Arduino, Giovanni

views updated Jun 11 2018

ARDUINO, GIOVANNI

(b. Caprino Veronese, Italy, 16 October 1714; d. Venice, Italy, 21 March 1795)

geology, mineralogy, mining. For the original article on Arduino see DSB, vol. 1.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, the work of Arduino contributed decisively to ideas about basic lithostratigraphic classification of rocks and mountain building. Arduino’s classification of mountains is widely regarded by twenty-first-century historians of geology as the basis for the modern chronological subdivisions of Earth’s geological history. Since the early 1990s, some new historical studies revealed in detail the multidisciplinarity of Arduino’s scientific and technical works as well as the extent of his correspondence, unpublished manuscripts, and part of his geo-mineralogical collection.

Classification System. The lithological studies carried out by Arduino as a result of twenty years of fieldwork in the mountain areas of central and northern Italy (the hills of Tuscany, the Modenese Apennines, the Alps, and the pre-Alps of the Italian regions of Veneto and Lombardy) were supported by a specialized knowledge of mining. After his technical apprenticeship in the iron mines of Chiusa/Klausen in the region of Tyrol, Arduino became supervisory assistant and later director of the lead and silver mines of Tretto (near Vicenza) in the Venetian Republic from 1740 until the mines were closed by the government in1747. Between 1748 and 1752 Arduino worked as land surveyor in Vicenza drawing detailed maps for the local land register and in 1754 he was also nominated public engineer in the same city. Meanwhile, Arduino spent about two months at the end of 1753 (not 1773, as stated in the original DSB article), exploiting some copper mines near Montieri in Tuscany. He returned there in January 1756 for a longer period of work including an evaluation of a mercury mining operation in Silvena, nearby Monte Amiata, during the summer of 1757.

From 1740 to 1757 Arduino obtained his metallurgical knowledge and was self-taught in mineralogy and chemistry. During this period Arduino’s interest in the study of Earth’s strata and in the interpretation of different kinds of rocks grew together with his advanced experience in mining. This practical knowledge and the capacity to observe the structure of the mountains with the aim of obtaining a precise idea of their potential for mineral exploitation clearly formed the basis of Arduino’s geological studies in the 1760s and above all of the lithostratigraphical subdivision of rocks and mountains into four units.

The theory of lithostratigraphical subdivision was outlined for the first time in the Due Lettere sopra varie osservazioni naturali (Two letters on various natural observations, 1760) and refined in the Saggio FisicoMineralogico di Lythogonia e Orognosia (PhysicalMineralogical essay of lithogony and orognosy,” 1774). The decisive turning point toward a broader reflection on the classification of rocks and mountains can clearly be linked to a journey that Arduino undertook at the end of October 1758 in the Agno Valley of the upper Vicentine area. Here the geological and geomorphological characteristics observed in the approximately 20 kilometer journey up the valley (explored in different excursions to the reliefs on both sides) definitively convinced Arduino to elaborate a general theory that also capitalized upon his observations up to that point in various Alpine, pre-Alpine, and Apennine regions.

The classification into four units or orders (ordini) was based mainly on lithology without using precise pale-ontological indicators—apart from the indicated difference between primary mountains without fossils and secondary mountains with fossils—and included different rock types that formed three kinds of mountains and one kind of plain in the regular chronological order of their formation. According to Arduino, the primary mountains were underlain by a primeval rock type (roccia primigenia), later identified as schist, that had been found at the base of all the reliefs examined and therefore was considered of older origin with respect to the others. This rock is now known as metamorphic crystalline rock made essentially of quartz and mica. Moreover, the fourth and youngest chronolithological unit (called quarto ordine), including only alluvial deposits and remaining the least treated of all the lithostratigraphical units, was never defined by Arduino with the term quaternary or quaternario.

The system elaborated by Arduino—still regarded by the geological world as one of the starting points for modern stratigraphy—was much more complex and better articulated than all other analagous attempts previously expressed within the European scientific milieu, such as, for example, those by Carolus Linnaeus, Anton Lazzaro Moro, Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti, and Johann Gottlob Lehmann. However, the classification model proposed by Arduino received diverse responses in Italy by the end of the eighteenth century: Arduino’s model was favored by several Venetian naturalists, but criticized by other Piedmontese and Lombard scientists working in the central and western Alps. These latter scholars, following the opinion of the majority of the European geologists at that time, rejected the supposed position of the schist below the granite as a sign of an older age, supporting instead the granite as the only real primeval rock.

