Abstract
Roberto Mantovani (Parma, 25 March 1854-Paris, 10 January 1933) ‐ a musician and geologist trained in the Duchy of Parma ‐ was a Consul in the French island of La Reunion at the end of the nineteenth century. In 1878 drawing general conclusions from the similarity in shape between the facing banks of a river that flowed in a volcanic fracture, and the way in which the layers corresponded, Mantovani formulated a mobilistic theory, attributing the moving apart of the continents to the expansion of the entire planet. This theory is more general than that of Wegener from the first decades of the following century. Mantovani’s hypothesis was officially recognised by the French Geological Society in 1924, which incorporated it in its body of legitimate ideas. Encouraged by Bourcart in 1924, Wegener quoted the Italian in his famous book as one who offered ideas extraordinarily close to his own. A letter of Mantovani to Wegener, and the sceptical answer of the German scientist, have been recently found. In his letter Mantovani shows a greater awareness of the predecessors of the continental drift than Wegener himself. Mantovani continued to disseminate his idea up to the last years of his life. A final pamphlet, of 1930, was printed with this dedication: «to the mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, geologists, and anyone interested in the great enigmas of the Universe». His biography has been reconstructed thanks to the correspondences carefully conserved in the archives of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ethnographic Museum Luigi Pigorini, the Societa Geografica Italiana, and in the private files of his direct descendants.
Highlights
Introduction to the correspondence InMay of 1910, Raffaele Cappelli, President of the Società Geografica Italiana, received a letter containing the following words (1): Apart from a few regions that are still little known and the two, strictly polar ones, the Earth’s surface is Mailing address: Dr Giancarlo Scalera, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Via di Vigna Murata, 605, 00143 Roma, Italy. perfectly explored so that, in our opinion, no further important geographical discovery is possible
Roberto Mantovani was well known to few specialists (Egyed, 1963, quoting a 1962 private communication of Fairbridge; Carey, 1976, p. 23; Carey, 1988, pp. 90, 92, 138; Muir Wood, 1985, pp. 56-58; Gohau, 1990, 1991; Segala, 1990, p. 115 in foot-note; Scalera 1995, 1997a, 1999 p. 166; Scalera 2003) for his ideas on the evolution of the planet Earth, little had been known of his life and work up to
Seeking the merits of the Italian in non-essential ideas such as a configuration of Pangaea similar to that of Wegener, cannot help but conceal his true merit – as the Wegener’s quotation does – which he himself strenuously claimed up to his old age: the idea, based on geographical evidence, that the Earth expands as a consequence of general laws of the universe. Like it or not, was the guardian of a highly important truth for all sciences, that it belonged to geography, and that he was defending this discovery in face of the indifference of the academic world, was extremely important
Summary
Totally visible evidence of the ancient but ongoing expansion of the layer that makes up the Earth’s surface strictly belongs to the Geography. Wegener could not escape Mantovani’s reasoning that all the opposite shores of the oceans could be joined back together to form a continuous fabric, one which would obviously have a size smaller than that of present-day Earth He quite cleverly invented a counter-argument, which enabled him to explain the opening-up of all the oceans over a constant Earth’s diameter: the contraction (due to subsequent folding) of all the continents. The postal services of the time were more efficient that the present-day Priority-post and the Italian Geographic Society secretary informed Mantovani (6): Rome, 22 September 1930 – VIII Dear Professor, In reply to your letter of 20 September, I wish to inform you that the possibility of obtaining the opportunity to give a lecture in the presence of the Head of Government is not to be hoped for. Perhaps the time was not yet ripe, especially in consideration of the fact that the idea of planetary expansion is not still readily accepted today in Academic circles
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
