Michele Antonio Plazza e la Flora Sardoa. Piante, nomi e luoghi della Sardegna settecentesca

Among the works dating from the second half of the XVIII century that bear witness to this lively cultural and civil period in which the most sensitive and active intellectuals in Sardinia were opening their minds to the new European ideas, Michele Antonio Plazza’s Flora Sardoa did not have the honour of being published and still remains collected in 2 manuscripts that are not easily consultable. From a number of perspectives, the treatise, written entirely in Latin, offers several points of interest, especially from a historical point of view. In fact it represents a significant example of regional flora which is well linked to the most advanced and florid trends of continental research and especially to the revolutionary method of binomial classification introduced by Carl von Linné. Furthermore Plazza’s handwritten manuscripts are rich with precious linguistic, lexographical and topographical indications regarding the Sardinia of that period.