Cosimo De Giorgi e "l'amore delle pietre"

Cosimo De Giorgi, starting from 1869 and in the first decades after the Italian unification, carries out an extraordinary work of exploration, research and knowledge of Salento. Stimulated by a fruitful 'scientific emulation' and by familiarity with the highest (national and European) peaks of geo-morphological experimentation, he finds, especially in Giovanni Capellini – with whom he had taken part a few years earlier "in geological excursions in the Bolognese" – the landmark for this essential field of study. In 1876 Cosimo De Giorgi dedicated his first volume of the 'Geological notes on the Province of Lecce' to the great scientist from La Spezia, the magnificent rector of the University of Bologna and one of the greatest Italian geologists, who had made him "fall in love with stones". This essay delves into an important moment in the formation of the great scientist from Salento.