Juan Vilanova y Piera
Juan Vilanova y Piera (born May 5, 1821 in Valencia , † June 7, 1893 in Madrid ) was one of the earliest and most important Spanish geologists and paleontologists .
Life
Juan Vilanova y Piera was the son of Vicente Vilanova Miralles and Teresa Piera Minguet, who lived in Alcalà de Xivert, the town where their father was born. They moved to Valencia. The son studied medicine and natural sciences (ciencias) at the university . As a student of Donato García, he taught geology and paleontology at the Universidad Central de Madrid , where he acquired fossils and minerals from all over Europe in order to acquire them for what was then the Museo de Historia Natural, now the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid . He also published about his travels. He taught natural history at the University of Oviedo , then lived in Paris for four years and was finally appointed to the University of Madrid in 1852.
Through the collaboration with Antonio Orio, José María Solano and Francisco Quiroga, the foundations of their respective sciences were laid in Spain, namely mineralogy, geology and crystallography . In 1867 the first international geology congress took place in Madrid. At the same time, Vilanova y Piera was a member of the commission that developed geological maps and the Junta Nacional de Estadística. In 1871 he belonged to the group of scientists who founded the Sociedad española de Historia Natural , and of which he became president in 1878. In 1874 he had already become a member of the Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales .
He became known beyond the scientific framework after he had made the first dinosaur find in Spain, namely the remains of an Iguanodon , but above all when he defended the wall paintings from the Altamira cave discovered in 1868 as real. He also discovered important sites such as Parpalló or the Cova Negra . Nevertheless, he remained a creationist and opposed the findings of Charles Darwin . Long before Darwin's main work was published, he made his ideas known in Spain.
On December 1, 1889, Juan Vilanova y Piera was elected a member ( matriculation number 2856 ) of the Leopoldina .
Works (selection)
- Origen, Naturaleza y Antigüedad del hombre , Madrid 1872. ( digitized version )
- Compendio de Geología , Alejandro Gómez Fuentenebro, Madrid 1872.
- La Creación. Historia Natural , Montaner y Simón, Barcelona 1872–1876.
- Atlas Geográfico Universal , Astort Hermanos, Madrid 1877.
- Teoría y práctica de pozos artesianos y arte de alumbrar aguas , Madrid 1880.
literature
- Francisco Pelayo López, Rodolfo Gozalo Gutiérrez: Juan Vilanova y Piera (1821–1893), la obra de un naturalista y prehistoriador valenciano: la donación Masiá Vilanova en el Museo de Prehistoria de Valencia , Museu de Prehistòria de València, Valencia 2012 (biographical part on p. 5–16). ( online )
- Manuel Julivert: Una historia de la geología en España , Barcelona 2014, pp. 114–122.
Remarks
- ↑ Juan Vilanova y Piera, Francisco M. Tubino: Viaje científico á Dinamarca y Suecia con motivo del Congreso internacional prehistorico celebrado en Copenhague en 1869 , Madrid 1871 ( digitized ).
- ↑ Member entry of Juan Vilanova y Piera at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on September 28, 2017.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vilanova y Piera, Juan |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Spanish geologist and paleontologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 5, 1821 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Valencia |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 7, 1893 |
| Place of death | Madrid |