Avi Ohry
Tel Aviv, Israel

Panizza is an Italian surname originating primarily from Lombardy and Piedmonte, derived from the Latin panis (bread) and designating a baker or someone associated with the grain trade. Variations of the name include Panizzi, Pane, Panini, Panigada, and Panetta.

Paolo Panizza^1,2 was a Venetian physician briefly married to the Venetian poet and cortigiana onesta Veronica Franco, an Italian poet and courtesan in 16th-century Venice. She is known for her notable clientele, feminist advocacy, literary contributions, and philanthropy. Her humanist education and cultural contributions influenced the roles of courtesans in the late Venetian Renaissance.

Oskar Panizza (1853–1921)^3,4 was a controversial German physician and writer known for his sharp satirical critiques of religion and the state, most famously through his play Das Liebeskonzil (The Council of Love), a work that resulted in his imprisonment for blasphemy and cemented his reputation as a fearless late 19th-century literary avant-garde person. Panizza studied medicine in Munich and received his doctorate in 1880. From 1882 to 1884, he worked as a psychiatric assistant under Bernhard von Gudden, and he was a colleague of the young Emil Kraepelin. He eventually abandoned medicine and devoted himself to literature.

Bartolomeo Panizza (1785–1867), was a famous 19th-century anatomist,⁵ best known for pioneering work on the visual cortex and comparative anatomy. He became a professor of anatomy at the University of Pavia from 1817; he succeeded his mentor Antonio Scarpa. In 1855, in Osservazioni sul nervo ottico, Panizza provided an early experimental demonstration that visual processing is localized in the posterior/occipital cortex. An eponym was coined after him: the foramen of Panizza. In 1833, he described this vascular connection in the heart of crocodilians. He also studied the lymphatic system, cranial nerves and taste, spinal nerve function, and comparative anatomy.⁶ Among those influenced by him were notable physicians and scientists including Cesare Lombroso and Camillo Golgi. The eponymous “Panizza’s plexuses” are defined as two plexuses of lymph vessels located in the lateral fossae of the frenulum of the prepuce.

Finally, there is a non-medical eponym associated with Sir Anthony Panizzi (1797–1879): the Panizzi Rules, also called the Panizzi cataloguing rules, a set of 91 cataloguing rules developed under Panizzi’s leadership for the British Museum Library and published in 1841. They became an important foundation for modern library cataloguing, particularly concerning author entries, title entries, and cross-references. The only medical “connotation” was his list of medical problems:

• Rheumatic pains, particularly affecting his right wrist and other joints, sometimes making writing difficult or impossible. 
• Insomnia and prolonged periods of poor health, which eventually contributed to his resignation as Principal Librarian. 
• A severe illness in January 1868, during which his medical advisers reportedly feared for his life. 
• Earlier references to a painful swelling of the wrist; Panizzi specifically rejected an allegation that it was gout.^7,8

References

1. Burch MR. Veronica Franco translations. AllPoetry, October 2020. https//allpoetry.com/poem/15519219-Veronica-Franco-translations-by-Michael-R-Burch
2. Veronica Franco. Wikipedia. https;//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_Franco
3. Müller JL. Oskar Panizza, M.D. (1853-1921): the patient behind Emil Kraepelin’s concept of paraphrenias. Am J Psychiatry, 2000;157(1):114.
4. Müller JL. Oskar Panizza: Psychiatrist, antipsychiatrist, patient The man behind Emil Kraepelin’s case report on ‘paraphrenias’. Int J Psychiatry Clin Pract. 2000;4(4):335-8.
5. Perrini P, DI Carlo DT, Fava A, Montemurro N. Bartolomeo Panizza (1785-1867) and his contribution to the discovery of the visual cortex. J Neurosurg Sci, 2023;67(6):767-772.
6. Mazzarello P, Della Sala S. The demonstration of the visual area by means of the atrophic degeneration method in the work of Bartolomeo Panizza (1855). J Hist Neurosci. 1993;2(4):315-22.
7. Anthony Panizzi. Wikipedia. https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Panizzi
8. Fagan L. The life and correspondence of Sir Anthony Panizzi, Vol. 1. Project Gutenberg ebook. www.gutenberg.org/files/58338.