The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance EuropeOut of the diverse traditions of medical humanism, classical philology, and natural philosophy, Renaissance naturalists created a new science devoted to discovering and describing plants and animals. Drawing on published natural histories, manuscript correspondence, garden plans, travelogues, watercolors, and drawings, The Science of Describing reconstructs the evolution of this discipline of description through four generations of naturalists. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, naturalists focused on understanding ancient and medieval descriptions of the natural world, but by the mid-sixteenth century naturalists turned toward distinguishing and cataloguing new plant and animal species. To do so, they developed new techniques of observing and recording, created botanical gardens and herbaria, and exchanged correspondence and specimens within an international community. By the early seventeenth century, naturalists began the daunting task of sorting through the wealth of information they had accumulated, putting a new emphasis on taxonomy and classification. Illustrated with woodcuts, engravings, and photographs, The Science of Describing is the first broad interpretation of Renaissance natural history in more than a generation and will appeal widely to an interdisciplinary audience. |
Contents
1 | |
2 The World of Renaissance Natural History | 25 |
3 The Humanist Invention of Natural History | 87 |
4 A Science of Describing | 139 |
5 Common Sense Classification and the Catalogue of Nature | 209 |
What Was Renaissance Natural History? | 265 |
Notes | 273 |
Bibliography | 331 |
367 | |
Other editions - View all
The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe Brian W. Ogilvie No preview available - 2008 |
The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe Brian W. Ogilvie No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
Aldrovandi ancient animalium liber apothecaries Arber Aristotle Bacon Barbaro Basel UB botanical Botanologicon botany Brunfels Carolus Clusius Caspar Bauhin catalogue Cesalpino chapter classical Clusius to Camerarius Clusius's collection community of naturalists Conrad Gessner contemporary correspondence descriptions Dioscorides discipline early modern Edited Euricius Cordus Exoticorum libri experience Felix Platter flowers Fr.Gr Fuchs garden Greek herbal herbaria herbarium herbs Hieronymus Bock Historiae animalium lib Hortus humanism humanist Hunger illustrations intellectual Isagoge Jacob Zwinger Joachim Camerarius knowledge Latin learned Leiden UB Leonhard Leonhart Fuchs Leoniceno Levenier manuscript materia medica Mattioli medicine medieval Montpellier naturalia Niccolò Leoniceno notes observation Olaus Pannoniam historia philosophical physicians plantarum Plinii erroribus Pliny published Rembert Dodoens Renaissance natural history Renaissance naturalists scholars science of describing sense seventeenth century sixteenth century sixteenth-century naturalists species Spiegel Stirpium per Pannoniam texts Theophrastus tion translation Ulisse Aldrovandi University Valerius Cordus woodcut writing wrote Zaluziansky Zwinger