Valerius Faventies’ De montium origine (1561): a dialogue on the origin of mountains

The speculations on the origin of Earth’s geological shape sensu latu has stimulated the interest of philosophers at least since Aristotle, who in his Meteorologica sets out his theories on the relationships between the elements common to air and water, as well as the types and parts of the Earth and the physical phenomena developing inside the earthly sphere, according to the geocentric model. For Aristotle, as well as for Seneca and Pliny, the study of the mountains was aimed to clarify the origin of rivers, earthquakes and volcanic phenomena. At the beginning of the modern era, the Dominican friar Valerius Faventies published a booklet that investigated the natural phenomena and the possible causes of the origin of mountains (De montium origine, 1561), a work inspired by the well-known 13th century Italian treatise La composizione del mondo colle sue cascioni (the composition of the world with its causes) by Ristoro d’Arezzo (Romano, 2023). The booklet reports a dialogue between two gentlemen, Rodulphus and Camillus, during a leisure time (otium) in a countryside villa nestled on the shores of the Garda Lake, in Italy, near the town of Garda, in front of towering mountains plunging steeply into the lake. Valerius Faventies (1525? – 1598) was born in Verona to a wealthy family whose founder was a captain of fortune who emigrated from Faenza (Faventia) in the early 15th century. He lived for a long time in Venice, where he was a member and theologian of the Accademia Venetiana (or Accademia della Fama), whose printing house published his De montium origine. This work collects the theories formulated by classical authors on the nature of mountains and landmasses in the context of world history and the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church. An expert scholar grown in classical culture, Faventies summarizes the theories and hypotheses on the origin of mountains collected in Greek, Latin and medieval sources. However, his approach is not that of a leading innovator, at least in terms of the development of original concepts: in fact, the speculations that marked a fundamental change in the interpretation of the nature of geological strata were formulated only later in Nicholas Steno’s Prodromus (1669). Faventies failed to create logical connections between the various theories, nor did he draw conclusions that could be used for field testing: he is neither an observer nor an experimenter. Nothing is interpreted through direct observations of nature. Georgius Agricola, who had already used the method of direct observation of geological objects, remains a dead letter. Faventies seems not to know Agricola’s works, or deliberately does not cite them, even if he uses the discussions on “underground phenomena” reported in De ortu et causis subterraneorum (Agricola, 1546). However, Faventies managed to collate in good order most of the knowledge handed down through the works of classical authors on the origin of the mountains with an uncommon clarity of exposition.