Local history

The schematic nature of the stratigraphic representation, its temporal and alluvial implications, recall the famous schematic stratigraphy in Steno's De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus (Florence, 1669). Without implying any influence (but neither excluding it), the comparison is proposed to underscore how the discovery of Herculaneum and Pompeii re-proposed, in an "archaeological" context, many of the issues debated in geology in previous centuries, including the difficult interpretation of burnt but unconsumed wood, reminiscent of the seventeenth-century geological debate on coal.

This volume collects various texts by Lippi and other authors relating to the controversy sparked in 1810-16, within the Royal Academy of Sciences of Naples, by Lippi's hypothesis of Pompeii's submersion by a "volcanic flood" (cf. pp. 157 ff.). Lippi communicated his hypothesis in 1810 to the secretary of the Academy, Teodoro Monticelli, and in two letters to the famous German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817). In the academic debate that followed, Lippi was defended by Matteo Tondi and attacked by Saverio Macrì.

The third written work on the history of Palestrina dates back to 1795: Memorie prenestine disposizione in forma di annali. The work, printed in Rome by the Pagliarini Printing House, was authored by Pietrantonio Petrini (1722-1803), a historian from Palestrina known for his great erudition as the "Muratori di Palestrina."

The work comes chronologically after the works of Suarez, Praenestes Antiquae (1655), and Cecconi, Storia di Palestrina città del Prisco Lazio, (1756); it is particularly important because for the first time an ordinary citizen, not religious, attempted a work "that stands out in the context of Palestrina historiography for the peculiar specificity of the cognitive contribution" (Fancelli, 1990). "Pietrantonio Petrini – writes Fancelli again – fully experienced the eighteenth century in its cultural climate, albeit from a necessarily provincial observatory".

His "Memorie prenestine" (Prenestine Memoirs) is his major work, which was reprinted in 1990 by the Circolo Culturale Prenestino "Simeoni" with a preface by Paolo Fancelli. The book is characterized by its annalistic approach and the extensive coverage of the archaeological discoveries unfolding in those years. Dedicated to Prince Stanislao Poniatowski, an art collector, it comprises 517 pages and six engraved plates depicting the map of the diocese of Palestrina, the city's territory and its surrounding walls, a now-lost mosaic, a cist and a mirror, three cameos, a sundial, and a woman's head.

In the preface to the facsimile reprint, Fancelli emphasized that "Petrini's is perhaps, in its own way and in a broad sense, a micro-history, in any case founded on the objective knowledge of the greatest possible number of sources. It is, moreover, a history of facts, and within a territorial context, not just an urban one, with frequent references to a historical-geographical context, predominantly, obviously, Roman. This undoubtedly provides the work with a breadth of knowledge, making it part of a chain of events and stories on a much larger scale. The distinctive feature of this work is that it proceeds systematically in illustrating every event in some way pertaining to the city (discoveries, looting, plagues, construction and restoration of buildings, episcopal settlements, etc.), all largely corroborated by extensive references in the notes to the sources: this is corroborated by the extensive array of epigraphs and archival documents included in the Appendices." The work's Muratorian-inspired philological imprint is evident... The discourse unfolds in a rigorously annalistic form, in dry and precise terms... and therefore – concludes Fancelli – the facsimile reprint of Pietrantonio Petrini's Memoirs has long been called for so that the volume will be more easily accessible even to those who may be preparing to fill the gaps in Praenestine historiography and it is a fruitful investment for any future study".

Petrini died on July 29, 1803; on the occasion of the first centenary of his death, the City of Palestrina remembered him with a plaque on the facade of his birthplace, in Piazza Garibaldi.