Comparare l’incomparabile? Le prospettive ‘proto-ecologiche’ sulla materia negli ultimi libri della Naturalis historia di Plinio il Vecchio

Abstract

As with contemporary chemistry, even the last five books of Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis historia illustrate the properties and behaviour of matter. However, in Pliny’s perspective, the constituent elements of matter are not atoms, molecules and ions but water, air, fire, and earth. In other respects, Pliny’s ‘chemistry’ is also a ‘science of the Earth’, of its fruits and – out of metaphor – its own ‘entrails’, in an organicistic model that sees Nature as an immanent and providential deity, who grants herself spontaneously to the applications and uses of humans but can also be violated by them. In this connection, Nature is conceived as a sort of ‘cosmic mother’, and every human practice must take into account the limited resources and the ‘moral’ consequences of any exploitation of her fruits.