Florike Egmond | Leiden University (original) (raw)
Latest by Florike Egmond
I disegni e i discorsi di Giovanni Antonio Nigrone «fontanaro e ingegniero de acqua» (1585-1609 ca.)
This whole volume, edited by Gaia Bruno and David Gentilcore, is in Open access and can be downlo... more This whole volume, edited by Gaia Bruno and David Gentilcore, is in Open access and can be downloaded from the website of publisher Viella, together with the first volume with text edition and images
Gesnerus, 2016
Conrad Gessner's Historia animalium is a compilation of information from a variety of sources: fr... more Conrad Gessner's Historia animalium is a compilation of information from a variety of sources: friends, correspondents, books, broadsides, drawings, as well as his own experience. The discovery in 2010-12 of a cache of drawings at Amsterdam originally belonging to Gessner has added a new dimension for research into the role of images in Gessner's study of nature. In this paper, we examine the drawings that were the basis of the images in the volume of fishes. We uncovered several cases where there were multiple copies of the same drawing of a fish (rather than multiple drawings of the samefish), which problematizes the notion of unique "original" copies and their copies. While we still know very little about the actual mechanism of, or people involved in, commissioning or generating copies of drawings, their very existence suggests that the images functioned as an important medium in the circulation of knowledge in the early modern period.
in: The Invention of Humboldt. On the Geopolitics of Knowledge, eds. Mark Thurner & Jorge Canizares-Esguerra (Routledge) , 2023
THIS ESSAY IS NOT AT ALL IN AGREEMENT WITH THE INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME BY CAÑIZARES AND TURNER... more THIS ESSAY IS NOT AT ALL IN AGREEMENT WITH THE INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME BY CAÑIZARES AND TURNER - FROM WHICH I WANT TO TAKE MY DISTANCE.
This essay places the iconic ascent of Chimborazo by Humboldt, Bonpland and companions, and Humboldt’s analysis of plant geography in the long-term context of a European style of doing science (esp. in botany and geology) linked to methodologies in which autopsy, fieldwork, and site-specific expertise played key roles. The parameters of that style were set in the 16th century and especially in Italy. Humboldt travelled in Italy both before and immediately after (1805) his American journey, in part to compare American volcanoes with Italian ones. In particular his Italian journey of 1805 has been characterized as crucial to Humboldt’s own interpretation of his American experience and findings in a comparative perspective. Fieldwork and personal observation on the spot that resulted in ‘a sense of place’ were as much part of Humboldt’s style and practice as was his emphasis on measuring and the use of instruments.
Andrew Dalby & Annette Giesecke (eds.), A Cultural History of Plants in the Early Modern Period (1400-1650). Part of the Bloomsbury series: A Cultural History of Plants. , 2022
This is a survey article on early modern medicinal botany.
SCIENTIAE IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE, edited by Fabrizio Baldassarri and Fabio Zampieri, pp. 89-120., 2021
In the middle of the sixteenth century, a young physician from the south of Germany undertook a l... more In the middle of the sixteenth century, a young physician from the south of Germany undertook a long journey in order to improve his professional knowledge. During this medical peregrination that lasted some seven years (1548-1555), Lorenz Gryll (also Laurentius Gryllus, 1524?-1560) visited nearly the whole of Western Europe. His trip was funded by the extremely wealthy Fugger family, and one of its explicit purposes was that Gryll – after his return to Germany – would help improve the standards of medicine and medical teaching in his native region by introducing what he had learned in the core zones of medical innovation in Europe, that is Italy and France. Gryll’s journey, which we can follow thanks to his own account, triggers the main themes in this contribution about university gardens, medicine and botany in the 16th century: how medicinal were these university gardens, and in which contexts can we study their functions and uses? This excursion ultimately reveals the multifunctional organization of university gardens that went beyond mere medical teaching and ultimately shaped early modern culture.
Books by Florike Egmond
This is a pdf of the whole monograph. The World of Carolus Clusius. Natural History in the Makin... more This is a pdf of the whole monograph.
