Abstract

CAMOS CABECERAN, Agustí. Antoni de Martí i Franquès, an isolated genius?: the arrival of Lamarckism in Barcelona in the first half of the 19th century. Dynamis [online]. 2016, vol.36, n.2, pp.391-417. ISSN 2340-7948.

Although Antoni de Martí i Franquès spent most of his life in small towns far from scientific institutions, he was not an isolated genius. In fact, he was an active contributor to the Academies in Barcelona, to which he presented five scientific reports, and he collaborated with the most prominent scientists in the city and maintained correspondence with many others. He was especially renowned in Catalonia for his activities, but he was also well known in Spain and to some extent in the rest of Europe. His research led him to defend ideas on the transformation of organisms, spontaneous generation and the antiquity of the earth that very often contradicted orthodox positions of the Spanish Catholic Church, and he published very few scientific papers due to fear of its reaction. Nevertheless, he disseminated his research and conclusions to close colleagues and friends. His acceptance of proposals very close to the evolutionism of Lamarck were decisive in the spread of these ideas among other authors in Barcelona in the first half of the 19th century, including the naturalist Agustí Yáñez and the printer Bergnes de las Casas.

Keywords : Martí i Franquès; Lamarckism; Bergnes de las Casas; Agustí Yáñez; Barcelona.

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