Roberto Massimo Lawley (1818–1881) was a non-academic naturalist who made a major contribution to the Tuscan scientific community of his time. He was involved in the foundation of two societies (Società Italiana di Malacologia, 1874–1899; Società Toscana di Scienze Naturali, 1874–today) and a publishing house (Biblioteca Malacologica Italiana). He first devoted himself to malacology, but Neogene fossil fishes became his main interest. Over the years, he gathered a huge private collection of fossils and produced 18 scientific papers, dealing mainly with fossil sharks. Subsequent revisers criticized his approach to fossil taxa: their observations were generally sound, but they failed to fully recognize Lawley's scientific merits. His scientific papers, new taxa established by him and eponymys are given in the Appendix.
