Federico Cesi and his field studies on the origin of fossils between 1610 and 1630.
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.
Scott
A C
AC
Geology Department, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey, UK TW20 0EX.
D001154:Art / Q000266:history; D004741:Engraving and Engravings / Q000266:history; D005580:Fossils; D049670:History, 17th Century; D007558:Italy; D010163:Paleontology / Q000266:history*; D014197:Trees; D014934:Wood