Cosimo Alessandro Collini

Cosimo Alessandro Collini (Florence 14 October 1727-Mannheim, 21 March 1806) was an Italian historian and Voltaire's secretary from 1752 to 1756.

Portrait of Collini, artist unknown
Pterodactyl drawn by Collini in 1784

Life

Born into a noble family, he studied law and met Voltaire in Berlin in 1750 and was taken on as his secretary in April 1752.[1] When Voltaire left the service of Frederick the Great Collini accompanied him, and was confined with him and Madame Denis on Frederick's orders for three weeks in Frankfurt.[2] In 1755 the young Jean-Louis Wagnière was made his assistant, and just over a year later, took Collini's place when he was dismissed from Voltaire's service for insulting Madame Denis.[3]

He then entered the service of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria as his private secretary and historiographer. In 1763 he became a member of the Palatine Academy of Sciences and director of the Mannheim Cabinet of Natural History. In 1764 he was the first person to describe the pterosaur that Georges Cuvier went on the identify, seventeen years later, as a flying reptile.

In his later years, he denounced the fanaticism of the French revolutionary wars and in 1799 he defended the collections in his cabinet from destruction, and managed to have them transferred, four years later, to Munich.

A street in Mannheim is named after him, as is the Collini-Center development in the city.

Work
gollark: Also "you aren't using actual evidence" and "you're constantly shifting the goalposts" and "you're not even bothering to explain your claims and just expect people to infer them from random papers" and "you say stupidly vague things and cite papers for evidence because they sound vaguely related".
gollark: Your quote, not the video which I have ignored.
gollark: Well, it's hardly a good-faith attempt to explain a point or something, and you're unlikely to make anyone actually do much about it by saying it again.
gollark: > Ah, yes, this video says saint Einstein is wrong therefore he is a moron indeed.> Ah, yesis generally used to precede "gotcha" sort of things i.e. snappy "arguments" which don't really mean much> saint Einsteinis basically you just pushing the whole "science = religion" thing you like
gollark: It's not exactly a very sensible thing to "address", since it seems to just be you being inflammatory.

References
  1. Ian Davidson, Voltaire – A Life, Profile Books 2010 p.258
  2. Ian Davidson, Voltaire – A Life, Profile Books 2010 p.266
  3. Ian Davidson, Voltaire – A Life, Profile Books 2010 p.272
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