NOTES AND NEWS
Philipp Johann Joseph Valentini, Ph.D., whose death occurred March 16, 1899, at Saint Luke's Hospital, New York City, was born in Berlin in 1824. His father was an Italian, and his mother a German. The father was a teacher of foreign languages, and the author of a Ger- man-Italian dictionary, which, at the time, was highly estimated for its accuracy. He was also tutor of the young scions of royalty at His Majesty's court.
The son Philipp was educated in the Lyceum of Rosleben and in the Gymnasium of Torgau. Later he studied jurisprudence at the Univer- sity of Berlin, where he was appointed auscultator of the Supreme Court. In 1854 he went to Central America, and settled on the site of Puerto Limon, on the Atlantic shore of Costa Rica, where he founded the above town under government auspices. Learning that the Costa Ricans could give no account of their ancestors, he returned to Ger- many in 1858 to search for manuscripts and historical information regarding the colonization of this part of Central America by the Spaniards. The results of this study were embodied in a dissertation for which he received the degree of Ph.D. from the University of Jena. His early studies were influenced somewhat by his acquaintanceship with the great Humboldt, who was an intimate friend of his father.
In 1 86 1 Valentini returned to Costa Rica, where he lived for eleven years, meanwhile establishing a coffee plantation. While living in Costa Rica, he made several trips along the coast, from the Isthmus of Panama as far north as Boca del Toro. Later he made a trip through Nicaragua and San Salvador into Guatemala, and there came into com- munication with the lamented Berendt. In Guatemala City he made researches among the manuscripts preserved in the Institute, and among other things discovered a portrait of the famous conquistador, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, which he published in the Historical Magazine % New York. At this time he completed his manuscript on the discovery and conquest of the ancient province of Castilla de Oro, the publication of which at the time was prevented by a revolution in Costa Rica ; and this still remains among his unpublished works. His researches carried him as far as the famous Quiche ruins of Santa Cruz del Quiche.
He went to New York City in 1871, and we find him in 1879 engaged as an instructor of languages in the preparatory classes of the
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