Nicholas Steno was an esteemed academic of the early 17th century.
After completing his medical education, he studied in the Netherlands, France, Italy and Germany with prominent physicians and scientists. Over time he became skilled in the fields of anatomy, paleontology, crystallography, and geology.
He eventually settled in Italy in 1666, becoming the house physician of Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinando II de’ Medici in Florence.
While looking at the Apennine mountains near there, Steno noticed the lower rocks had no fossils, while the upper ones had many.
He reasoned the lower layers formed before life existed, and the upper layers formed in the Flood after the creation of life.
It was the first time someone used geology to distinguish time periods in history, a monumental and groundbreaking approach at the time that later scientists have of course come to use considerably.
This most famous contribution of his to geology (technically, stratigraphy) is known as Steno’s law of superposition, that rock layers are arranged in sequence according to time with oldest on the bottom and youngest on the top.
This idea and his others were published in his 1669 book the “Prodromus.”
Two years prior to finishing his famous seminal and only work, born-Lutheran Steno converted to Catholicism after watching a Corpus Christi procession and doubting his Lutheran beliefs.
Must to the dismay of his colleagues in science, he essentially abandoned the field shortly afterwards and was actually ordained a priest in 1675.
He went to become a titular bishop two years later and spent his time ministering to Catholics in northern Germany, Denmark, and Norway.
After his death, Steno was venerated as a saint in the Diocese of Hildesheim in Germany.
His canonization process began in 1938, and fifty years later Pope Saint John Paul II declared him beatified.
🙏 Blessed Nicholas Steno, pray for us!
