The Earth Sciences and Field Research in Early Eighteenth-century Italy

Antonio Vallisneri’s Primi Itineris per Montes Specimen Physico-Medicum (1705) is probably the earliest and most well-documented attempt to define an experimental and systematic approach to naturalistic explorations. Vallisneri’s detailed description of the extraction activities in the iron mines of Garfagnana and in the sulphur and gypsum mines of Scandiano, together with the many experiments, explorations, and observations that he made on countless specimens and natural phenomena in the northern Apennines, give us a wealth of case studies to better understand why, and how, the roots of the Anthropocene can be traced back to the early eighteenth century during a crucial moment in changing perception of man’s place in nature.