Tribute
Professor Paulo Gunter Windish, a renowned expert on ferns and lycophytes, passed away on February 16, 2026, at the age of 77. He held a bachelor’s degree from USP and a doctorate from Harvard, and taught at institutions such as UNESP and Unisinos. His vast legacy in botany includes approximately 12,000 field collections, over 100 published articles, and the training of dozens of new researchers. He was president of the Botanical Society of Brazil (2006-2009) and winner of the Smithsonian Institution’s Cuatrecasas Medal (2015).
Windish was also a key figure in the founding of the Comitato Giuseppe Raddi. Regarding the topic, his lecture “Raddi’s Visit to Brazil from a Historical Perspective” stood out, where he addressed Raddi’s scientific training, his influence on botany, the international connections generated by his trip to Brazil (during the marriage of Dom Pedro de Bragança and Maria Leopoldina), and the current status of his collections.
All members of the Giuseppe Raddi Committee deeply regret his passing and express their most sincere condolences, wishing strength and comfort to his family during this time of mourning.
(Florence, July 9, 1770 – Rhodes, September 6, 1829)
Known as one of the most important botanists who lived in the period between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, gained great fame for his travels and the important scientific results obtained in the study of the plants of the of liverworts (mosses, bryophytes), pteridophytes and Brazilian flora.
Born in Florence on 9 July 1770 to Stefano and Orsola Pandolfini, due to poor economic conditions, aggravated by the death of his father when he was only six years old, he could not follow a regular routine in the course of his studies.
Thanks to his job as a messenger in a pharmacy, he was able to devote his free moments from work to his early passion for botany, familiarising himself with medicinal plants and venturing into his first readings of the works of the famous botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli.
At the age of fifteen he met Gaetano Savi, a young medical student at the University of Pisa who had recently returned to Florence for the summer holidays, and with him he shared his passion for Botany, Raddi had a deep friendship, destined to last for the rest of his life.
In those years, the meeting with Ottaviano Targioni Tozzetti, distinguished professor of Botany at the Archispedale in Florence and the University of Pisa, was decisive for the continuity of his studies and training.
Thanks to the intercession of Targioni Tozzetti in 1785 Giuseppe Raddi managed to enter the Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History in Florence as an assistant to Attilio Zuccagni, then curator of the Botanical Garden.
Raddi worked as an assistant for ten years until in 1795, at the proposal of Zuccagni himself and Targioni Tozzetti, he was regularly employed at the Museum with the qualification of curator of the collections and paymaster.