Work on Formation of Strata. In an unpublished work— the incomplete manuscript Risposta Allegorico Romanzesca(Allegorical fictional reply) on the genesis of Earth’s surface, begun at the end of 1771 and directed to the Swedish scientist Johann Jakob Ferber—Arduino tried to realize a general subdivision of the history of Earth into four epochs. He intended to correlate them with the oro-genetic and lithological processes first outlined in his classification of 1760. In this manuscript, edited and published in 1991 by Ezio Vaccari, Arduino outlined various lithogenetic and orogenetic scenarios (linked to the isolated or combined action of fire, water, or wind) and he distinguished them into two different levels of intensity: first, catastrophic events during volcanic eruptions and also in the fast process of consolidation with fractures of Earth’s crust following the violent downpour of rain on the fluid incandescent surface; and, second, slower and uniform events during the sedimentary deposition which occurred within the waters of the ancient sea.

Arduino’s position with regard to the different physical causes of the formation of his four lithostratigraphic orders (and therefore of the three classes of mountains) emerged clearly in “Saggio Fisico-Mineralogico” (1774). This text represented the more mature expression of his geological thinking. Fire alone was responsible for the formation of the oldest primary mountains of the first subdivision, as well as for the primeval rocks placed at the base of all the visible rock formations. Water was the only geological agent that determined the deposition of the alluvial and coastal terrains respectively in the planes and marine coasts, composing the fourth order which was of more recent formation with respect to the others. Between these two lithogenetic stages (respectively oldest and latest) of Arduino’s classification were placed the second subdivision of primary reliefs—the secondary mountains (produced by water and partially modified by fire) and the tertiary mountains (of analagous origin to the secondary, but sometimes also only volcanic). Therefore, according to Arduino, water and fire had acted alternatively on all these orographic units that had formed successively within a complex chronological and orogenetic scheme.

In the early twenty-first century geologists recognize the importance of Arduino’s term tertiary, which takes its place in the modern standard stratigraphic column. Moreover, Arduino’s reflections on the alternate action of fire and water during the long geological history of Earth’s surface opened up the possibility of an actual third way between the catastrophist and uniformitarian hypotheses, beyond the too-rigid historiographical division between “Neptunism” and “Vulcanism” or “Plutonism.”

Arduino’s geological researches during the second half of the eighteenth century concerned mostly the stratigraphy of the Venetian Alps and pre-Alps, but also included the possible volcanic nature of some rocks of the same area. These studies gave him a huge reputation in the European scientific community. His printed works, above all the “Due lettere” (1759) and the “Saggio Fisico-Mineralogico,” were widely known outside of Italy. The anthological Raccolta di memorie chimico-mineralogiche (Collection of Chemical-mineralogical Memoirs, 1775) contained these two previous works as well as other significant writings mainly published in the Venetian scientific journal Giornale d’Italia such as the letters on the remains of some extinct volcanoes in Veneto (“Alcune osservazioni Orittologiche,” 1769; “Effetti di antichissimi Vulcani,” 1775). In the German-speaking states the main works of Arduino were part of private and academic scientific libraries. They were included in the German edition of the Raccolta(Sammlung, 1778), promoted by the Austrian mineralogist Ignaz von Born, and translated by the mining officer August Constantin von Ferber, companion in studies of the distinguished mineralogist Abraham Gottlob Werner in the Mining Academy of Freiberg in Saxony.

Arduino had a large correspondence with several European scientists, especially in Germany and in Sweden. Some letters were printed, mostly in the Giornale d’Italia, which was published in Venice from 1764 to 1796. However, a considerable amount of his correspondence was never published, including some of his scientific writings. Arduino cataloged all his papers—even the rough copies of his letters: every note, letter, or drawing was ordered in files according to subject. He also kept all the correspondence he received in the relevant subject files. Some of the original labeled folders are still preserved in the Giovanni Arduino manuscript collection kept in the Municipal Library of Verona in northern Italy and reordered from 1987 to 1988 (the catalog is published in Ezio Vaccari, I manoscritti di uno scienziato veneto, 1994). In the previous years only a few scholars had examined the papers of Arduino because of their disorganized state. Currently the whole collection, more than one thousand papers, is divided in new thematic folders, distributed inside five boxes (location numbers: 757–761) according to the different subjects of their contents.

