Lorenzo Nicolò Pareto (

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

, 6 December 1800 – Genoa, 19 June 1865) was an Italian geologist and statesman. As a man of science, he is considered one of the fathers of modern

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

. A member of the Italian National Academy of Sciences, he is credited with naming the Villafranchian age, a

European land mammal age The European Land Mammal Mega Zones (abbreviation: ELMMZ, more commonly known as European land mammal ages or ELMA) are zones in rock layers that have a specific assemblage of fossils ( biozones) based on occurrences of fossil assemblages of Europ ...

between 3 and 2 million years ago overlapping the end of the Pliocene era and beginning of the Pleistocene era. As a politician, he is remembered as a member of Giovine Italia and a patriot during the period of

Italian unification The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of ...

. He was the President of the Chamber of Deputies of the 2nd and 3rd legislatures of

Kingdom of Sardinia The Kingdom of Sardinia, also referred to as the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica among other names, was a State (polity), country in Southern Europe from the late 13th until the mid-19th century, and from 1297 to 1768 for the Corsican part of ...

, and served as foreign minister in the cabinet of Italian writer and statesman Cesare Balbo, first constitutional prime minister of

Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pareto, Lorenzo 1800 births 1865 deaths Scientists from Genoa 19th-century Italian geologists Members of the Chamber of Deputies (Kingdom of Sardinia) Politicians from Genoa Scientists from the Kingdom of Sardinia