Ermenegildo Pini (17 June 17393 January 1825) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

clergyman, naturalist, mathematician, geologist and philosopher. He belonged to the

Barnabite Order The Barnabites (), officially named as the Clerics Regular of Saint Paul (), are a religious order of clerics regular founded in 1530 in the Catholic Church. They are associated with the Angelic Sisters of Saint Paul and the members of the Bar ...

and worked mainly in northern Italy. He attempted to examine scientific ideas on geological phenomena and fossils and show them as being consistent with the framework of Biblical Genesis.

Biography

Pini was born in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

and went to study in the Barnabite schools at

Monza Monza (, ; ; , locally ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the Lambro, River Lambro, a tributary of the Po (river), River Po, in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capital of the province of Mo ...

and Milan. He studied philosophy and geometry and received a degree in theology in 1760 from Rome. He taught

canon law Canon law (from , , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical jurisdiction, ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its membe ...

and mathematics at the college of

Sant'Alessandro in Zebedia Sant'Alessandro in Zebedia is a parish church in Milan, Italy. It is a distinctive example of the early Lombard Baroque. History The original church was built in the 5th century, on the ruins of the Pretorium which tradition holds was the priso ...

. In 1773 he was appointed head of the newly created Museum of Sant’Alessandro. During the subsequent years, he collected specimens of geology and made studies on the rocks of Europe. He recognized the nature of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks and discussed ideas on the origin of the mountains in the region, measuring the heights of their peaks. Pini also translated Nathanael Gottfried Leske's German work ''Anfangsgründe der Naturgeschichte'' into Italian. He noticed mollusc shells in strata found high in the mountains and questioned attempts by

Neptunists Neptunism is a superseded scientific theory of geology proposed by Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817) in the late 18th century, who proposed that rocks formed from the crystallisation of minerals in the early Earth's oceans. The theory took it ...

to explain it on the basis of a primeval sea that reached to the tops of the peaks. He suggested that the difference in sea heights may have been produced by ''brief'' changes in the rate of rotation of the earth so as to make the forty-day Biblical flood plausible. Pini described a variety of

orthoclase Orthoclase, or orthoclase feldspar ( endmember formula K Al Si3 O8), is an important tectosilicate mineral which forms igneous rock. The name is from the Ancient Greek for "straight fracture", because its two cleavage planes are at right angles ...

called Adularia from the

Adula Alps The Adula Alps, also known as the West Graubünden and Misox Alps, are a western Alpine mountain group, the part of the Lepontine Alps from the Lukmanier Pass, Lukmanier and St Gotthard Passes to the Splügen Pass. They lie mostly in Switzerlan ...

near Gotthard in 1780.

Writings

Pini's writings included: * (1781) Osservazioni mineralogiche sulla montagna di S. Gottardo. In:Opuscoli scelti sulle scienze e sulle arti 4. * (1783) Memoria mineralogica sulla montagna e sui contorni di S. Gottardo. Milano, Marelli. * * (1784) Mineralogische Beobachtungen über den St. Gothard. German translation by Adolf Beyer, Schneeberg of the 1781 work. * (1784) Ueber den S. Gotthardsberg und seine umliegenden Gegenden. German translation published in Vienna of the 1783 work. * (1785) Supplemento alle osservazioni sulla montagna di S. Gottardo. In: Opuscoli scelti sulle scienze e sulle arti 7, 124–128. Supplement to the 1783 work. * (1786) Osservazioni sui feldspati ed altri fossili singolari dell'Italia. In: Memorie di matematica e fisica della Società italiana, 3, 688–717. * (1790) Di alcuni fossili singolari della Lombardia Austriaca e di altre parti d'Italia. Milano, Marelli.

References

External links

* 18th-century Italian geologists 19th-century Italian geologists 18th-century Italian mathematicians 19th-century Italian mathematicians 18th-century Italian philosophers 19th-century Italian philosophers 18th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests Barnabites Italian naturalists Clergy from Milan 1739 births 1825 deaths Scientists from Milan {{Italy-scientist-stub