The correspondence of Arduino from 1758 to 1793 (sent and received letters) includes distinguished European scientists such as Ignaz von Born, Johann Jakob Ferber, Alberto Fortis, Anton Maria Lorgna, Anders Jahan Retzius, and John Strange. Many handwritten papers, notes, and drawings concern the different fields of the scientific work of Arduino: his researches concerning the geology, mineralogy, and mining of the Venetian area; his reports of chemical and metallurgical experiments and also documents about the scientific controversies on the process of the fusion of iron and about the project for a new furnace for the evaporation of the vitriol; his agricultural and hydraulic writings for the Venetian government; his geological sketches, mining drawings, and bibliographical summaries, together with pieces of information received from various people concerning his main scientific interests. Among these papers some original writings stand out: the Risposta Allegorico-Romanzesca; rough notes on fieldwork such as the description of the volcanic rocks (among them is listed basalt) in San Giovanni Ilarione in the Alpone Valley near Verona; sketches concerning the mines of the Tretto hills; and the stratigraphy of the Agno Valley in the territory of Vicenza.

Like many other eighteenth-century geologists, Arduino had a large collection of minerals, rocks, and fossils. He collected them mainly during his fieldwork in the Venetian area during the 1760s, but also before this time when he was director of mines in Tuscany and Veneto. He collected fossils and precious stones at the request of noble Venetians for enriching their naturalistic cabinets. Many specimens were also given to Arduino by various correspondents in Italy and abroad. In return he often sent to them small collections of Italian material. Between 1779 and 1782 he sent two boxes of minerals and volcanic rocks, mostly from northern Italy and Vesuvius, to the German scientists Franz Karl Achard and to Nathanael Gottfried Leske. The sixty-five specimens sent to Leske in Leipzig were included in his large collection, which was bought in 1792 by the Dublin Society and is now kept in the National Museum of Ireland. Some specimens from the Leskean collection kept in Dublin have been identified by Ezio Vaccari and Nigel Monaghan (“I minerali di Giovanni Arduino,” 1993) as those sent from Arduino to Leske. The collection owned by Arduino in Venice was purchased after his death by the marquis Giovan Battista Gazola in Verona, but this collection was taken in 1797 by the French army and probably was brought to Paris where, to date, it has been not possible to trace Arduino’s specimens.

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS BY ARDUINO

“Due lettere del sig. Giovanni Arduino sopra varie sue osservazioni naturali.” 30 January and 30 March 1759. In Nuova Raccolta di Opuscoli Scientifici e Filologici 6 (1760): xcix–clxxx.

“Alcune osservazioni Orittologiche fatte nei Monti del Vicentino.” 21 March 1769. In Giornale d’Italia 5 (1769): 409–411.

“Saggio Fisico-Mineralogico di Lythogonia e Orognosia.” Atti dell’Accademia delle Scienze di Siena, detta de’ Fisiocritici 5 (1774): 228–300.

Raccolta di memorie chimico-mineralogiche, metallurgiche e orittografiche del Signor Giovanni Arduino, e di alcuni suoi Amici, Tratte dal Giornale d’Italia. Venice: Milocco, 1775.

Sammlung einiger mineralogisch-chymisch-metallurgisch und oryktographischer Abhandlungen, des Herr Johann Arduino, und einiger Freunde desselben. Aus dem italianischen übersetzt, durch A.C.v.F.C.S.B.C.R. [August Constantin von Ferber]. Dresden, Germany: In der Waltherischen Hofbuchhandlung, 1778.

“Descrizione epistolare, con osservazioni chimiche, di alcuni prodotti fossili inviati al Sig. Achard.” 23 April 1779. In Nuovo Giornale d’Italia 4 (1780): 2–5, 9–12, 17–20, 25–28, 33–37.

“Al Celebre Signor Nathanael Godofredo Leske Lettera Orittologica del Ch. Sign. Giovanni Arduino con Indice di Saggi di alcune produzioni Vulcaniche, Minerali e Fossili da esso al medesimo professore dirette.” 2 July 1782. In Nuovo Giornale d’Italia 7 (1783): 9–14, 17–23.

