Antonio Stoppani was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

 and palaeontologist. He died in 1891 aged 67

Born in Lecco

Lecco

Lecco is a town of c. 47,760 inhabitants in Lombardy, northern Italy, north of Milan, the capital of the province of Lecco. It lies at the end of the south-eastern branch of Lake Como...

, he became professor of geology in the Royal Technical Institute of Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, and was distinguished for his researches on the Triassic

Triassic

The Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 250 to 200 Mya . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...

 and Liassic formations of northern Italy.

Among his works were:

• Paleontologie Lombarde (1858-1881)
• Les petrifaction d'Esino (1858-1860)
• Géologie et paleontologie des conches a Avicula Contorta en Lombardie (1860-1865)
• Corso di geologia (3 vols, 1871-1873)
• L'Era Neozoica (1881)

In this last work the author discussed the glaciation of the Italian Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

 and the history of Italy during the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 age.

Stoppani was very important as a popularizer of science. His most popular work, Il Bel Paese (1876), presents - by means of 32 didactical/scientific conversations in front of a fireplace - ideas and concepts of the natural sciences, with a language that was accessible to the average 19th-century reader, and particularly deals with geology and the beauties of the Italian landscape.

He was the great-uncle of Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori was an Italian physician and educator, a noted humanitarian and devout Catholic best known for the philosophy of education which bears her name...

.

Anthropocene

In 1873 Stoppani acknowledged the increasing power and impact of humanity on the Earth's systems and referred to the 'anthropozoic era'. This suggestion was ignored and considered unscientific at that time, but was revived in the 1990's by Paul Crutzen when he suggested the new geological epoch anthropocene

Anthropocene

The Anthropocene is a recent and informal geologic chronological term that serves to mark the evidence and extent of human activities that have had a significant global impact on the Earth's ecosystems...

. Stoppiani was here far ahead of his own time.