Even up to the end of the 1920s , the name �salts of commercial didymium� was used to indicate the mixture of the elements of the rare earths that, after a crude removal of cerium were present in monazite sands. It was precisely by starting with these �didymium earths� that Luigi Rolla (1882-1960) and Lorenzo Fernandes (1902-1977), in 1922, undertook an immense investigation in a search directed at the isolation of element 61, which they dubbed florentium. Despite the heroic and dramatic efforts on their part to isolate this elusive element, including about 52,000 fractional crystallizations alone on tons of commercial didymium, the little florentium they thought they had found was subsequently discredited. Element 61, with isotopic half-lives considerably shorter than the age of the earth, was not present in rare-earth minerals in any detectable amount.

Florentium: The metal of the Florentines

248th National Meeting (2014)

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