CARLO ALFREDO

PIATTI (1822-1901)  , Italian violoncellist, was born at Bergamo on the 8th of January 1822 . He was the son of a violinist, and became a pupil at the conservatorio of Milan . From 1838 onwards he journeyed over Europe, playing with extraordinary success in all the important cities of the continent . In 1844 he appeared before the London public at a Philharmonic Concert; and in 1859, on the foundation of the Popular Concerts, he took up the work with which he was most intimately connected for thirty-nine seasons, retaining until 1897 the post of first violoncello at these famous chamber concerts, during the latter half of each series . His purely classical style, his wide musical During a visit to England in 1788 he procured from Jesse Ramsden a five-foot altazimuth, with which he collected at Palermo, 1792-1813, the materials for two admirable star-catalogues, published in 1803 and 1814 respectively . While engaged on this work he discovered, on the 1st of January 1801, the first asteroid or minor planet, to which he gave the name of Ceres, the tutelary deity of Sicily . He died at Naples on the 22nd of July 1826 . See B . E . Maineri, L'Astronomo Giuseppe Piazzi (Milan, 1871); R . Wolf, Biographien, Bd. iv. p . 275; Monatliche Correspondenz (1810; portrait), xxi .

46; Astr . Jahrbuch, liv . 218; Bulletin

des sciences (1826), vi . 339; Edin . Journal of Science (1827), vi . 193; Memoirs Roy . Astr . Soc. iii . 119; R . Grant, Hist . Phys . Astronomy, pp .

238, 510, 549 .