“Effetti di antichissimi Vulcani osservati dal Sig. Giovanni Arduino, nel mese di Marzo dell’anno 1769, nei monti della Villa di Chiampo, e di altri Luoghi vicini del Territorio di Vicenza.” March 1769. In Raccolta di memorie chimicomineralogiche, metallurgiche e orittografiche. Venice: Milocco, 1775. Reprinted in Nuovo Giornale d’Italia 7 (1783): 161–167.

“Primo contributo all’inventario del carteggio di Giovanni Arduino.” Edited and translated by Ezio Vaccari. Nuncius. Annali di Storia della Scienza 5 (1990): 79–126. The first inventory of Arduino’s correspondence in the period 1753 to 1795 is provided in this text.

Risposta Allegorico Romanzesca di Voniangi Riduano, OsservatoreLongobardo, al Celebre Orittologo viaggiatore Signor Giovanni-Giacomo Ferber del Collegio Metallico di Svezia, sopra la Genesi della presente faccia della Terra. Manuscript in Biblioteca Civica, Verona, Italy, “Fondo G. Arduino,” b. 758, II.a.1–3, cc.19. This text was published as “Storia della Terra e tempi geologici in uno scritto inedito di Giovanni Arduino: la ‘Risposta Allegorico-Romanzesca’ a Ferber.” Annotated by Ezio Vaccari. Nuncius. Annali di Storia della Scienza 6 (1991): 171–211.

“I manoscritti di uno scienziato veneto del Settecento: notizie storiche e catalogo del fondo ‘Giovanni Arduino’ della Biblioteca Civica di Verona.” In Atti dell’Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, edited by Ezio Vaccari. Classe di Scienze fisiche, matematiche e naturali 151 (1992–1993): 271–373. The catalog of Arduino’s collection of manuscripts in the Municipal Library (Biblioteca Civica) of Verona is published here.

OTHER SOURCES

Arrigoni, Tiziano. “Geologia e ricerca mineraria nel Settecento: Giovanni Arduino e le miniere di Toscana.” Ricerche storiche(Piombino) 15 (1985): 275–297. A useful study on Arduino’s mining activity in Tuscany.

Bassani, Angelo. “Una perizia di Giovani Arduino: l’analisi chimico-merceologica del natro.” Rendiconti della Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL,Memorie di Scienze Fisiche e naturali 5, no. 16 (1992): 453–462. Short study of one of the many unpublished chemical reports written by Arduino for the Venetian government.

Curi, Ettore, ed. Scienza, tecnica e “pubblico bene” nell’opera di Giovanni Arduino (1714–1795).Convegno di Studi-Verona, 9–10 febbraio 1996. Verona, Italy: Accademia di Agricoltura, Scienze e Lettere, 1999. Proceedings of the main symposium on Arduino, including significant papers on his diverse scientific researches and technical skills.

Fumi, Gianpiero. “Giovanni Arduino.” In Scritti teorici e tecnici di agricoltura, II.Dal Settecento agli inizi dell’Ottocento, edited by Sergio Zaninelli, 131–144. Milan, Italy: Il Polifilo, 1989. This is a biographical sketch based on Arduino’s agricultural activities.

Giormani,Virgilio. “Giovanni Arduino e il problema del salnitro nella Repubblica Veneta.” Rendiconti della Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL,Memorie di Scienze Fisiche e naturali 5, no. 16 (1992): 447–452. An examination of Arduino’s proposals for the production of saltpeter in the Republic of Venice.

Lazzari, Corrado, and Fabrizio Bizzarini, eds. Atti del Seminario“Giovanni Arduino e i geologi veneti del Settecento” (Venezia, 1 giugno 1995). Venice: Società Veneziana di Scienze NaturaliMuseo Civico di Storia Naturale, 1996. These proceedings of a workshop include the presentation of new archival documents by Giorgio Zoccoletto on the nomination of Arduino as supervisor of agriculture in the ministry for the improvement of uncultivated land of the Republic of Venice.

Vaccari, Ezio. “L’attività agronomica di Pietro e Giovanni Arduino.” In Scienze e tecniche agrarie nel Veneto dell’Ottocento, 129–167. Venice: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1992. A comparative study of the agronomical works of the brothers Pietro and Giovanni Arduino.

———.Giovanni Arduino (1714–1795). Il contributo di uno scienziato veneto al dibattito settecentesco sulle scienze della Terra. Florence, Italy: Olschki, 1993. A complete and detailed biography on Arduino, based on published and unpublished sources with particular attention to his geological studies within the eighteenth century European scientific context. Includes the complete bibliography of Arduino’s works.

