CASTRACANE DEGLI ANTELMINELLI, FRANCESCO. — Naturalist priest, born in Fano on 19 July 1817, died in Rome on 27 March 1899. He lived in an era in which some were beginning to confuse Christian consciences by disseminating evolutionary theories, and he found in the constancy of diatoms from the Eocene to the present day an argument for the fixity of species. His work Le diatomee e il trasformismo (in Memorie della Pontificia Accademia dei Nuovi Lincei, 3 [1888], pp. 231–48) deals with this subject.
BIBL.: G. B. De Toni, Commemorazione del conte abate Fr. C. degli A., in Mem. d. Pont. Acc. d. nuovi Lincei, 16 (1900), pp. 121–41. Luigi Scremin