The meticulousness and passion in describing the various species of truffles is undoubtedly commendable: he first illustrated their shape, the size that each type can reach, the colour and size of the spores, the characteristics of the glebe (he also observed the consistency of the niches in great detail) and carefully expressed the smells and olfactory pleasantness of each truffle.
Vittadini did not leave out any detail and in his elaborations he also dedicated extreme attention to the soil, to the territory where each truffle was found, to its symbionts and to the illustration of the seasonality of the precious tubers.
Original photos, taken from the work “Monographia Tuberacearum” by Carlo Vittadini
Perhaps not everyone knows it, but he was an Italian doctor, mycologist and botanist of the 19th century, the first in the world to create the original and most detailed scientific work on the various species of truffle (tuberaceae).
Illustrious and always a great mushroom enthusiast, in 1831 Carlo Vittadini published the Monographia Tuberacearum, where he described well over 65 species of truffles: starting from the best known to the rarest ones, he came to identify well over 50 species so far unknown.
A meticulous work composed of 5 colour plates drawn by his own hand, where he assigned the botanical name to each species of truffle.
Carlo Vittadini was a real pioneer and even today the nomenclatures he coined for the “underground mushrooms” are used in all botanical-scientific documents and in all classifications of truffles.
