Search Results: de corporibus marinis lapidescentibus quae defossa by scilla agostino

Paperback / softback. New. This illustrated 1752 publication brings together two seventeenth-century works that paved the way for the study of palaeontology. Sicilian artist Agostino Scilla (1629-1700) and Neapolitan botanist Fabio Colonna (1567-1640) both argued that fossils were the remains of living organisms rather than extraordinary mineral phenomena with magical properties.

Rome: Joannis Zempel, 1759. Revised edition.
1759 COMBINED WORKS OF RENAISSANCE PALEONTOLOGISTS SCILLA AND COLONNA ILLUSTRATED WITH 32 MAGNIFICANT PLATES.
19.5x26 cm hardcover, contemporary 3/4 leather with marbled boards, new leather spine with raised bands and gilt red leather title label; frontispiece showing allegorical struggle between truth and speculation with truth depicted by Mercury bearing an eye of reason on the chest, holding a fossil echinoid and pointing to many more specimens, title page printed in red and black with engraved vignette; 82 text pages, Index, 32 full-page copper plate engravings as follows: Frontis entitled "Vanae Speculationis Sensus Moderator"; I - X; XI, n.I, XI, n.II; XII; XIII; XIIII; XV; XVI; XVII; XVIII; XIX; XX; XXI; XXII; XXV; XXVI; XXVII; XXVIII; XXIII; XXIII, n.II; XXIIII; "Pag. LXXV." Covers worn, scattered light foxing mainly to margins, very good minus.
AGOSTINO SCILLA (1629 – 1700) was an Italian Baroque painter, paleontologist, geologist, numismatist,… Read More