| Honorific Prefix: | Italian: Cavaliere |
| Carlo Antonio Fornasini | |
| Birth Date: | 1802 or 1805 |
| Death Date: | 1865 (aged 59-60 or 62-63) |
| Nationality: | Italian |
| Years Active: | 1839 or 1842no later than 1866 |
| Known For: | The taxa named in his honour |
Italian: Cavaliere Carlo Antonio Fornasini (1802/18051865) was an Italian ivory trader and amateur field naturalist who worked in Mozambique. He collected numerous specimens of animals, insects and plants, and presented them to the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna in his home city for scientific study. He is remembered for having had several taxa named in his honour during his lifetime.
Little seems to be known of his life or background. The honorific cavaliere (roughly equivalent to the British 'Sir'; in the Latin-language sources which mention him, eques) suggests that he himself or his family had some civil distinction. He was from Bologna. Either, he travelled to Pernambuco in Brazil, and, on returning by way of Lisbon and Genoa to Bologna, was encouraged by Professor Antonio Bertoloni and by Count Camilla Salina to pursue in Africa his interest in natural history, and travelled to Mozambique; or, the House of Salina took a paternal interest in him, he left Bologna for Lisbon to pursue a career in commerce, and from there he went to Mozambique. He was a trader in ivory. In a letter dated 1843, he said that he had first visited Mozambique twelve years earlier. He was active as a naturalist in the Inhambane area of Mozambique from 1839 or from 1842. He presented the many natural history specimens he collected during his time in Africa to the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna, where they were studied by Antonio Bertoloni (1775-1869, physician and botanist), his son Giuseppe Bertoloni (1804-1874, botanist and entomologist), and Giovanni Giuseppe Bianconi (1809-1878, zoologist, herpetologist, botanist and geologist), all professors at the University of Bologna, all full of praise for his labours. Antonio Alessandrini, another professor at the university, called him 'courageous' (Italian: coraggioso). He was last mentioned in the scientific annals of Bologna in 1866.
He does not seem to have written any scientific papers. He is not named as author in any of the journals published by the Academy of Sciences between 1834 and 1866.
These are (in date order of the epithet fornasini and suchlike):