Charles Darwin Acquitted at Trial. The Father of Evolution Still Revealed

Acquitted by 605 votes to 98, with 87 abstentions out of a total of 790 voters, an all-time record in the 25-year history of trials. In San Mauro Pascoli, the 25th edition of the August 10 trial that put Charles Darwin, one of the most divisive figures in history, was a resounding success, with all 800 seats sold out. The evening began with a reading of the poem "X Agosto" (August 10th) and a speech by Daniele Gasperini, president of Sammauroindustria. The history of Darwin's book "On the Origin of Species," published in 1859, continues to divide after more than 160 years.

The prosecution was led by Marco Ferraguti, a professor at the University of Milan, while Darwin was defended by Stefano Mazzotti, director of the Ferrara Natural History Museum. The presiding judge was Gianfranco Miro Gori, founder of the trial and director of Sammauroindustria. The scene of the event was the Tower managed by Ruggero Pascoli, father of Giovanni Pascoli, who was killed by unknown assailants on August 10, 1867. Prosecutor Marco Ferraguti said: "Charles Darwin is a complex figure, sometimes hailed as a revolutionary scientist. Italians have a curious history with Darwin: many speak ill of him, others praise him, but they have never read him. According to Darwin, man knows he is alone in the indifferent immensity of the universe from which he emerged by chance. His duty, like his destiny, is not written anywhere. I will try to dispel some legends and present to you, the jury, the lights and shadows of a complicated man who, however you look at it, left a profound mark on human culture, even if there was a kind of pigeon shooting against him. He published the book twenty years after writing it, probably out of fear of the clergy and his wife, or perhaps because he believed he had made a mistake." Stefano Mazzotti's staunch defense of Charles Darwin: "The ideas and insights of the great English naturalist Charles Darwin revolutionized human culture. The theory of evolution constitutes that complex of theoretical and experimental elements indispensable for interpreting all life phenomena, including the origins of the human species. Darwin's absolute genius is encapsulated in that sketch he, still in his twenties, drew in his travel journal aboard the Beagle, which carried him around the world for five years and which was fundamental to his painful and laborious development of the powerful idea of evolution. Darwin says there is something grandiose in the conception of life, with its diverse forces, originally impressed by the Creator in a few forms, or in a single form, and in the fact that, while our planet has continued to rotate according to the immutable law of gravity, from such a simple beginning, countless forms, beautiful and marvelous, have evolved and continue to evolve. Today Darwin is more fashionable than ever, as is the theory of evolution."