De corporibus marinis lapidescentibus quæ defossa reperiuntur

This illustrated 1752 publication brings together two seventeenth-century works that paved the way for the study of palaeontology. Sicilian artist Agostino Scilla (1629-1700) and Neapolitan botanist Fabio Colonna (1567-1640) both argued that fossils were the remains of living organisms rather than extraordinary mineral phenomena with magical properties.