# An Italian Scientist Extols the Bab

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-19 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Ugo Giachery, An Italian Scientist Extols the Bab, Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1956, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> An Italian Scientist Extols the Báb
> By Ugo R. Giachery
> 
> Bahá'í World, Vol. 12 (1950-54), pages 900-904
> Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1956
> 
> Among the apostles of modern science and liberty of thought, a
> prominent place belongs to Michele Lessona, an Italian, whose sincere and
> courageous words inspired and helped mold the character of at least two
> generations of Italians.
> 
> A scientist, a writer, a philosopher, and explorer and an educator,
> Professor Lessona stands out – with a stature that towers above that of many a
> well-known scientist – as one of the foremost thinkers of the nineteenth
> century.
> 
> He was born September 20, 1823, in Venaria Reale, a suburb of Turin.
> His father, Dr. Carlo Lessona, was at the time the director of the well-known
> veterinary school of Veneria, and this fact might explain the boy’s early interest
> in scientific study. In 1846 Michele Lessona obtained a degree of medicine and
> surgery from the Royal University of Turin. Immediately after graduation he
> went to Egypt and, although rather young, was appointed Chief of the Khán Kah
> Hospital in Cairo.
> 
> In 1849 he returned to Italy and became an instructor in Natural History,
> first in Asti and then in Turin. In 1854, at the age of 31, he was appointed
> Professor of Mineralogy and Zoology at the Royal University of Genoa. In 1864,
> after his return from Persia, he taught first at the University of Bologna and
> then at the University of Turin. Here he occupied in 1865 the Chairs of Zoology
> and Comparative Anatomy, becoming in 1877 the Rector of that University.
> 
> During his life Michele Lessona produced a variety of scientific and literary
> works. Among his classical publications are to be remembered an illustrated
> treatise on natural history, in several volumes; his masterpiece on ethics, Power
> and Will; Confessions of a Rector; Memoirs of an Old Professor; and the
> translation into Italian of the best known works of Darwin, Samuel Smiles, John
> Lubbock, and many others.
> In 1892 King Humbert of Italy made him a Senator for life, a well-deserved
> recompense for his patriotism, leadership and learning. He passed away, amidst
> universal sorrow, on July 20, 1894, in his beloved Turin.
> 
> In 1862 Professor Lessona had been appointed physician to the
> diplomatic legation that went to Persia at that time to establish relations
> between the newly created Kingdom of Italy and the government of Násiri’d-Dín
> Sháh.
> 
> Immediately on his arrival in Tabríz, he met a Persian of high linage, Dáúd
> Khán, who, having lived for many years in Italy, spoke Italian perfectly. From
> this gentleman Lessona learned of the Bábí movement, and he became
> fascinated with the life of the Báb and His heroic ministry. When opportunity
> permitted, he tried to visit places connected with the history of the Báb, and he
> had the opportunity to converse, many times and at length, with Count de
> Gobineau, the French ambassador to the court of the Sháh. When he returned
> to Italy Professor Lessona wrote a book Hunting in Persia and a precious little
> monograph of sixty-six pages entitled I Babi.
> 
> Fernando Morosi, a Bahá’í of Rome and a book dealer by profession,
> recently found a copy of this book, which was immediately dispatched to Haifa
> and is now in the custody of Shoghi Effendi. It represents one of the very first
> documentations, made by a European, of the episode of the Báb.
> 
> The little book was printed in 1881 by the Royal Typographer Vincenzo
> Bona of Turin and contains a good narrative of the life of the Báb and other
> personal considerations of the author concerning the Bábí movement.
> 
> Some of the episodes he relates differ slightly from the accounts in the
> well-known histories by Browne, de Gobineau, and Nabíl-i-Zarandi.1 There are,
> however, other parts of the book which I would like to bring to the attention of
> the reader.
> 
> After presenting his informant, Dáúd Khán, the author comments:
> “Religious discussions are of comfort to the misfortunate who are oppressed by
> tyranny and always stripped, of everything they own.”
> 
> Edward G. Browne, translator and editor of A Traveller’s Narrative; M. le Comte de Gobineau, author of Les
> Religions et les Philosophies dans l’Asie Centrale; and Muhammad-Zarandi, surnamed Nabíl-i-A’zam, author of
> The Dawn-Breakers.
