Ferdinand von Mueller

MS is a draft of a letter to be sent to M and about a dozen other newly elected members by the president of the Ateneo di Brescia at the time, Francesco Bettoni Cazzago. The list shows that M was proposed by Francesco Rampinelli; the archive includes Rampinelli's letter dated 22 January 1887 to Bettoni Cazzago in which he did so. Rampinelli had visited Australia and in a lecture to the Ateneo on 16 May 1886 on his observations there had acknowledged the help he had received from M in collecting the Australian flora (see Commentari dell'Ateneo di Brescia, 1886, pp. 147-8); he now referred again to what he had said then abut M's merits, adding that M was already a member of distinguished European scientific societies. The minutes of the meeting of 6 March 1887 show that M was elected unopposed with 26 votes.