Scientist overcame many obstacles to win Nobel Prize
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| Even in her late 90s, Levi-Montalcini was still making appearances as a guest speaker |
Levi-Montalcini was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She lived until the age of 103, having become the first Nobel laureate to reach the age of 100.
Despite Mussolini’s racial laws preventing Levi-Montalcini from having an academic or professional career in Italy, she carried out research in her bedroom at home that led to her discovering nerve growth factor.
This discovery paved the way for future research in neurobiology, which demonstrated that the nervous, immune, and endocrine systems are linked, and had profound implications for understanding neurodegenerative diseases.
Levi-Montalcini was born to Italian Jewish parents and had a twin sister, Paola. They were the youngest of four children.
She once considered becoming a writer. After seeing a close family friend die of stomach cancer, however, she decided to go to the medical school of Turin University instead, where she first became interested in the nervous system.
After graduating in medicine and surgery with the highest distinction in 1936, Levi-Montalcini stayed on at the university as an assistant, until her career was ended by Mussolini’s 1938 Manifesto of Race, which banned Jews from holding professional positions.
Determined to continue her work, even after Italy entered World War Two, she set up a laboratory in her bedroom, where she studied the growth of nerve fibres in chicken embryos.
When Germany invaded Italy in 1943, her family fled to Florence, where they survived the Holocaust by using false identities and were protected by non-Jewish friends.
.jpg "Levi-Montalcini pictured in 1930, when she enrolled at the University of Turin") |
| Levi-Montalcini pictured in 1930, when she enrolled at the University of Turin |
When the war was over, Levi-Montalcini published the results of her home laboratory experiments. As a result, she was offered a research position at Washington School of Medicine, a post she was to hold for the next 30 years, and it was there she made her vital discovery about nerve growth factor.
Eventually she established a second laboratory in Rome, and was then able to divide her time between working in Italy and the United States.
In 1986 Levi-Montalcini earned her Nobel prize, which she shared with the American biochemist Stanley Cohen, for their research into nerve growth factor.
After she became director of neurobiology of the National Research Council of Italy, she was one of the first scientists to point out the importance of the mast cell in human pathology.
The president of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, made her a senator for life in 2001. In 2006, at the age of 97, she attended the opening ceremony of the Senate, at which the upper house of the Italian parliament was to elect its president. She declared her support for the centre-left candidate, Franco Marini, who defeated former prime minister Giulio Andreotti in the vote.
That year she held the deciding vote in the Italian parliament in a budget dispute and threatened to withdraw her support for the government unless they reversed their decision to cut science funding. The funding was put back in and the budget passed, despite the opposition’s attempts to silence her by mocking her age.
In 2009, a party was given at Rome’s Palazzo Senatorio - also known as City Hall - in Piazza del Campidoglio to honour her achievement of becoming the first Nobel laureate to reach the age of 100.
During her life, Rita Levi-Montalcini had faced many obstacles but had been motivated to succeed anyway. She once said: ‘If I had not been discriminated against, or had not suffered persecution, I would never have received the Nobel Prize.’
Her twin sister, Paola, who had been a popular artist in Italy, died at the age of 91. Rita Levi-Montalcini died at her home in Rome at the age of 103 and she was later buried in the grave with her twin sister at the Monumental Cemetery in Turin.
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| One of the entrances to Turin's huge Monumental Cemetery, reputed to contain 400,000 graves |
The Monumental Cemetery of Turin - previously known as the General Cemetery - is the largest cemetery in the city and one of the biggest in Italy, said to be the last resting place of more than 400,000 people in a 60-hectare site. Located in the northeast of Turin’s historic centre, it contains numerous historic tombs and 12km (7 miles) of porticoes, adorned with sculptures of artistic value. Opened in 1829 to replace the cemeteries of San Lazzaro and San Pietro in Vincoli, it was built thanks to the philanthropist Marquis Carlo Tancredi Falletti di Barolo. The cemetery has become something of a tourist attraction because of the number of famous Italians whose graves lie within it. These include the Holocaust survivor Primo Levi and several other writers, including Edmondo De Amicis, Mario Soldati and Carolina Invernizio. Several scientists are buried there in addition to Levi-Montalcini, including Cesare Lombroso and Galileo Ferraris. Other notable graves include those of 19th century politician Massimo d’Azeglio, the operatic tenor Francesco Tamagno, actor and singer Fred Buscaglione, food canning pioneer Francesco Cirio, racing driver Nino Farina, the car designer Battista Pininfarina, football coach Nils Liedholm and some members of the Grand Torino football team killed in the Superga disaster of 1949.
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| Piazza del Campidoglio, designed by Michelangelo, was commissioned by Pope Paul III |
The building colloquially known as Rome’s City Hall, the Palazzo Senatorio, is one of three main buildings grouped around Piazza del Campidoglio, a beautiful public square built in the 16th century to a design by Michelangelo. The others are the Palazzo dei Conservatori and the Palazzo Nuovo, which form the Capitoline Museums. Situated at the top of the Capitoline Hill, overlooking the Roman Forum, it was commissioned by Pope Paul III, who wanted a symbol of his 'new' Rome to impress the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, who was expected to visit Rome in 1538. Michelangelo’s plans involved a new facade for the Palazzo Senatorio, including a double staircase, and a new facade for the Palazzo dei Conservatori. The Palazzo Nuovo, as the name suggests, was a brand new building, designed to mirror the Palazzo dei Conservatori. The striking centrepiece of the square, for which Michelangelo produced an oval design, included a complex spiralling pavement with a twelve-pointed star at its centre. Palazzo Senatorio today houses the Rome Mayor’s office and has been the seat of the City Council since 1870. It was the home of the Roman Senate - not to be confused with the Senate of Ancient Rome - from the 12th century.
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More reading:
Novelist Grazia Deledda, Italy’s first female Nobel laureate
The Garibaldi supporter who won a Nobel Peace prize
How a civil engineer won a Nobel prize writing poetry in spare time
Also on this day:
1891: The birth of auto engine designer Vittorio Jano
1935: The birth of opera singer Fiorenza Cossotto
2006: The death of actress Alida Valli
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