———. “Cultura scientifico-naturalistica ed esplorazione del territorio: Giovanni Arduino e Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti.” In La politica della scienz: Toscana e Stati italiani nel tardo Settecento, edited by Giulio Barsanti, Vieri Becagli, and Renato Pasta, 243–263. Florence, Italy: Olschki, 1996. A comparative study of the scientific methods and the geological theories of Arduino and the Tuscan naturalist Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti.

———. “The ‘Classification’ of Mountains in Eighteenth Century Italy and the Lithostratigraphic Theory of Giovanni Arduino (1714–1795).” In The Origins of Geology in Italy, edited by Gian Battista Vai and W. Glen E. Caldwell, 155–175. Geological Society Special Paper 411. Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America, 2006. A detailed analysis of Arduino’s most influential geological theory.

———. “From Tyrol to Venice: The Papers of Giovanni Arduino (1714–1795) as Valuable Sources for the History of Mining and Geology.” Geo.Alp (Innsbruck) Sonderband 1 (2007): 155–164. A presentation of Arduino’s collection of manuscripts in the Municipal Library (Biblioteca Civica) of Verona.

———, and Nigel T. Monaghan. “I minerali di Giovanni Arduino nella collezione geo-mineralogica di Nathanael Gottfried Leske: Verifica di un caso di comunicazione scientifica nell’Europa del tardo Settecento.” Geologica Romana 29 (1993): 547–565. A study on the exchange of rocks and minerals between Arduino and the German naturalist Nathanael Gottfried Leske is the focus of this text.

Ezio Vaccari

Arduino (or Arduini), Giovanni

views updated Jun 08 2018

Arduino (or Arduini), Giovanni

(b. Caprino Veronese, Italy, 16 October 1714; d. Venice, Italy, 21 March 1795)

geology.

Arduino was born of poor parents, and it was only through the interest of the Marchese Andrea Carlotti, who was impressed by the boy’s intelligence and by his aptitude for the exact sciences, that he was able to complete a good literary and mathematical education at Verona. He did not, however, take a degree. Arduino spent much of his youth working in the mines of Chiusa di Bressanone (in the Upper Adige valley), and was soon able to establish himself as a mining expert.

Today Arduino is counted among the founders of geology: by applying Galilean methodology to investigations of the earth’s structure and composition for the first time, he achieved results of lasting validity. He was, above all, a typical representative of the utilitarian rationalism characteristic of the eighteenth-century European mind. In Italy many governments turned to natural scientists for aid in solving the serious economic problems that resulted from a great increase in population. Scientists were employed to search for new or neglected resources, and to study and develop technological procedures that would be of economic advantage. In the Republic of Venice, of which Arduino was a citizen, the excellent reputation that he had earned as a scientist and technician, both as an independent mining expert and in the service of the city of Venice, led the Senate, in 1769, to entrust him with an important office concerned with the development of agriculture and industry throughout the republic.

The diversity of problems faced by Arduino in agriculture and industry is striking. He made each problem the subject of thorough study, most often accompanied by original experimental research, especially in chemistry and metallurgy. A few of his concerns were the reclamation of marshy lands, the fattening of cattle for slaughter, the construction of agricultural equipment for cultivating grain and rice, a chemical study of the ashes of marine plants to be used in glassmaking, and a metallurgical study of the best way of working iron to obtain the best possible castings. He sometimes had the collaboration of his brother Pietro (1728–1805), a botanist who was appointed to the first chair of agriculture at the University of Padua.

Arduino’s lifelong passion, however, was mining. Following his early work in the mines of the Upper Adige valley, Arduino worked for an English copper and lead mining company in Montieri and Boccheggiano (Massa Marittima) in 1773 and for a mercury mining operation in Monte Amiata in 1775. Even during his stay in Vicenza and in Venice, he did not miss an opportunity to visit and study mine sites; and in view of this interest, the Venetian Senate commissioned him to make a complete study of all the mines in the republic’s territory.