The World of Carolus Clusius. Natural History in the Making, 1550-1610 explores how natural history in Europe, and in particular the knowledge of plants, was transformed during the late 16th and very early 17th centuries into a field of professional expertise, a budding scientific discipline. This book presents not a history of ideas, publications or institutions, however, but a cultural and social history of people’s fascination with nature and the transformation of knowledge during this period. The formation of expertise is studied through its practical manifestations – gardening, collecting plants and animals, botanical field research, and exchanging knowledge – and the personalities involved in them.
The complete edition of the Gessner Platter albums with animal drawings in Amsterdam
Contents: Introduction PART I: Nature captured 1 GREEN FASHION: painted naturalia in collect... more Contents:
Introduction
PART I: Nature captured
1 GREEN FASHION: painted naturalia in collections
2 ORGANIZING NATURE: painted albums as collections
3 IN AND OUT OF ORDER
PART II: Untrue to life
4 PERSUASIVE HIGH DEFINITION
5 RENDERING FOR RECOGNITION
6 ZOOM: relevant detail in the visual study of nature
PART III: Micro before the microscope
7 MINUTE OBSERVATION
8 VISUAL DISSECTION
Conclusion
Biographical notes on collectors, naturalists, painters
Abbreviations & Appendix
References
Select bibliography
List of Illustrations
Index
Carolus Clusius (Arras 1526-Leiden 1609) was one of the most eminent botanists of the European Re... more Carolus Clusius (Arras 1526-Leiden 1609) was one of the most eminent botanists of the European Renaissance. His name is closely connected with the introduction of many exotic plants in Europe, in particular the tulip. In this volume a group of distinguished scholars explore his role in both the botanical renaissance and the genesis of botany as a field of study. Clusius’ wide-ranging correspondence provides a rich source of information and documents the formation of the European community of naturalists.
... The mammoth and the mouse: Microhistory and morphology. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author:... more ... The mammoth and the mouse: Microhistory and morphology. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Egmond, Florike. Author: Mason, Peter (b. 1952, d. ----. PUBLISHER: Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1997. ...
Articles by Florike Egmond
History Workshop Journal, 1999
Page 1. A horse called Belisarius by Florike Egmond and Peter Mason THE HORSE AND THE MAN In addi... more Page 1. A horse called Belisarius by Florike Egmond and Peter Mason THE HORSE AND THE MAN In addition ... Belisarius was restored to honour the following year, and died in 565. Most of our knowledge about Belisarius is ...
Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts, 2007
History of Universities, 2008
in: Elisabeth Oy-Marra and Irina Schmiedel (eds), Zeigen – Überzeugen – Beweisen. Methoden der Wissensproduktion in Kunstliteratur, Kennerschaft und Sammlungspraxis der Frühen Neuzeit, 2020
Worlds of Natural History, edited by Helen Anne Curry, Nick Jardine, James A. Secord, and Emma Spary (Cambridge University Press), pp. 78-93, 2018
A Europe-wide disciplinary community emerged in the course of the long 16th century – well before... more A Europe-wide disciplinary community emerged in the course of the long 16th century – well before scientific societies and journals did in the course of the 17th century. This article argues that exchanges of information in text and image as well as of objects (naturalia) predicated on the many overlapping and crisscrossing personal networks of exchange (by letter, object and personal encounter) constituted not merely a means of communication but both the mode of interaction and the backbone of this natural history community. Circulation and exchanges of objects, textual and visual information also helped to circumscribe a joint research project to identify, name and inventorize nature, in which humanist philological traditions, the revived interest in classical antiquity and the medical training of many naturalists played an important part.
![Research paper thumbnail of Experimenting with living nature: documented practices of 16th-century naturalists and naturalia collectors’ Journal of Early Modern Studies [edited by Oana Matei and Fabrizio Baldassarri], Volume 6, Issue 1 (July 2017), pp. 21-45.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/62175608/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Journal of Early Modern Studies [edited by Oana Matei and Fabrizio Baldassarri], Volume 6, Issue 1 , 2017
I disegni e i discorsi di Giovanni Antonio Nigrone «fontanaro e ingegniero de acqua» (1585-1609 ca.)
