Biagio Bartalini's "Catalogo dei corpi marini fossili che si trovano intorno a Siena" (1776)

1776, the Sienese botanist Biagio Bartalini (1750-1822) published a catalogue of wild plants growing around Siena, adding an appendix on fossils found in the same area, that is the first monograph on Sienese fossils and one of the first works of its kind in Italy. This paper provides tentative identifications of the Species and an analysis of the value and meaning of Bartalini's work. The catalogue reports 72 species, each denoted by a list of names applied to analogous living taxa. Identification of single entities is extremely problematical because it can only be attempted through analysis of the literature, since the original material cannot be traced. The most interesting report is the first record of a Euro-Mediterranean Pliocene species of Sthenolytis (Gastropoda, Epitoniidae). Though important, the catalogue is incomplete, with oversights and mistakes, suggesting little familiarity with the subject. Shortcomings include some inconsistencies in the species sequence, the report of giant clams and the absence of molluscs ubiquitous in the Sienese Pliocene and sharks. Nor is it true that it is the first Italian palaeontological work in which binomial nomenclature was used, as sometimes claimed.