Roberto Mantovani

Roberto Mantovani (25 March 1854 – 10 January 1933), was an Italian geologist and violinist.

His mother, Luigia Ferrari, directed him to studies, and at the age of 11 he was accepted as a boarder in the Royal School of Music, where he was conferred with the Honorary Degree in August 1872.

He assumed that a closed continent originally covered the entire surface of a smaller earth.

[1][2] Alfred Wegener saw similarities to his own theory, but did not endorse Mantovani's earth-expansion hypothesis.

He wrote:[3] In a short article in 1909 Mantovani expressed some ideas on continental displacement and explained them by means of maps which differ in part from mine but at some points agree astonishingly closely: for example, in regard to the earlier grouping of the southern continents around southern Africa.He died in Paris.