Athena Review Image Archive ™
Scilla, drawings of fossil fish vertebrae (1670)
Drawings of fossil fish vertebrae and other elements (Scilla 1670, tab.18.)
Agostino Scilla (1629-1700) was a late Renaissance artist and naturalist. He collected many fossils from Messina, Calabria, and Malta. He saw similarities between the everyday bones, teeth, and shells of local sea-life and the Miocene (23-5 mya) fossils of the region.
Scilla’s findings were published in 1670. alongside his highly accurate drawings, in a book entitled La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso ("The vain speculation disillusioned by the senses"). This publication is one of the earliest that used scientific observation and reasoning to argue that fossils are the remains of plants and animals from the past.
References:
Findlen, Paula. 2018. Projecting Nature: Agostino Scilla's Seventeenth-Century Fossil Drawings. Endeavour 42(2-3)
Scilla,Agostino 1670. La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso,lettera risponsiva Circa i Corpi Marini,che Petrificati si trouano in vari luoghi terrestri ("The vain speculation disillusioned by the senses, a letter concerning the marine remains, which are found petrified in various terrestrial places").
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