> Presenting the figure of the Báb, he says:
> 
> “Forty years ago, in the city of Shíráz, there left childhood and entered
> puberty a youth that for his singular potency of intellect, for his extraordinary
> application to study, his profound religious tendencies, his loving nature, for his
> energy of character, grace of body and beauty of countenance, awakened
> admiration and affection in everyone who had occasion to deal with him, and
> captivated all the love of his teachers and relatives. The name of this youth
> was Mírzá ‘Alí-Muhammad. It was said later that his family was of the high
> nobility, one of those descending from the Prophet by way of the Imám
> Husayn… It is certain that his family wealthy and that he was encouraged in
> every manner in his most ardent desire to learn. Mírzá ‘Alí-Muhammad showed
> ardor similarly in religious practices…” “He would converse with the Rabbis of
> Shíráz. He would investigate the doctrine of the Gabras2… It is also certain that
> he studied the Gospels, a rather easy matter, thanks to the volumes of the Bible
> and the Gospel translated into the Persian language which the British
> disseminated in all of Persia… A bad translation in poor style, without the
> imagination of the floweriness of these sacred books.”
> 
> “The present Sháh, Násiri’d-Dín, sometimes during his luncheon requests
> the reading of the Bible in Persian and sometimes he laughs, and then the
> courtiers burst into a clamorous laughter and for a few days they speak only of
> that verse, or word, which has provoked the hilarity of the sovereign.”
> 
> Speaking of the clergy, Lessona observes:
> 
> “The clergy of Persia is extremely corrupt; at the same time it administers
> religion and justice – the first badly, the second worse; it falsifies wills, defrauds
> of possessions, sells justice, practices usury and indulges in debauchery… The
> powerful ones are in fear of it, the lowly scoff at it, the masses despise and
> exploit it, ready to deride and ridicule it or to rise up at its call to revolt. Every
> mosque has a larger or smaller number of beggars who live off scant charity and
> become instruments of violence, plunder and death in the hands of the priests.”
> 
> Gabr (or guebre), a term used contemptuously to designate the Zoroastrian priesthood (see A Traveller’s
> Narrative, page 34, footnote 1).
> Professor Lessona then speaks of Dr. Polak3 who, at the time, was
> physician to the Sháh and who wrote books of medicine in Persian. Relating in
> detail the history of the Bábís, he mentions the eighteen Letters of the Living4
> of one of whom, Mullá Husayn, he writes: “He was a very learned man, both in
> religion and in jurisprudence: daring, austere and fiery.”
> 
> Returning to the beginning of the ministry of the Báb, he says:
> 
> “… His style was imaginative and sublime, not like anything human; thus
> to his quality of a most eloquent orator he added that of an inimitable writer.
> And while he preached, discussed and taught in the mosques, in the colleges, in
> the streets, in his house, everywhere they were reading aloud his verses, often
> interrupting with cries of the most ardent admiration. In all of Shíráz they did
> not speak of anything else but the Báb, everyone was filled with enthusiasm for
> him… The house of the Báb was crowded, night and day, with new converts to
> his faith; to him came men rich in possessions, men of intellect and energy, and
> among the very first many mullás enrolled under his banner.”
> 
> The author speaks of Qurratu’l-‘Ayn5 and the siege of Tabarsí,6 and,
> having visited Zanján,7 he states: “I visited that city ten years after the
> happenings I have related, and I still found frightening traces of the devastation
> which had taken place.”
> 
> Referring to the difficulty of securing more information on the Bábí
> movement, he adds:
> 
> “…In Persia it is impossible to speak of the Bábís or to learn something
> about their affairs. The terror which this name awakens is such that no one
> Dr. J. E. Polak, author of Persien. Das Land und seine Bewohner (1865), was also professor at the Medical College
> of Tihrán (A Traveller’s Narrative, Note A, p. 203).
> “The Báb’s chosen disciples” (God Passes By, by Shoghi Effendi, p. 5); their names are listed in The Dawn-
> Breakers, pp. 80-81)
> Qurratu’l-‘Ayn, “the only woman enrolled by the Báb as one of the Letters of the Living” (God Passes By, p. 73),
> given the title Táhirih (the Pure One) by Bahá’u’lláh, “the lovely but ill-fated poetess of Qasvín” (Curzon) became
> well known throughout Europe for her efforts in behalf of the education of the women of Persia.
> For an account of the eleven months’ siege of 313 followers of the Báb at the shrine of Shaykh Tabarsí, a few
> miles south of Bárfurúsh, by the army of the Shah, see God Passes By, pp. 38-42, and Dawn-Breakers, pp. 343-429.
> It was during this siege that Mullá Husayn and Quddús were killed.
> The uprising against the followers of the Báb at Zanján is described in God Passes By, pp. 44-46, and in chapter 24
> of The Dawn-Breakers.
