Giovanni Roncagli (1857–1929) was an Italian naval officer and hydrographer.
Biography
Roncagli was born in 1857.[1]
He enlisted in the navy in 1875, attending the Royal Naval School of Naples.
In his biography Vita di mare he tells of his early career, at a time when sailing ships were only slowly being replaced by steam.[2]
Roncagli was the hydrographer for the Italian expedition to explore Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego of 1881–1882, led by Giacomo Bove.[3]Decio Vinciguerra was officially both zoologist and botanist, but in fact Carlos Luigi Spegazzini from Buenos Aires handled the botanical work.[4]
The geologist Domenico Lovisato made up the scientific party.[3]
Giovanni Roncagli became a navy captain, an expert in commercial geography and a member of the Italian Naval League.
He was secretary general of the Italian Geographic Society from 1897 until World War I (1914–1918).[5]
He also became director of the Navy's historical section.[1]
He was a pioneer in aeronautical topography in Italy, which quickly turned out to be of great importance in World War I.[6]
In 1913 Roncagli presented a report to the Tenth International Geographical Congress in Rome in which he discussed the need for an international aeronautical map.[7]
Southern Argentina and Chile from Roncagli's Atlante Mondiale Hoepli
