Federico Cesi and his field studies on the origin of fossils between 1610 and 1630

Scott, Andrew C.

(2001)

Scott, Andrew C. (2001) Federico Cesi and his field studies on the origin of fossils between 1610 and 1630. Endeavour, 25 (3). pp. .

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Abstract

In 1603 Federico Cesi, along with four of his friends, founded the first Scientific Academy in Europe, the Accademia dei Lincei, which included Galileo Galillei as a member. Between 1611 and 1630 Cesi undertook an ambitious project to collect and record fossils from his lands around Acquasparta in Umbria. He had drawings and descriptions made of all the excavated fossils, fossil woods and their sites of origin. He died before his work could be published and it was left to his friend Francesco Stelluti to publish a monograph in which he claimed that evidence demonstrated that the fossil woods were formed from stone and were ‘not once living’. The corpus of drawings, now in the Royal Collection at Windsor, has allowed the project to be reconstructed and fieldwork in Italy has shown that the complex nature of the fossil preservation could have easily confused the researchers and have led to misinterpretation of the fossils. This research by Cesi is the first to combine field and specimen data to interpret the origin of fossils and has been widely neglected by historians of Science.

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This version's date is: 01/09/2001
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Item TypeJournal Article
TitleFederico Cesi and his field studies on the origin of fossils between 1610 and 1630
AuthorsScott, Andrew C.
Uncontrolled KeywordsFederico Cesi, fossils, Umbria, 17th Century, Royal Collection Windsor, history of science
DepartmentsResearch Groups and Centres\Earth Sciences\Plant Paleobiology
Faculty of Science\Earth Sciences

Identifiers
doi10.1016/S0160-9327(00)01372-7

Deposited by () on 23-Dec-2009 in Royal Holloway Research Online.Last modified on 07-Jun-2018

Notes

Copyright © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. E-print posted by kind permission.
Research Group website: http://www.gl.rhul.ac.uk/palaeo/palaeo.html

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