La Theorie von der Generation (1764) di Caspar Friedrich Wolff tra epigenesi e preformismo

In this writing I have put the attention on the matter of generation and the origin of life in the embryological writing Theorie von der Generation of Caspar Friedrich Wolff. In the title Theorie von der Generation in zwei Abhandlungen erklärt un bewiesen, printed in Berlin in 1764, is hidden the deep meaning of the work of Caspar Friedrich Wolff (1734-1794), who then was considered the father of modern embryology. The physician from Berlin had not only proposed a own theory of generation, but rather he wanted explain and demonstrate his theory. In this doctoral work I’ve tried to see the deeply philosophical way is written his Theorie and even the previous and more famous Theoria Generationis. The Wolff’s intention to give a rational explaination of the generative phenomenon’s functioning founds his origins in big rationalistic german tradition, particularly in the figures of Christian Wolff and Leibniz. In Caspar Friedrich Wolff this rationalistic approch is tied on all the possibilities coming from the microscope and the more advanced scientific experimentation.