Despite the general claim that a theoretical approach to botany only developed in the late seventeenth century, and that Renaissance botany was a mere collection and identification of specimens, the recent studies of plants in the early modern time have shed light on a more complex situation. In his well-known monograph, The Science of Describing, Brian Ogilvie has highlighted four moments in Renaissance science, which perfectly apply to sixteenth-century botanical studies.[2] Accordingly, the first phase is the philological attempts to identify specimens for medical aims; the second reveals a naturalistic attention to plants; the third enhances an exchange of specimens and the fabrication of herbaria as well as the construction of botanical gardens, while the fourth phase emphasizes the production of a theoretical framework to classify plants. However, the interconnection of these features surfaced throughout the sixteenth century. A specific case is found in the work of Andrea Cesalpino, whose botanical text, De plantis libri XVI [DP] (1583), represents a climax in Renaissance botany and reveals a combination of such diverse phases, as Cesalpino incorporated a theoretical approach to botany with the practical attempt to identify and classify plants, uniting the stdy of plant life and functioning with the systematization of plants in an original way.

Cesalpino’s (Aristotelian) Philosophy of Plants: A Science of Botany in the Renaissance

Baldassarri, Fabrizio
2023-01-01

Abstract

Despite the general claim that a theoretical approach to botany only developed in the late seventeenth century, and that Renaissance botany was a mere collection and identification of specimens, the recent studies of plants in the early modern time have shed light on a more complex situation. In his well-known monograph, The Science of Describing, Brian Ogilvie has highlighted four moments in Renaissance science, which perfectly apply to sixteenth-century botanical studies.[2] Accordingly, the first phase is the philological attempts to identify specimens for medical aims; the second reveals a naturalistic attention to plants; the third enhances an exchange of specimens and the fabrication of herbaria as well as the construction of botanical gardens, while the fourth phase emphasizes the production of a theoretical framework to classify plants. However, the interconnection of these features surfaced throughout the sixteenth century. A specific case is found in the work of Andrea Cesalpino, whose botanical text, De plantis libri XVI [DP] (1583), represents a climax in Renaissance botany and reveals a combination of such diverse phases, as Cesalpino incorporated a theoretical approach to botany with the practical attempt to identify and classify plants, uniting the stdy of plant life and functioning with the systematization of plants in an original way.
2023
Andrea Cesalpino and Renaissance Aristotelianism: Natural Philosophy in the Sixteenth Century
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10278/5039600
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