| Rina Monti | |
| Othername: | Rina Monti Stella |
| Birth Name: | Cesarina Monti |
| Birth Date: | 16 August 1871 |
| Birth Place: | Arcisate, Italy |
| Death Date: | 25 January 1937 |
| Death Place: | Pavia, Italy |
| Nationality: | Italian |
| Alma Mater: | University of Pavia (1892) |
| Occupation: | Zoologist |
| Known For: | First Italian woman to obtain a university chair |
| Spouse: | Augusto Stella |
| Children: | 2 daughters |
Cesarina Monti, better known as Rina Monti and, sometimes, as Rina Monti Stella (Arcisate, 16 August 1871 – Pavia, 25 January 1937), was an Italian scientist. A biologist, physiologist, limnologist and zoologist, in 1907 she became the first woman to obtain a university chair in the Kingdom of Italy.[1]
Monti was born 16 August 1871 in Arcisate, Italy to Francesco Monti, a magistrate, and Luigia Mapelli. After moving to Monza, she graduated from the Alessandro Manzoni high school in 1887.
Monti graduated in natural sciences, after studying the nervous system of insects, from the University of Pavia in 1892, where she worked for a decade.[2] By doing so, she renounced the high school teaching posts typically accepted by educated women of her time, choosing instead to continue her research at the university level.
Beginning in 1891 Monti frequented the renowned neuro-histology laboratory of Camillo Golgi where she learned his pioneering microscopic techniques. In 1906, Golgi was named a Nobel Prize winner.
Monti's first job was working for the University of Pavia's chair of mineralogy Francesco Sansoni; she published three papers on petrography in his journal. Then she became assistant to Leopoldo Maggi director of the comparative anatomy cabinet, and later she replaced him in that position from 1902 to 1905, as teacher and cabinet director. Meanwhile she obtained the title she needed to be allowed to teach anatomy and comparative physiology (1899).[3]
In 1905 she taught zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Siena on a temporary assignment and, during this time, she repeatedly competed to be named to a university professorship but was denied several times. These events led Monti, in 1906, to write,
I have little hope to receive a professorship. In general, the Italian authorities are not very inclined to consider the scientific performances of women of equal value to those of men.Two years later, in another competition involving 18 academic candidates, she was named chair of the department at the University of Sassari, which made the 36-year-old Rina Monti the first woman to obtain a university chair in the history of the Kingdom of Italy. In 1910, at the same university, she was finally appointed a tenured professor.
In 1915 she returned to the University of Pavia, to occupy the chair of zoology and, later, that of comparative anatomy. She held these positions until 1924, when she was invited to the newly formed University of Milan, where she held the chair of comparative anatomy and physiology, while also taking courses in general biology and zoology in the medical school.
Despite her intense research activity and frequent university trips, Monti lived a vibrant private life. From her marriage to Augusto Stella (1863–1944), geologist and professor of mining sciences, she had two daughters, one of which, Emilia Stella (1909–1994), became a well-known limnology researcher.[4]
In Pavia, at the beginning of her career, Monti made a name for herself in the zoo-neuro-histological field, with new research on the nervous system of insects. Subsequently she turned to hydrobiology, which at the time was neither very popular nor understood in Italy. In particular, she used a comparative perspective (incorporating mineralogy, zoology, anatomy and microbiology) to study the life of inland lakes (limnology).
To study the varieties of life found in alpine lakes, as well as in insubric lakes, she combined field research and complex laboratory analyses, paying particular attention to the lakes in the Italian mountains of Val d'Aosta and Val d'Ossola first, then of Trentino. To explore the mountain waterways, Monti took on demanding mountaineering excursions: camping on the shores of the lakes, traveling the waters with a special boat, the Pavesia, that was designed and built for her, and using nets of her own invention to collect specimens.Monti also documented the extinction of life in Lake Orta resulting from pollution caused by industrial waste, emphasizing the need to respect the ecological balance.
Monti dedicated her last few years to the Trentino lakes, aided by her daughter, Emilia Stella. Together they studied Lake Molveno (1934) and did a genetic study on cladocera (water fleas) (1936).
In 1936, "on the instructions of the Ministry, she was placed in retirement." Monti died a few months later on 25 January 1937 in Pavia.
Because of her initial findings, the study of limnology grew in Italy under the tutelage of her students, and since 1938 has been the subject of the Institute of Hydrobiology, founded in Pallanza.
Monti was a corresponding member of some of the most prestigious international societies of anatomy of her day: the Royal Lombard Institute of Sciences and Letters in Milan, the Association des Anatomistes in France (since 1998, Association des morphologistes), and the Anatomische Gesellschaft in Germany.
According to WorldCat.org, Monti authored 120 works in 184 publications.[5]