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Abstract

Paolo Gorini (1813-1881) was an eclectic Italian scientist, a brilliant scholar self taught in natural sciences with interests in fisiology, biology, chemistry and in particular geology. He is known mainly for his theoretical and experimental contributions to the scientific study and practices of conservation of anatomical specimens and corpses (petrification), as well as on their dissolution, mainly through cremation. However, one of Gorini's main and still little known interests concerned the formation of mountains and volcanoes, which he referred to the action of "plutonium", a primordial molten matter containing gaseous parts in its mass, whose explosions would have determined, with the rupture of the Earth's crust, the orogenetic phenomena such as the "growing" of mountains. Gorini dedicated most of his time to what he called "experimental geology", which he carried out in particular with "plutonic" or "volcanic experiments", mainly in his private laboratory, about the reproduction of eruptive dynamics on small scale, using artificial models of volcanoes. He also organized public demonstrations and was invited by universities, scientific societies and popular science associations, (mainly in northern Italy) to present his "volcanic experiments". These were rather popular among the general public, which became emotionally involved in the spectacular demonstrations and fascinated by the idea that volcanic eruptions and even earthquakes could be predicted with the use of Gorini's methods. The aim of this paper is to present and analyze the public experiment which Gorini performed in Genoa on May 12, 1872 and was described by geologist Arturo Issel.