Cavaliere Carlo Antonio Fornasini (1802/1805 – 1865) was an Italian ivory trader and amateur field naturalist who worked in Mozambique.
[b] He collected numerous specimens of animals, insects and plants, and presented them to the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna in his home city for scientific study.
[c] The honorific cavaliere (roughly equivalent to the British 'Sir'; in the Latin-language sources which mention him, eques) suggests that he himself or his family had some civil distinction.
[5]: 587 [6][7]: 173 Either, he travelled to Pernambuco in Brazil, and, on returning by way of Lisbon and Genoa to Bologna, was encouraged by Professor Antonio Bertoloni and by Count Camilla Salina to pursue in Africa his interest in natural history, and travelled to Mozambique;[6] or, the House of Salina took a paternal interest in him, he left Bologna for Lisbon to pursue a career in commerce, and from there he went to Mozambique.
[8][10] He presented the many natural history specimens he collected during his time in Africa to the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna,[8][d] where they were studied by Antonio Bertoloni (1775-1869, physician and botanist),[5] his son Giuseppe Bertoloni (1804-1874, botanist and entomologist),[9] and Giovanni Giuseppe Bianconi (1809-1878, zoologist, herpetologist, botanist and geologist),[11] all professors at the University of Bologna, all full of praise for his labours.