The birth and development of geological sciences in the Veneto

In 1922, Giorgio Dal Piaz, pupil, assistant and, from 1909, successor to Giovanni Omboni to the chair of geology in the University of Padova, wrote the monograph “L’Università di Padova e la Scuola Veneta nello sviluppo e nel progresso delle Scienze geologiche”. Now, almost a century later, I am inspired by this memoir, and wish to go back and revive this fascinating history and its protagonists, from the first intuitions of Fracastoro on the true nature of fossils and their biological significance, to the magnificent conquests of Vallisnieri, Arduino, Brocchi, Marzati Pencati, Catullo, and many others—a whole chain of discoveries and contributions which made the Veneto one of the European regions in which naturalistic studies in general and geological ones in particular were cultivated with honour and fortune.