Arduino’s contribution to mining was not merely economic, for he was also receptive to the new discipline of geology. He used to say, “I have always loved to begin with facts, to observe them, to walk in the light of experiment and demonstration as much as possible, and to discuss the results.” By observing the phenomena of nature without prejudice or consideration of the opinions of contemporary scientists, from John Woodward to William Whiston, he was able to identify four very distinct geological units of successively later periods in the Atesine Alps, the foothills of the Alps. the subalpine hills, and the plains of the Po. Discussing his observations, he established the bases for modern stratigraphic chronology: “From whatever I have been able to observe up to this time, the series of strata which form the visible crust of the earth appear to me classified in four general and successive orders. These four orders can be conceived to be four very large strata, as they really are, so that wherever they are exposed, they are disposed one above the other, always in the same way.” He called these orders Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary, specifying that each was constituted of innumerable minor strata of different materials formed at different times under different conditions. He proposed a further subdivision only for the Primary order, distinguishing a lower part constituted of metamorphic rocks and an upper part of formerly sedimentary, calcareous, and arenaceous rocks. In consequence, he attributed to the Primary order the Paleozoic formations of the Atesine Alps; to the Secondary order, the Mesozoic prealpine formations from Lombardy to Venezia; and to the Tertiary order, the band of subalpine hills from Lombardy to Venezia and the Pliocene hills of Tuscany. In the Quaternary order he considered the alluvial deposits of the plain that stretches to the foot of the Alps.

Arduino’s vision of paleontology was correspondingly clear. Not only did he understand that fossil species change according to variations in the age of the terrains in which they occur, but he also realized that in the Secondary order “unrefined and imperfect” species are found, while in the Tertiary order the species are “very perfect and wholly similar to those that are seen in the modern sea.” He affirmed, as a result, that “as many ages have elapsed during the elevation of the Alps, as there are races of organic fossil bodies embedded within the strata.” Arduino’s investigations extended to magmatic rocks; he identified, among other things, the trachytic origin of the Euganean Hills and of the basaltic rocks in the area of Verona and Vicenza, rocks he linked to “ancient extinct volcanoes.” He also realized the transformations that magmatic rocks can work upon preexistent sedimentary rocks. In these special researches, as in his general study of rocks and minerals, he utilized his skill as a chemist.

Arduino was one of the most brilliant precursors of actualism: “With the sole guidance of our practical knowledge of those physical agents which we see actually used in the continuous workings of nature, and of our knowledge of the respective effects induced by the same workings, we can with reasonable basis surmise what the forces were which acted even in the remotest times.”

Arduino’s fundamental ideas were diffused throughout Europe by means of his publications, his frequent letters to and conferences with Italian and foreign scholars, and, above all, the active interest of Ignaz de Born and Johann Jacob Ferber. De Born translated a collection of Arduino’s writings into German, and Ferber fervently expounded Arduino’s geological results in his well-known work on the natural history of Italy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Original Works. Arduino’s geological writings, of which there is no collected critical edition, include “Due lettere del Signor Giovanni Arduino sopra varie sue osservazioni naturali,” in Nuova raccolta d’opuscoli scientifici e filologici (dell’ abate Calogerà) 6 (1760), 97, 133; Raccolta di memorie chimico-mineralogiche, metallurgiche e orittografiche (Venice, 1775), also translated into German by Ignaz de Born (Dresden, 1778); and “Effetti di antichissimi vulcani estinti...nei monti della villa di Chiampo, ed in altri luoghi del territorio di Vicenza e di quello di Verona,” in Nuovo giornale d’Italia, 7 (1783), 163.

II. Secondary Literature. There is no definitive biography, but see T.A. Catullo, Elogio di Giovanni Arduino (Padua, 1835), which has an incomplete bibliography of Arduino’s works; G.B. Ronconi, Giovanni Arduino e le miniere di Toscana (Padua, 1865); and G. Stegagno. Il veronese Giovanni Arduino e il suo contributo alla scienza geologicaFurther, since Aretaeusl probably knew (Verona, 1929), in which sketches and sections are reproduced from unpublished manuscripts that show Arduino to be a precursor of geological cartography.

Francesco Rodolico

Arduino, Giovanni

views updated May 08 2018

Arduino, Giovanni (1714–95) Arduino was a Venetian mining engineer, who devised a classification of the rocks of northern Italy, later adopted by T. O. Bergman, A. G. Werner, etc. He distinguished between the Primary (mountain mica-slates), Secondary (mountain limestones, with marine fossils), and Tertiary rocks (fossiliferous valley sediments).

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