Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Lettere filosofiche e scientifiche. Lettera sul progresso delle scienze.

The Lettres de M. de Maupertuis, here proposed in their Italian translation of XVIII century (original title: Lettere filosofiche del sig. di Maupertuis, Venezia 1760), were published in Dresden in 1752. The work consists of a collection of short scientific and philosophical letters in which the author, then President of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, critically presents the state of art of physics and natural history in the first half of XVIII century. In the last letter, the famous Lettre sur le progrès des sciences (considered one of the most interesting texts of middle '700), Maupertuis proposes innovative, and sometimes imaginative research programs to be supported by government funds. The Lettres arised the shortsighted irony of Voltaire, probably envious of the success of Maupertuis at the court of Potsdam, which led to the rupture of relations between the two French students. The medical-biological letters are particularly interesting, because of their modernity and knowingness. Among them, there is the often cited Letter on the generation of animals, in which Maupertuis, "evoluzionist" ante litteram, gives his support to the epigenetic theory, through a pioneering "genetic" study conducted on a family of Berlin, thus disproving the preformationism (ovist or animalculist) then prevailing.