Canale-Parola, Ercole

Born in Rome, Italy, in 1929, Ercole Canale-Parola suspended his studies in 1951 to join his mother who had remarried and moved to Chicago. Continuing his education at the University of Illinois, Canale-Parola earned three degrees in microbiology in quick succession and marrying a fellow student, Thelma. On faculty in the Department of Microbiology at UMass Amherst from 1963 until his retirement in 1994, Canale-Parola’s research on the structure and metabolism of the cellulose cell walls of Sarcina helped him build a reputation as one of the world’s leading experts in the biology of spirochaetes. One of the crowning testimonies to his career was the naming of a spirochaete in his honor: Canaleparolinas. Thelma Canole-Parola died in 2011, followed by Ercole in March 2013.

A mixed assemblage of publications, lecture notes on microbial diversity, and specimens from a key figure in microbiology at UMass, this collection is highlighted by Canale-Parola’s notes on lectures delivered by Cornelius B. Van Niel (1961) and 52 (of 58) reel to reel tapes of lectures on microbiology and lab techniques by van Niel.