LEVI, GIORGIO RENATO

LEVI, GIORGIO RENATO (1895–1965), Italian physical chemist. Born in Ferrara, Levi during World War I worked at a dynamite factory and remained in industry until 1921. He was appointed assistant professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Milan, and founded a team doing X-ray diffraction. In 1927 he became professor of general chemistry at the University of Milan. Later he was professor at the University of Pavia, but lost his chair when Mussolini applied the Nuremberg Laws to Italian universities. He went to São Paulo, Brazil, where he worked in a commercial research laboratory and was professor of physical and analytical chemistry at the university. His scientific research was on the structure of inorganic crystals, and the preparation and study of hitherto unknown inorganic compounds, some of industrial significance. A street in São Paulo is named after him. (Samuel Aaron Miller)