Pietro Bachi

Ignazio Batolo, commonly known as Pietro Bachi, (1787, in Palermo – 22 August 1853, in Boston) was a Sicilian American academic and professor. He was the first professor from Italy teaching at Harvard University.

In 1815, he was involved in an attempt aimed at promoting the claim of Joachim Murat to the throne of the Two Sicilies. As a result of this attempt against the House of Bourbon he was forced to change his name with the alias of Pietro Bachi and escape to England and then to the United States.

In 1826, he became professor of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese language at Harvard University and kept this assignment until 1846. He died in Boston in 1853.