The present Article Collection celebrates the
outstanding scientific career of Maurizio
Peruzzini and his interest in Phosphorus
Chemistry. Maurizio was formed as a young
chemist at the University of Florence (Italy)
under the supervision of Piero Stoppioni
and Claudio Bianchini, thus belonging to
the numerous heirs of the prestigious chemistry
school of Luigi Sacconi. After a period
as research assistant at the same University,
in 1986 he won a place as researcher at
CNR-ISSECC, now CNR-ICCOM, where Maurizio
spent most of his further activity as scientist. Since the beginning,
he got fascinated by the beauty and complexity of main group
and transition metal coordination chemistry, in particular phosphorus
in all its allotropic forms. This interest accompanied him
throughout his scientific career, that saw promotions first to Senior
Researcher (1996–2001) and then to Research Director (2001–
2020). In 2013 he became Director of CNR-ICCOM, after two years
as Deputy Director, and in 2017 he took the position of Director of
the CNR Department of Chemical Sciences and Materials Technology
in Rome, until retirement in 2020. Since then, Maurizio has
taken the role of Senior Associate at CNR-ICCOM, and still actively
collaborates with his coworkers in various fields of research. His
commitment to the development of chemistry in Italy brought
him to become President of the Inorganic Chemistry Division of
the Italian Chemical Society (2009–2011). He was the mentor of
many undergraduate, postgraduate students and postdoctoral
fellows coming from all over the world to join his research group
in Florence. Maurizio’s bibliometric data are truly outstanding,
with more than 400 co-authored peer-reviewed papers, more
than 13,000 citations and an h-index of 57 (WoS data, 14th April
2021)