This whole volume, edited by Gaia Bruno and David Gentilcore, is in Open access and can be downlo... more This whole volume, edited by Gaia Bruno and David Gentilcore, is in Open access and can be downloaded from the website of publisher Viella, together with the first volume with text edition and images
Gesnerus, 2016
Conrad Gessner's Historia animalium is a compilation of information from a variety of sources: fr... more Conrad Gessner's Historia animalium is a compilation of information from a variety of sources: friends, correspondents, books, broadsides, drawings, as well as his own experience. The discovery in 2010-12 of a cache of drawings at Amsterdam originally belonging to Gessner has added a new dimension for research into the role of images in Gessner's study of nature. In this paper, we examine the drawings that were the basis of the images in the volume of fishes. We uncovered several cases where there were multiple copies of the same drawing of a fish (rather than multiple drawings of the samefish), which problematizes the notion of unique "original" copies and their copies. While we still know very little about the actual mechanism of, or people involved in, commissioning or generating copies of drawings, their very existence suggests that the images functioned as an important medium in the circulation of knowledge in the early modern period.
in: The Invention of Humboldt. On the Geopolitics of Knowledge, eds. Mark Thurner & Jorge Canizares-Esguerra (Routledge) , 2023
THIS ESSAY IS NOT AT ALL IN AGREEMENT WITH THE INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME BY CAÑIZARES AND TURNER... more THIS ESSAY IS NOT AT ALL IN AGREEMENT WITH THE INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUME BY CAÑIZARES AND TURNER - FROM WHICH I WANT TO TAKE MY DISTANCE.
This essay places the iconic ascent of Chimborazo by Humboldt, Bonpland and companions, and Humboldt’s analysis of plant geography in the long-term context of a European style of doing science (esp. in botany and geology) linked to methodologies in which autopsy, fieldwork, and site-specific expertise played key roles. The parameters of that style were set in the 16th century and especially in Italy. Humboldt travelled in Italy both before and immediately after (1805) his American journey, in part to compare American volcanoes with Italian ones. In particular his Italian journey of 1805 has been characterized as crucial to Humboldt’s own interpretation of his American experience and findings in a comparative perspective. Fieldwork and personal observation on the spot that resulted in ‘a sense of place’ were as much part of Humboldt’s style and practice as was his emphasis on measuring and the use of instruments.
Andrew Dalby & Annette Giesecke (eds.), A Cultural History of Plants in the Early Modern Period (1400-1650). Part of the Bloomsbury series: A Cultural History of Plants. , 2022
This is a survey article on early modern medicinal botany.
SCIENTIAE IN THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE, edited by Fabrizio Baldassarri and Fabio Zampieri, pp. 89-120., 2021
In the middle of the sixteenth century, a young physician from the south of Germany undertook a l... more In the middle of the sixteenth century, a young physician from the south of Germany undertook a long journey in order to improve his professional knowledge. During this medical peregrination that lasted some seven years (1548-1555), Lorenz Gryll (also Laurentius Gryllus, 1524?-1560) visited nearly the whole of Western Europe. His trip was funded by the extremely wealthy Fugger family, and one of its explicit purposes was that Gryll – after his return to Germany – would help improve the standards of medicine and medical teaching in his native region by introducing what he had learned in the core zones of medical innovation in Europe, that is Italy and France. Gryll’s journey, which we can follow thanks to his own account, triggers the main themes in this contribution about university gardens, medicine and botany in the 16th century: how medicinal were these university gardens, and in which contexts can we study their functions and uses? This excursion ultimately reveals the multifunctional organization of university gardens that went beyond mere medical teaching and ultimately shaped early modern culture.
This is a pdf of the whole monograph. The World of Carolus Clusius. Natural History in the Makin... more This is a pdf of the whole monograph.
The World of Carolus Clusius. Natural History in the Making, 1550-1610 explores how natural history in Europe, and in particular the knowledge of plants, was transformed during the late 16th and very early 17th centuries into a field of professional expertise, a budding scientific discipline. This book presents not a history of ideas, publications or institutions, however, but a cultural and social history of people’s fascination with nature and the transformation of knowledge during this period. The formation of expertise is studied through its practical manifestations – gardening, collecting plants and animals, botanical field research, and exchanging knowledge – and the personalities involved in them.
