Balbi

Balbi, ADRIANO, geographer and statistician, was born in Venice in 1782, and in 1808 was appointed lecturer on Geography at Murano, in 1811 on Physics at Fermo. A subsequent residence in Portugal led him to publish at Paris in 1822 a work of great value on the statistics of Portugal. Balbi lived in Paris till 1832; he then returned to Italy and settled at Padua, where he died 14th March 1848. His Atlas Ethnographique du Globe (Par. 1826) is distinguished by its extensive accumulation of facts and views, giving an account of German researches on the subject, and entering into questions of comparative philology. His best known work is the Abrégé de Géographie (1832). His Scritti Geografici were edited by his son, Eugenio (5 vols. Turin, 1841-42).