Il viaggio settecentesco di Paolo Sangiorgio in Valsassina

• Main Author: Andrea Candela
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Fabio D'Angelo 2017-09-01
• Series: Viaggiatori
• Subjects: Paolo Sangiorgio; history of Earth Sciences; scientific travel
• Online Access: http://www.viaggiatorijournal.com/cms/cms_files/20170913115338_eclb.pdf

Between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the institutionalization of Earth sciences was made possible by the spread across Europe of rather commonly known experimental approaches, which were partly based on the exploration of mountains. The scientific travel on mountains acquired its own tools and practices soon, and gave an important contribution to the emergence of historical geology. Against this backdrop, the geological as well as natural knowledge of the Alps and Prealps took place, involving several Italian and European scholars. This paper, after brief considerations on the biography of Paolo Sangiorgio, an Italian savant, offers the complete edition of the unpublished manuscript (1771) of his travel in Valsassina (Lombard Prealps, Northern Italy). The report of his surveys to the east of the lake of Como is certainly a significant primary source about the epistemic value that the scientific travel had acquired by the first half of the nineteenth century.