Paolo Gorini

Paolo Gorini (18 January 1813 – 2 February 1881) was an Italian mathematician, professor, scientist, and politician renowned as a pioneer of cremation in Europe, primarily in the United Kingdom. Born in Pavia, Gorini obtained a bachelor's degree in mathematics at the University of Pavia in 1832 and subsequently moved to Lodi in 1834, where he worked as lecturer of physics in the local lyceum. There he achieved noteworthy discoveries about organic substances. Gorini became interested in politics at a very young age and joined the emerging Italian nationalist movement during the First Italian War of Independence. After the Five Days of Milan (1848), he fled to Switzerland and was further exiled to London, England, where he continued his eclectic studies in natural sciences (anatomy, biology, chemistry, geology, and physiology). Back in Lodi, in 1871, he published Sull'origine del vulcani ("On the Origin of Volcanoes") and, in 1872, he became famous for the embalming of the bodies of Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Rovani. In 1878, he was commissioned by the Cremation Society of Great Britain to construct the cremator at Woking Crematorium in England. He died in Lodi in 1881; following a civil ceremony, his remains were cremated and buried in the local cemetery of Riolo. A monument and a museum are dedicated to him in Lodi. In 2021, the documentary film Il mago di Lodi ("The wizard of Lodi") dedicated to his life and works as embalmer was directed by Silvia Onegli and produced by Magestic Film. Cesare Vignati, Sopra alcune divulgatissime mummificazioni e sul nuovo trovato del professore Paolo Gorini, memoria, Milano-Lodi, C. Wilmant, 1847; Paolo Gorini, Autobiografia, Dossi-Perelli-Levi editori, Roma, 1881. Secondo Cremonesi, Studio su Gorini, sue opere, suoi lavori, Lodi, Tip. C. Dell'Avo, 1883. Piera Andreoli, Cenni biografici e attività scientifica di Paolo Gorini (1813-1881), Biancardi, Lodi, 1931. Antonio Allegri, Conservazione e dissolvimento della sostanza organica nell'opera goriniana, in "Archivio Storico Lodigiano", 2sem.