The complete edition of the Gessner Platter albums with animal drawings in Amsterdam
Contents: Introduction PART I: Nature captured 1 GREEN FASHION: painted naturalia in collect... more Contents:
Introduction
PART I: Nature captured
1 GREEN FASHION: painted naturalia in collections
2 ORGANIZING NATURE: painted albums as collections
3 IN AND OUT OF ORDER
PART II: Untrue to life
4 PERSUASIVE HIGH DEFINITION
5 RENDERING FOR RECOGNITION
6 ZOOM: relevant detail in the visual study of nature
PART III: Micro before the microscope
7 MINUTE OBSERVATION
8 VISUAL DISSECTION
Conclusion
Biographical notes on collectors, naturalists, painters
Abbreviations & Appendix
References
Select bibliography
List of Illustrations
Index
Carolus Clusius (Arras 1526-Leiden 1609) was one of the most eminent botanists of the European Re... more Carolus Clusius (Arras 1526-Leiden 1609) was one of the most eminent botanists of the European Renaissance. His name is closely connected with the introduction of many exotic plants in Europe, in particular the tulip. In this volume a group of distinguished scholars explore his role in both the botanical renaissance and the genesis of botany as a field of study. Clusius’ wide-ranging correspondence provides a rich source of information and documents the formation of the European community of naturalists.
... The mammoth and the mouse: Microhistory and morphology. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author:... more ... The mammoth and the mouse: Microhistory and morphology. Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Egmond, Florike. Author: Mason, Peter (b. 1952, d. ----. PUBLISHER: Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1997. ...
History Workshop Journal, 1999
Page 1. A horse called Belisarius by Florike Egmond and Peter Mason THE HORSE AND THE MAN In addi... more Page 1. A horse called Belisarius by Florike Egmond and Peter Mason THE HORSE AND THE MAN In addition ... Belisarius was restored to honour the following year, and died in 565. Most of our knowledge about Belisarius is ...
Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts, 2007
History of Universities, 2008
in: Elisabeth Oy-Marra and Irina Schmiedel (eds), Zeigen – Überzeugen – Beweisen. Methoden der Wissensproduktion in Kunstliteratur, Kennerschaft und Sammlungspraxis der Frühen Neuzeit, 2020
Worlds of Natural History, edited by Helen Anne Curry, Nick Jardine, James A. Secord, and Emma Spary (Cambridge University Press), pp. 78-93, 2018
A Europe-wide disciplinary community emerged in the course of the long 16th century – well before... more A Europe-wide disciplinary community emerged in the course of the long 16th century – well before scientific societies and journals did in the course of the 17th century. This article argues that exchanges of information in text and image as well as of objects (naturalia) predicated on the many overlapping and crisscrossing personal networks of exchange (by letter, object and personal encounter) constituted not merely a means of communication but both the mode of interaction and the backbone of this natural history community. Circulation and exchanges of objects, textual and visual information also helped to circumscribe a joint research project to identify, name and inventorize nature, in which humanist philological traditions, the revived interest in classical antiquity and the medical training of many naturalists played an important part.
Journal of Early Modern Studies [edited by Oana Matei and Fabrizio Baldassarri], Volume 6, Issue 1 , 2017
Most descriptions of marine life by naturalists of the 16th century concern the Mediterranean (Ro... more Most descriptions of marine life by naturalists of the 16th century concern the Mediterranean (Rondelet, Belon, Salviani), and evidence of fieldwork at sea or along the coasts is rare for the North Sea and North Atlantic. Here, the focus is on textual and visual evidence of both first-hand observations and ‘field work once removed’ in manuscript sources of the second half of the sixteenth century: the richly illustrated albums of Adriaen Coenen (1514-1587), son of a Dutch fisherman and practical expert on marine life; and the letters (1597-1604) from Henrik Høyer in Norway to the naturalist Carolus Clusius. The focus is on their motivation; research methods; particular areas of interest; and the problems involved in the preservation of marine animals.
The earliest substantial evidence of botanical expeditions comes from the sixteenth century. This... more The earliest substantial evidence of botanical expeditions comes from the sixteenth century. This essay presents a chronological survey of botanical field research in continental Europe during the long 16th century, while more briefly discussing European explorations outside Europe. How, where and when did fieldwork manifest itself as a professional practice in Europe? Who were involved? What kind of expeditions did they undertake, and what were the main purposes (search for medicinal plants, collector’s items, rarities)? What were the main developments in the course of this century, and what does the remaining material (ranging from textual sources to herbaria and illuminated herbals) tell us about changing styles of reporting? The focus is on fieldwork as a practice, and as part of a more general ‘experimental’ approach to nature study.
