Montagne di Lombardia. Il caso Gorini dal «Politecnico» di Cattaneo al «Crepuscolo» di Tenca

Abstract

In mid-19th century Milan an eccentric scientist named Paolo Gorini, already well-known for his studies on the mineralisation of organic tissues, published a revolutionary scientific study entitled L’origine delle montagne (1851). He accompanied this with his discovery of a so-called plutonic liquid, spectacular public demonstrations and his proposal for a new branch of ‘experimental geology’. Resonating both on an international scale and amongst the most dynamic Milanese cultural milieus, the case surrounding Gorini was not confined to the scientific community and scientific institutions, but instead was embraced by all of society and by the literary world as well (e.g. Cattaneo, Tenca, Manzoni, Rovani and the Scapigliatura). In a city deeply scarred by revolts and recent defeats, a prestigious scientific discovery of this nature could indeed represent a sort of compensation, with both civil and political repercussions. Even Carlo Tenco’s newly-created weekly Il Crepuscolo, put its reputation on the line when from 1851 to 1853 it dedicated columns to the ever-growing polemical debate-one that continued until the 1870s before it died out. This study reconstructs for the first time the case surrounding Gorino the ‘geologist’ in its entirety, and in so doing it provides support to other recently published studies on Gorini in his more well-known vestige of ‘petrifier’ (see in particular La mummia della repubblica by Sergio Luzzatto), all the while highlighting key aspects of the cultural, scientific and literary spheres operating during the Risorgimento and unification period.