Orazio Toraldo Di Francia

Vocation

Italian geographer who chose to follow a military career, training in Turin first at the Academy of Artillery, then at the Higher School of War. Following his participation in the First World War with the rank of captain, he was active in particular in military operations between Mount Sabotino and Mount Podgora, and was decorated with a silver medal for military valour, a military cross and the croix de guerre. Graduated in natural sciences at the University of Florence, in 1921 he held the rank of lieutenant colonel, and in 1928 he was promoted to colonel, while four years later he became a major general. From the beginning of the 1920s he was director of the military and special studies office of the Military Geographic Institute, where a decade later he would be appointed deputy director, and from 1940, director. At the Istituto Geografico Militare (IGM) he dealt with geographic-military studies, including one on Venice Tridentina (1924), later providing an important contribution to the cartography of Italian Eastern Africa. This gave impetus to astronomical observation on Mount Entoto (Addis Ababa), to geodetic surveys and to the application of photogrammetry in the study of geographic phenomena. He dealt with different scales of the geographical maps of Italy and Albania. He was president of the Italian Geographic Society from 1945 to 1955. His son, Giuliano, was an eminent physicist. He died in Rome on 9 July 1958. Link to Wikipedia biography (Italian)