Giuseppe Maria Giovene

[2][3] He is best known for his studies on the "nitrosity" of Pulo di Molfetta, which made him famous abroad, so as to be cited and appreciated by many Italian and foreign scholars, including Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann in a French publication.

[3][4] His scientific research, mainly focused agronomy, botany and meteorology, were not just theoretical and aimed at the mere research of natural phenomena, but their goal was to develop and improve agriculture in the Kingdom of Naples; this was a common feature of the scientific works of the earliest scientists of the Kingdom of Naples.

[11][12] He was one of the first scientists of Apulia and he exhibited remarkable scientific skills, helping to eradicate "the prejudice against the good Apulian people of their being lazy and ignorant.

He went to Naples, when he was only a cleric, and was recommended to Ciro Saverio Minervini[18] and there he met learned and famous naturalists, such as Vincenzo Petagna.

[21][19] In the meantime, Gennaro Antonucci was appointed as new bishop of Molfetta,[22] who wanted him to be his apostolic vicar, probably because of his fame or his experience.

Meanwhile, Giovene did not despise to help the poor, orphans, offering them free legal advice to protect against the abuses of the powerful.

Many rare samples of natural history, such as "the wax tablets of the testaceous", ended up in the Paris Academy of Sciences.

During this time, he became deaf, which made it difficult for him to communicate with others; moreover he began to suffer from paralysis to the bladder and the cataract came him to his left eye.

[33] Pope Gregory XVI read his book and liked it, and thanks to this, Molfetta was granted the official recognition of the cult of Saint Conrad of Bavaria, which had already started in the XII century".

[31] The funeral praise, however, was eventually read in the Church of Saint Conrad of Bavaria and it was printed in Naples by his grandnephew Luigi Marinelli Giovene[37] (who also reprinted most of his works in a collection of several volumes entitled Raccolta di tutte le opere del cav.

Following the discovery, a large number of naturalists sent by academies from all Europe came to visit Pulo di Molfetta, since the saltpeter was a fundamental ingredient in the production of gunpowder and that these deposits were of considerable strategic interest.

[43] In particular, in a letter to Alberto Fortis dated 7 August 1784, Giovene refuted the idea of those who believed that the saltpetre of Pulo di Molfetta was due to some animals that once inhabited the doline.

After the discovery of the "natural nitrary", scholars from many European academies came to Molfetta, and Giovene took the opportunity to meet and discuss with many of them.

For these studies, culminating in his publication Osservazioni elettro-atmosferiche e barometriche insieme paragonate (1798), Carlo Amoretti stated that Giovene "had provided an invaluable service to meteorology and physics".

He studied the electricity and pressure variation of the atmosphere and he wrote Osservazione elettro-atmosferiche e barometriche insieme paragonate (1798).

Moreover, after reading Jan Hendrik van Swinden's work Dissertation on the Irregular Motions of the Magnetic Needle,[55] he also wrote an annex to the above essay, in which he explained how his observations confirmed Van Swinden's conclusions on the correlation between atmospheric pressure, atmospheric electricity, Aurora and oscillations of the Earth's magnetic field.

[56] Giuseppe Maria Giovene also correctly explained the phenomenon of the so-called red rain dust (Italian: pioggia rossa), fallen on Apulia on 7 March 1803.

It was believed at that time that the rain was caused by the explosion of Italy's volcanoes Mount Vesuvius or Etna, or that it was due to the transport of matter coming from the sea floor and raised by vapor.

[60] Giovene intended to collect his writings Sulla rogna degli ulivi (1789), Avviso per la distruzione dei vermi che attaccano la polpa delle olive (1792), Descrizione e storia della cocciniglia dell'ulivo (1807) into a single treaty on the diseases of olive trees, but he didn't accomplish his initial commitment.

[10][63] Giuseppe Maria Giovene never hid his profound religiousness, as well as the contempt for atheism, which he considered to be true "dementia.

In some unpublished speeches held at the Academy of Catholic Religion in Rome (Accademia di Religione Cattolica in Roma) – Della pretesa antichità del tempo and Delle lave dell'Etna e degli argomenti che si pretende tirare per la molta antichità della Terra – he tried to refute those that Giovene considered distorted interpretations of natural history.

[10][65] In his life, Giovene also wrote a few works on theology, including a hagiography in Latin entitled Vita Beati Corradi Bavari (1836), about the life of Saint Conrad of Bavaria, and for this purpose he had to travel to North Italy and Germany in order to consult medieval sources about the saint.

[66] He also wrote a letter to Saverio Mattei, in which he answered the question Mattei had asked Giuseppe Vairo on the type of matter Jesus Christ referred to in the passage from the gospel where he said to the apostles vos estis sal terrae (which means "you are the salt of the earth"[67]) Giovene, with reasoning in which he showed his erudition and his knowledge of physics and chemistry, came to the conclusion that Jesus Christ referred to saltpetre (potassium nitrate).

Even though he was busy in his numerous commitments and ecclesiastical assignments as well as in his studies, he managed to find time to offer legal counsel to the poor, especially to those who were oppressed and persecuted by the powerful.

[70] Due to the death of Lazzaro Spallanzani (1799), he was appointed as his successor in the Società italiana delle scienze di Verona, thus becoming one of its 40 members and publishing articles in almost every volume of the learned society's proceedings.