> dares to speak, or even think, of it. The Italians whom I found in Tihrán, and who
> proved extremely kind in every way, wanted to tell me little or nothing about
> the Bábís, or were unable to do so; the same was true of Europeans of other
> nationalities in Tihrán, Tabríz or Rasht. Nicolas,8 with whom I made the long
> journey from Tihrán to St. Petersburg, started to speak to me about them only
> after we passed the Persian frontier … Count de Gobineau, in the village of
> Gezer near Tihrán would narrate to me episodes about this sect, making the
> hours of the evening pass as lightning while he wrote its history and read to me
> some chapters … Gathering material for the history of the Báb, which he was
> doing at the time, was fraught with danger in the heart of Persia, even for a
> Minister of the French Emperor…”
> 
> Referring to Vámbéry’s critical comments on the episode of Shaykh
> Tabarsí,9 Lessona states: “… this judgment is entirely unjust and a thousand
> miles from the truth, if we want to apply it to the precepts of the Báb… These
> precepts are in a symbolic language and, amidst mystic formulas, we found the
> sweet doctrines of the Báb, respectful of the past but made to contrast with
> formalism and to make the spirit of goodness prevail… The Báb and Qurratu’l-
> ’Ayn were purified from any thought of violence and their lives were filled with
> love for their fellow men and with enthusiasm for the Faith…”
> 
> In relating the atrocious tortures inflicted on the Bábís, Lessona relates:
> 
> “…The Sháh and the Sadr-i-A’zam (Prime Minister) feared a revolution,
> seeing conspirators all around them; they thought therefore to devise some
> scheme that would involve the largest number of persons. The Sháh then
> schemed to deliver the Bábís to the various civil and military employees,
> charging them to put said Bábís to death. From the type of torture inflicted on
> the victims, from the most heinous manner in which they would be put to
> death, he could judge their zeal… Those who had not enough imagination to
> find new tortures went to the Kalantar who knew how to suggest others… That
> Kalantar then acquired many titles to the Shah’s benevolence…”10 “From that
> day,” the author continues, “eighteen years have passed and in Persia the same
> 
> Monsieur J. B. Nicolas, Interpreter of the Imperial French Embassy in Tihrán and father of A. L. M. Nicolas,
> author of Siyyid ‘Alí-Muhammad dit le Báb, Paris, Dujariac & Co., 1905.
> Hermann Vámbéry, author of Meine Wanderungen und Erlebnisse in Persien (1867), writes concerning the siege
> of Shaykh Tabarsí pp. 286-303), according to Browne, in A Traveller’s Narrative, Note A, p. 206; see also pp. 37-
> 39.
> This system of persecution is attested also by Nabíl, op. cit., p. 612, footnote 2, and by Browne, op. cit., Note T, p.
> 328.
> sovereign, Násiri’d-Dín Sháh, reigns, always diffident, always suspecting, always
> in fear of the Bábís. From time to time they arrest some one, condemn him
> very often to despoliation for the reason that he is a Bábí but more often using
> this as an excuse. The governors of the provinces thus have an easy method of
> taking all the possessions of a poor victim who has put something aside. The
> government says that Bábísm is extinguished, but it operates as if it were
> alive…”
> 
> “A new Báb, successor to the first, lives in Baghdád, outside the
> government of the Sháh. From there he is in touch with all Persia and has
> disseminated Bábísm in all those provinces and even in the Indies of the Orient.”
> 
> This correspondent was thrilled in reading these words, because of all the
> early European historians of the Faith Michele Lessona makes a direct and
> unmistakable reference to Bahá’u’lláh, Who the following year in Baghdad made
> His Declaration in the Ridván.
> 
> The author ends his monograph by putting before the reader the question
> whether the Bábí doctrine would survive and propagate. Wisely he answers it
> himself by quoting one of Manzoni’s verses:
> 
> “To posterity the arduous judgment!”
> 
> The great friendship born in Persia between Lessona and Count de
> Gobineau had its strange epilogue in Turin. After the fall of the French Empire,
> de Gobineau, exiled from his native France, spent part of the year in Italy and
> part in Germany.
> 
> On the evening of October 12, 1882, a distinguished looking and
> elegantly dressed gentleman, on his way to Pisa, became ill in a hotel bus in
> Turin. He was taken to the Hotel Liguria and there this traveler died, the early
> morning of October 13, attended by the hotel owner and some of the servants.
> The hand of fate made it possible Count Arthur Joseph de Gobineau to sleep
> forever in Italian soil and in the same town where Michele Lessona lived and
> where Lessona himself, twelve years later was laid to rest.
> 
> [end]
>
> — *An Italian Scientist Extols the Bab (Used by permission of the curator)*