Michelangelo Manicone and the revolution of geography: bridging science and territorial representation

Abstract

The rise of Naples, the Kingdoms capital, to a European center of technical-scientific excellence was made possible by the commitment of a substantial group of scholars who, at the time, represented the vanguard of knowledge. One of these figures, unjustly overlooked, was undoubtedly Michelangelo Manicone.
In the same years that Alexander von Humboldt, perfectly aligned with the Enlightenment wave that pervaded all of Europe, utilized the contribution of science to explain numerous phenomena, Manicone advocated for the necessity of a rigorous investigation of science and natural phenomena. With an approach free from preconceptions and dogmas, strengthened by an intuition comparable to the ethos that characterizes the life and works of modern and contemporary geographers, he theorized the interdependent relationship between socioeconomic development and the environment with a surprising ante litteram anthropogeographical vision.
While contemporary society is called upon to embrace new forms of environmental sensitivity and responsibility, Manicone’s intellectual legacy, with its holistic projection of the man-nature relationship, reveals itself as a fundamental contribution to the debate on sustainable development.