At the time Achille De Zigno lived, geological studies, like other research fields, became autonomous from other scientific disciplines. Geological studies became independent from the studies of comparative anatomy, zoology and botany. The reason was mainly due to the transformations and advancements made in this discipline by the works of foreign geologists like Lyell, and Charles Darwin too. Those scholars, with their contributions, found the solutions to the great problems of the Seventeenth Century and gave to the science of geology a more definite and modern identity.

During that time there was a specialisation of almost all scientific disciplines. De Zigno devoted himself to paleobotany and palaeontology of the vertebrates. He always kept a constant and deep relationship with his homeland as far as geological studies are concerned. De Zigno always wanted to start from the origins, i.e. from the history and the development of the scientific ideas through the descriptions made by the scholars of the past, like Fracastoro, Vallisneri, Arduino e Fortis, just to name some of them.

It is important to underline the international characteristic of his studies, due to his frequent travels, mainly to Vienna, which allowed him to establish a close network of international relationships, and his active participation in conferences and meetings of Italian and international scientists. Because of his knowledge of many languages, in his works, he is able to cite the most influential foreign scholars, French and German but also British and Americans. His works were often published abroad.

In Veneto, besides the contacts with the University and particularly with the chair of  Natural History in Padua, he was active also in the Accademia di Lettere, Scienze ed Arti in Padua, at the I.R. Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Venice, and at the Accademia di Agricoltura, Lettere e Scienze in Verona. Those Institutes were very important for the development and the transmission of scientific research. Unfortunately, Veneto was situated in a very unstable geopolitical situation, but it was going to develop, in the last half of the Eighteenth Century, due also to the activity of the Conferences of Italian scientists and the creation of a geological map of Italy. De Zigno was one of the most influential authors of these projects, together with Savi, Pilla, Sismondi and Pasini. 

Thanks to the network of relationships that he was able to establish, De Zigno applied in his studies a new method that consisted in creating a picture of the links among all the data that were collected on a global scale. An example of this way of working is the geographical distribution of Jurassic fossil plants on a global scale. That represented the first example of a type of synthesis of work that today is used very often.

Throughout his life, De Zigno  put together a very rich collection of fossils, rocks and minerals. Thanks to  Giovanni Omboni, the collection was bought and kept in the Cabinet of Natural History and later in the Museum of Geology and Palaeontology of Padua, for many years.

Heartfelt thanks to Alberto Lonigo and Flavia De Zigno for their love for their great grandfather, for having always kept in contact with the scholars, and for their donation of very important documents that include private writings, diaries and letters of Achille De Zigno. Those documents are very valuable and are essential to understand Achille De Zigno’s life and his work.