Francesco Dal Cin

This important collection of 40 years of the International Journal of Speleology is dedicated to Francesco Dal Cin, and this carries a special significance.

The fact that caving covers several different aspects, ranging from mountaineering to sport, from exploration to science, is well known. Italian caving has always emphasized the themes of exploration, although often isolated from the scientific aspects.

The past twenty years have witnessed considerable effort, still ongoing, aimed at bridging the gap between exploration and research study of the underground world. The intention was to bring exploration speleology back to what was believed to be its more natural and real dimension: an activity able to consolidate knowledge on an unknown territory and suggest eventual scientific research, depending upon the way the different aspects of the explored territory are presented.

Francesco Dal Cin was one of the main participants in this great effort. He was not a researcher but, among the most active cavers in Italy, he gave a huge contribution to reduce the gap dividing cave exploration and cave science, support whoever needed help in carrying out both of them.

He managed to do so by taking part in explorations, surveying campaigns, international expeditions, simple cave visits and caving courses. He also organized conferences and congresses, edited proceedings and books, and searched for financial support. He was open to all opinions on various aspects of speleology and aimed to enforce the ideas that he considered the most important to unify the continuously changing world of caving.

He was definitely one of the great icons of Speleology with a capital "S", one who worked and struggled to demonstrate that scientific speleology cannot exist without cavers, and that cave exploration must therefore be considered as a starting point, whenever the different aspects of a territory need to be known.

This is why, in dedicating this great library of scientific speleology to Francesco Dal Cin, speleological exploration itself, in its most authentic embodiment, is being honoured.