Antonio Raimondi Dell'Acqua he was a naturist. He was born in Milan on September 19, 182 4. Son of Enrique Raimondi and Rebeca Dell'Ac-qua. Since he was a child he felt a great inclination for the study of natural sciences and showed a fondness for reading travel books, becoming interested in Peru and its nature. In Italy he took up arms in favor of the struggle for Italian independence and unity ; Given the failure of this ideal, he was forced to emigrate to Peru, a country he arrived in 1850. Shortly after, he came into contact with Cayetano Heredia, the reformer of medical education in Peru, who commissioned him to classify the cabinet of Physics and Natural History of the Colegio de la Independencia, later Faculty of Medicine. The following year he began his teaching work with the Natural Sciences course and ten years later he inaugurated the chair of Analytical Chemistry. In 1862 he obtained a doctorate in Natural Sciences from the University of San Marcos.
He traveled tirelessly through Peru between 1851 and 1869; his eagerness to scientifically know the country that he adopted as his own had no limits. He was collecting material and forming collections of plants, minerals, fossils and animals from the Peruvian coast, mountains and jungle. He meticulously toured the entire national territory, exploring unknown areas in his time; and even he drew up an inventory of the mineral wealth and archaeological monuments of Peru. He supplemented his work with watercolors and designs illustrating his notes. In 1869 he put an end to his travels and decided to publish everything he had collected; he ceded to the Peruvian State the collections gathered over nineteen years. He married Huaracina Adela Loli, with whom he had three children. The war with Chile interrupted the publication of the works of the wise man who had planned editions for each of the investigated topics. In this unfortunate decade he received the offer to move out of Peru carrying his collections and in a demonstration of love for the country that sheltered him, he refused saying:"they are from Peru, may the fate of Peru befall."
Raimondi's research covered various areas. His botanical work reached notable advances given his knowledge of other travelers who studied Peru scientifically before him:the botanists Ruiz y Pavón, Tadeo Haenke, Charles Darwin, and others of great prestige. His geographical task is expressed in the descriptions of the different regions of Peru and in the Map of Peru, engraved and printed on 37 sheets , with contributions and knowledge that surpassed that published by Mariano Felipe Paz Soldán. Archeology was not ignored by the naturalist:he recorded, drew and described the archaeological monuments of Peru that he found on his journey. In zoology, chemistry and meteorology he carried out work with the means he had available to him. His works are, among others, Elements of botany applied to medicine and industry, dealing especially with the plants of Peru (1857), The department of Ancash and its mineral wealth (1873), Minerals of Peru (2 vols., 1878-1939) and El Perú (6 vols., 1874-1913). The Geographical Society of Lima published his travel itineraries in its institutional bulletin, between 1895 and 1919 .
Raimondi was president of the Medical Society of Lima (1857), corresponding honorary member of the Royal Geographical Society of London (1863), full member of the Pharmacy Society of Chile (1867), life member of the Royal Italian Geographical Society ( 1868), meritorious member of the Italian Society of Instruction of Peru (1873), commander of the order of the crown of Italy (1883), corresponding member of the American Geographical Society of New York (1876), of the Geographical Society of Paris (1888), from Italy (1883), among others.
Feeling ill, Raimondi traveled to Pacasmayo, staying at the house of his friend, the doctor Alejandro Arrigoni. He died in San Pedro de Lloc on October 26, 1890 .
As of 1987, the author began to be interested in the study of aspects concerning the religion professed by the ancient Peruvians, due to the fact that at that time he began ethnographic investigations in high Andean landscapes. These allowed him to collect myths and legends of ancestral roots, as we