Karl Enenkel / Paul Smith (eds), Early Modern Zoology. The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts (Brill, Leiden/Boston), 2007
![Research paper thumbnail of The garden of nature: visualizing botanical research in Northern and Southern Europe in the 16th century. In: From Art to Science. Experiencing Nature in the European Garden, 1500-1700, edited by Juliette Ferdinand [in the series "Festina Lente - miscellanea" nr 4] (Treviso, 2016), pp. 18-33.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/45659299/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](This article compares Northern Italy and the Low Countries during the long 16th century as regard... more This article compares Northern Italy and the Low Countries during the long 16th century as regards the history of botany and gardening and the visual representation of plants.
Discussing Clusius' editorial work during 40 years on Garcia de Orta's exotic plants, and the vis... more Discussing Clusius' editorial work during 40 years on Garcia de Orta's exotic plants, and the visual 'construction' of exotic nature in 16th-century Flanders.
Libri Picturati A. 16-30 in Krakow comprise one of the largest and most valuable European collect... more Libri Picturati A. 16-30 in Krakow comprise one of the largest and most valuable European collections of botanical and zoological watercolours. Since their rediscovery in the 1970s several theories have arisen about the origins of this collection, while much new evidence has been uncovered especially since the 1990s. This article brings together and evaluates all the available evidence - ranging from watermarks to the social ties linking naturalia collectors and from annotations to illustrators - in order to test op- posing theories concerning the involvement of Clusius, Saint Omer and Cluyt in the creation of the original core of the collection.
How a 16th-century Dutchman saw Eskimos in Holland - and depicted them.
Historical Records of Australian Science, 2018
Interposed between the natural world in all its diversity and the edited form in which we encount... more Interposed between the natural world in all its diversity and the edited form in which we encounter it in literature, imagery and the museum, lie the multiple practices of the naturalists in selecting, recording and preserving the specimens from which our world view is to be reconstituted. The factors that weigh at every stage are here dissected, analysed and set within a historical narrative that spans more than five centuries. During that era, every aspect evolved and changed, as engagement with nature moved from a speculative pursuit heavily influenced by classical scholarship to a systematic science, drawing on advanced theory and technology. Far from being neutrally objective, the process of representing nature is shown as fraught with constraint and compromise.
With a Foreword by Sir David Attenborough
Contributors are: Marie Addyman, Peter Barnard, Paul D. Brinkman, Ian Convery, Peter Davis, Felix Driver, Florike Egmond, Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, Geoff Hancock, Stephen Harris, Hanna Hodacs, Stuart Houston, Dominik Huenniger, Rob Huxley, Charlie Jarvis, Malgosia Nowak-Kemp, Shepard Krech III, Mark Lawley, Arthur Lucas, Marco Masseti, Geoff Moore, Pat Morris, Charles Nelson, Robert Peck, Helen Scales, Han F. Vermeulen, and Glyn Williams.
Journal of the History of Collections, 2017
Annals of science, Jan 20, 2017
Journal of Early Modern Studies
Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia
This essay focuses on the 16th -century Bolognese naturalist and collector Ulisse Aldrovandi (152... more This essay focuses on the 16th -century Bolognese naturalist and collector Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) and his enormous image collection of naturalia. Do these images present a specifically Bolognese form of visual natural science, and was his visual format of truthfulness new at the time? Did Local visual culture leave clear marks on Aldrovandi's image collection? On cover:ANNIBALE CARRACCI (BOLOGNA 1560 - ROME 1609), An Allegory of Truth and Time c. 1584-1585.Oil on canvas | 130,0 x 169,6 cm. (support, canvas/panel/str external) | RCIN 404770Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.
by L'ERMA di BRETSCHNEIDER, Publisher, Fabrizio Baldassarri, Giovanni Silvano, Florike Egmond, Alberto Zanatta, Roberta Ballestriero, Allen Shotwell, Maria Kavvadia, Elisabeth Moreau, Luca Tonetti, and Manuel De Carli
This volume collects essays dealing with the history of medicine in early modern Europe, and rang... more This volume collects essays dealing with the history of medicine in early modern Europe, and ranging from experiments and practices to the role of erudition in court-medicine, from the study of tarantism and plagues to the uses of drugs, from the collaborations and dissemination of medical knowledge to the epistemological classification of diseases. The essays aim to reveal the boundless investigation in medical knowledge, ultimately blurring the line of diverse fields, and focus on the extension of medicine as a scientia. Besides the investigation of specific figures and several case studies of early modern medicine, the volume opens with an exploration of the Medical School of Padua and also deals with some important locations that shape the science of medicine, such as anatomical theatres, botanical gardens, and museums.
