The ‘Young Feltrinelli Prize in the Moral Sciences’ rewards young Italian researchers (under 40 years old) and offers them the opportunity to make their work known through publication in the collection dedicated to this prize, published by Routledge. It is for winning this prize in 2018 that Anna Anguissola, professor of classical archeology at the University of Pisa, in 2022 published this small work (138 pages) dedicated to Pliny the Elder. Let us say straight away that this book, written for a wide audience according to the rules of the collection, will also interest specialists in the different disciplines relating to classical antiquity. Moreover, it has all the qualities of a scientific publication: notes, a rich bibliography (111–30) and several indexes (index of passages from Natural History; index of Greek and Latin sources; general index). Around fifteen black-and-white illustrations complete the subject.

A. had already in 2020 produced, with Andreas Grüner, a large and luxurious work on a related theme, The Nature of Art: Pliny the Elder on Materials (Brepols), which focused on the testimony of Pliny the Elder on art based on materiality, the metals, stones and soils (components for colours) used by artists, and the processes of making works of art. In this new book, it is also on the basis of materials that she reflects on various questions related to the definition and production of art and to the conservation and transmission of knowledge. Pliny's Natural History is a vast investigation of nature and a receptacle of knowledge, hence the title and subtitle of the work. And it is once again the domain of art which provides the framework for reflection, as shown by the plan of the book, divided into two parts of three chapters each, with brief and clear titles: I. The nature of art (1. Art and material, 2. Art and ethics, 3. Art and language) and II. The process of art (4. Discovering art, 5. Making art, 6. Looking at art). Significantly, the titles of the parts do not include the name of Pliny the Elder, because this constitutes the starting point of a broader reflection, touching on the definition and materiality of art. It is therefore books 33 to 37 of Pliny's work which constitute the centre of the discussion, even if A. also usefully refers to other books. Thus, to deal with the nature of art, the author recalls the foundations of nature according to Pliny, referring to book II, which deals with the mundus: an active, divine breath (pneuma) fills every material object to give it a form and properties, according to a materialist cosmology close to stoicism. In this world assimilated to nature, Rome fulfilled its destiny through the conquest and accumulation of resources and knowledge.

The encyclopaedic work of Pliny thus participates in a project whose limits are set by nature. A. is particularly attached to precious stones (book 37), because for Pliny they embody the perfection of nature, and are therefore the subject of ingenious questioning on the justification of human interventions in nature. The relationship between man (spectator, user, exploiter, destroyer) and nature (creative, divine, maternal) is constantly questioned throughout the book. A. uses several figures of artists and emperors to deepen the objects of study, whether it is the relationship between ars and natura, or the attitude of people towards works of art. The technical vocabulary of art also benefits from specific studies involving other Latin authors (Cicero, Quintilian). Even if Pliny has been studied a lot in recent years, A. succeeds in opening up new perspectives, through the questions she poses and especially her way of treating them, by establishing relationships, for example between technical innovations (like glass) and the intellectual and classifying project of Pliny, nature and human progress, formal perfection and the ethical and epistemological aim of the Natural History. A. shows that through his encyclopaedic work, Pliny draws a ‘material and immaterial landscape’ which aims to ‘preserve and enhance the collective memory of Rome’ (109).

This smartly produced book is a timely publication when several scientific and cultural events around the world are celebrating the bimillennium of the birth of Pliny the Elder, so we can expect further publications in the years to come. Linking technical subjects and theoretical reflections, A. offers both a convenient synthesis and stimulating material for thought, proof that after 2,000 years, Pliny's Natural History still arouses interest and living reflection.