and
Seram. He also climbed one of the summits of Mount Arfak. In July, a breakout of
Beri-Beri among the crew that ended up killing the majority of them forced an early end to the expedition and a return to Ternate. From November 1875 to January 1876, Beccari accompanied a Dutch
bathymetric survey, which allowed him to visit places as far as the
Yos Sudarso Bay. Beccari left Ternate for Jakarta in March 1876 and arrived in Florence in June, where he received many honors.
Third Malesian Voyage (1877–1878) After one year in Florence, Beccari decided to make another long voyage to
Malesia, accompanied this time by
Enrico Alberto d'Albertis, a cousin of
Luigi D'Albertis. The first part of the trip took the two through India via Singapore and Kuching to Australia. Enrico d'Albertis then returned directly while Beccari made botanical studies in West
Sumatra, especially around
Mount Singgalang, where he amassed a collection of about 1,000 species. He returned to Florence in late December 1878. Among other plants, he discovered
Amorphophallus titanum on this voyage.
Life in Italy (1879–1920) Between 1878 and 1879, Beccari was
Director of the Botanical Collections and Garden of the Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History of Florence (he was appointed while on his voyage). He resigned after one year due to disagreements about the source of financing for the sale of his plant collection and the removal of the large existing collections to a new building. In January 1888, Beccari married Nella Goretti de Flamini. They had four sons: Nello, Dino, Baccio and Renzo.
Nello Beccari became an anatomist in his own right. They lived in the
Castello di Bisarno, a villa near Florence. He began to publish a large work,
Malesia, mainly detailing results from the study of his collection, but the publication was stopped after some volumes due to lack of funds. In May 1897 he was visited in Florence by
Margaret Brooke, the
ranee of Sarawak, who inspired him to write a book about his explorations in Borneo, which became
Nelle foreste di Borneo, published in 1902. In his last years, he mainly studied palms, basing his research on specimens sent to him from all over the world, publishing works such as
Asiatic Palms (1908) and
Palme del Madagascar descritte ed illustrate (1912). For example, Beccari first discovered and described
Trachycarpus takil, the Kumaon windmill palm. He originally mistook it for a known
T. fortunei variant, thus missed having it named after him.
Trachycarpus takil is believed to be the hardiest trunking palm on earth. He died on 25 October 1920 in Florence, aged 77. == Legacy ==