Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (Savigliano, 1835 / Milan, 1910) was an Italian astronomer, politician and historian of science. Engineer by training, from 1857 he studied astronomy in Berlin with Johann Encke and in 1860 returned to Italy, working at the Brera Observatory, which he directed between 1864 and 1900. His activity was very prolific, highlighting the discovery of the asteroid Hesperia (1861) and the association of Perseid and Leonid meteor showers with the comet Tempel-Tuttle. During the great opposition of Mars in 1877 he observed a dense network of linear structures which he called «canalli».
