The Italian Legacy in the Dominican Republic

THE ITALIAN LEGACY IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

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With regard to salt water, there are “problems of lack of knowledge about salt-water fish,” as to their ben-

efits as comestible fish, but also aimed at the protection of marine fauna by means of “regulating the catching

of hawksbill and other turtles for their shells,” as well as “studying the possibilities of other industries derived

from the sea,” such as the industry of sponges, mother-of-pearl, and coral, always with regulations. The mis-

sion would not be the research alone but also the performance of “practical demonstrations in different parts

of the coast of the Republic, with different classes of fish prepared in different ways” (p. 12). The National

Agronomic Station of the Dominican Republic, had it maintained this project, would have been the pioneer in

the Caribbean region by possessing a department of agronomic hydrobiology.

Mycological Exploration

As head of the Phytopathologic and Mycological Section, Ciferri was in charge of the first mycological ex-

ploration in the republic. Initially, a small number of fungus samples was collected and sent to Dr. Carlos

E. Chardón, Commissioner of Agriculture in Puerto Rico, “to whom,” Ciferri admits, “are owed important

contributions to our knowledge of Dominican mycoflora.” Also, from Puerto Rico and other countries in

the exterior, mycological material arrived that was then studied in the laboratory of the National Agronomic

Detail of the staircase

of the fountain in the

historic rose garden

created by Ciferri with

a semicircle shape by

placing the staircase

that represents the

main façade of the

building, emphasizing

the great fountain.

(Paolo Cauzzi)