Giovanni Canestrini

Giovanni Canestrini (26 December 1835 – 14 February 1900) was an Italian naturalist and biologist and translator who was a native of Revò.

He initially studied in Gorizia and Meran, then furthered his education in natural sciences at the University of Vienna.

Canestrini made contributions in several biological disciplines, performing important research in the field of acarology.

He wrote Origine dell’uomo (The Origin of Man, 1866) which advocated common ancestry and defended Darwin from criticisms of Giovanni Giuseppe Bianconi and others, this work was published five years before Darwin's The Descent of Man.

[2] However, although Canestrini was a supporter of many of Darwin's ideas, he rejected his theories of pangenesis and sexual selection.