Giuseppe Nazzareno Sterzi (1876–1919) was an Italian anatomist, neuroanatomist and medical historian. Although his research activity encompassed no more than fifteen years, the themes treated by Sterzi are relevant to neuroanatomy and history of anatomy. Sterzi’s research on comparative neuroanatomy and embryology were acknowledged by numerous contemporaries (Bardeleben, Chiarugi, Edinger, Eisler, Johnston, Krause, Nicolas, Obersteiner, Sobotta) and many of his discoveries were soon incorporated into anatomy textbooks. Sterzi was awarded several scientific prizes, among which were the ‘Premio Fossati’ of the Reale Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e di Lettere, Milano in 1909 and the ‘Prix Lallemand’ of the Académie des Sciences de l'Institut de France, Paris in 1912.
Biography Sterzi was born into a noble family in Cittadella, Italy. His father Paolo, who in his student years in Padova had been involved in the patriotic uprisings against the Austrian government, was an engineer; his mother was Carolina Barolo. In 1893 he matriculated in the University of Pisa where he joined the medical school. The Chairman Professor Guglielmo Romiti asked him to enter the Anatomy department. In 1899 he graduated in Medicine, and few months later was appointed senior lecturer in the Anatomy Department of the University of Padova, then directed by Professor Dante Bertelli. In 1906 he became Professor of Topographical Anatomy on annual contract and in 1910, having been selected by the National Search Committee, he was made full Professor and Chairman of the Anatomy Department of the University of Cagliari. In the summer of 1915, Sterzi volunteered for the Italian Army where he served as medical officer. After the end of World War I, Sterzi, who had the rank of lieutenant colonel and was entitled to be released from the army, chose to remain in his office as director of the military hospital of Arezzo during the postwar Spanish flu epidemic. During the winter of 1919 he contracted a fever and died at the age of 43. He left a wife, and four sons, one of whom later became a doctor and Professor of Dermatology, Guido Sterzi.
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