Research in Pedology: A Historical Perspective

The present chapter deals with the history of research in pedology in Italy, with a special emphasis on soil survey, since the early stages and until the end of the past century. Early soil scientists were rooted in disciplines like agro-chemistry and geology, and their approach to pedology was conditioned by their cultural background. The first complete Soil Map of Italy is dated 1928. Its Author, the geologist de Angelis d'Ossat, was the president of the organising committee of the 1924 International Soil Conference of Rome, where the International Society of Soil Science was founded. The map was based on the geological map of Italy, drafted in scale 1:1,000,000 after the creation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. The internal disputes within the Geological Society, together with the scarce interest of most geologists for soil, did not facilitate the birth of a central soil survey institute. Soil mapping was mainly carried out by universities and research institutes, and we had to wait until 1953 for a new national level soil map (scale 1:3,125,000) to be realised by Principi, based on literature data. In 1966, a new 1:1,000,000 Soil Map of Italy was eventually published by a national committee, led by Fiorenzo Mancini. This was based on literature data and on field surveys, and the mapping units' limits, based on geomorphology, are still the basis of the most updated European 1:1,000,000 soil map. At the end of the 1980s, soil survey and mapping were taken over by the Italian regional administrations, which set up regional soil surveys working in coordination among them and with the research institutions.