Historia Natural de Plinio

Before dying in the eruption of Vesuvius, Pliny wrote a colossal work that, to our astonishment, is incredibly modern today. His Natural History, in the year 77 of our era, is the first great encyclopedic compilation of Antiquity about Nature and the world that surrounds us, from star constellations to insects. Pliny the Elder already wrote then that the Earth was round. We know what the various sculptures preserved from those distant days represent because he described them in great detail (for otherwise we could not). Through its pages we perceive the importance of the figure of Pliny, the scholar, soldier and scientist who died in the eruption that buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in the year 79, and with him, the unsuspected topicality of a fascinating work on Nature that, just like two thousand years ago, continues to challenge us on topics as current as the predatory role of man on Earth, the wonders of our planet and the need to safeguard the natural legacy of which we are a part. Xosé Antonio López Silva, an accomplished expert in classical philology, brings us closer in this stimulating book to Pliny's prodigious contributions to Natural History, revealing to the perplexed reader that his immense wealth of knowledge has not aged one iota.