Archaeology and natural sciences. Giovanni Antonio Antolini’s unpublished texts and drawings

In the years prior to 1818, Giovanni Antonio Antolini (1753-1841) devoted himself to studying the ruins of the ancient Roman settlement of Velleia, which at the time was part of the Duchy of Parma. With regard to the studies he conducted at the site, Antolini left a rare illustrated, handwritten notebook and a collection of original drawings, both of which have been preserved in the Piancastelli Collection at the Forlì municipal library and, to the best of our knowledge, are unpublished. The notebook relates to the third and last journey Antolini made to Velleia in the spring of 1818. This paper discusses the documents in the context of the architectural culture and the natural scientific culture at the turn of the nineteenth century. Prior to becoming an architect and an academy professor, Antolini was an engineer, an expert in hydraulics and the use of geodetic instruments. His scientific education took place in Bologna and he later worked in a context modelled on the political and cultural influences of a French culture shaped by the Enlightenment, typical of the Duchy of Parma at that time. In the field of archaeology and that of the observation of nature, Antolini displayed a curiosity for all aspects of the real world and an aptitude for understanding its rationale and finding thorough explanations. He observed and meticulously annotated each phenomenon, drew and measured every detail, making many observations before later reorganising them into a single rational system.