Antonio Stoppani (24 August 1824 – 1 January 1891) was an Italian geologist and palaeontologist. He died in 1891 aged 67
Born in Lecco, he became professor of geology in the Royal Technical Institute of Milan, and was distinguished for his researches on the Triassic and Liassic formations of northern Italy.
Among his works were:
In this last work the author discussed the glaciation of the Italian Alps and the history of Italy during the Pleistocene 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.[1]
In 1873 Stoppani acknowledged the increasing power and impact of humanity on the Earth's systems and referred to the 'anthropozoic era'.[2] 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. Stoppiani was here far ahead of his own time.