International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 1995
Thepoena cullei originated as a Roman capital punishment imposed for parricide: the culprit was d... more Thepoena cullei originated as a Roman capital punishment imposed for parricide: the culprit was drowned in a leather sack together with a cock, a dog, a serpent, and a monkey. This punishment was last imposed in Germany during the 18th century. After its disappearance from written legislation, it continued to attract much scholarly attention. In the course of the 19th century thepoena cullei turned from a legal curiosity into a key issue in debates about the long-term development from ritual sacrifice to public punishment. This article investigates the apparent longevity of thepoena cullei tries to come to grips with the problem of the historical continuity of this bizarre phenomenon, and argues that the history and historiography of this ‘phantom punishment’ are inextricably intertwined.
Viator, 2000
Page 1. "THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO EAT RAW FISH": CONTOURS OF THE ETHNOGRAPmC IMAGIN... more Page 1. "THESE ARE PEOPLE WHO EAT RAW FISH": CONTOURS OF THE ETHNOGRAPmC IMAGINATION IN mE SIXTEENTH CENTURY by Florike Egmond and Peter Mason I. ESKIMOS, ICONOCLASM, AND RAW FISH ...
Social & Legal Studies, 1993
History Workshop Journal, 1996
... by Florike Egmond and Peter Mason ... A list of the portraits in his collection of celebrated... more ... by Florike Egmond and Peter Mason ... A list of the portraits in his collection of celebrated personages in 1784 includes a large number of high-ranking military figures, government ministers, a count, a marquis and two barons.7 It was in Philadelphia that Peale expanded his ...
Eighteenth-Century Life, 2001
... Adieu mijn Baiea tan bon mi ... extant letters: “love, my darling, yesterday I wrote to you” ... more ... Adieu mijn Baiea tan bon mi ... extant letters: “love, my darling, yesterday I wrote to you” / “my dearest darling and only consolation on this earth” / “my heart longs for you” / “the only object of my heart's desire” / “you are not a moment out of my thoughts” / and “I love you too tenderly ...
European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 1995
The British Journal for the History of Science, 2012
The British Journal for the History of Science, 2013
Berichte Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Mar 1, 2007
Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 2007
Memoria Y Civilizacion Anuario De Historia, 2001
Studies Of Organized Crime, 2004
... is often denoted by the term underworld, which designates a circuit, a community, a society ... more ... is often denoted by the term underworld, which designates a circuit, a community, a society in short a world leading a shady existence. ... he stayed there for eight days until last Saturday when Bram Labourloth arrived by the barge from Gouda and joined him at his lodgings ...
CO-Organized Panel. In this panel, we aim to discuss the study of plants in different contexts, p... more CO-Organized Panel.
In this panel, we aim to discuss the study of plants in different contexts, periods, and areas from Late Middle Ages to the Early Modern world. The recent scholarship has highlighted the importance of the study of vegetation in diverse areas of human activity, thereby suggesting that the claim that botany was just a secondary branch of knowledge
throughout the ages is not supported by documentation. In contrast, this field of knowledge stands as a complex assmeblage of inputs, aims, case studies, and methodologies, and reveals a broader confrontation with nature as a whole. In this panel, we would like to approach this through different case studies. These cases involve a wide range of practices and practitioners (botanists, alchemists, physicians, natural scholars, philosophers and collectors) and concerns as, for example, (a) the exchanges of specimens, seeds, or parts of plants, (b) the study of herbs in pharmaco-therapeutics, (c) the naturalphilosophical
attempts to explain vegetal bodies, and (d) the natural-historical work of representing and cataloguing specimens’ diversities. Ultimately, the aim of the panel is to explore the complexity and the intersections in the knowledge of the second realm of nature.