Article ID: CBB372429723

Paolo Boccone and the visual communication of pre-Linnean botany. A comparison between his Leiden herbarium, Paris autoprint and published Icones (1674) (2019)

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This article addresses the development of visual practices in early modern Botany by focusing on the diverse strategies of graphic representation of plant species. Naturalis Biodiversity Center holds a historic herbarium of 169 sheets with specimens of Mediterranean plants collected by the Sicilian Botanist Paolo Boccone (1633–1704). Part of Boccone's dried specimens served as model for the etchings published in his Icones et descriptiones rariorum plantarum (1674) and part of them were used as matrix for at least one album of botanical autoprints kept in Paris. The exceptional survival of the three collections: the original dried specimens, their autoprint impressions and the etched illustrations of the book, offers a unique insight in the material and intellectual issues addressed in the process of visual representation of plants in early modern Botany. Here we present the first scientific comparison of these three valuable 17th century botanical collections. Visual comparison revealed that the Leiden collection provided 64 specimens to Icones, while 44 specimens show a perfect matching with the autoprint impressions. In nine cases the Leiden specimens appear both in the autoprints and in the Icones, thus showing the complete process of visual translation of the plant preliminary to its wider circulation in the scientific community.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB372429723/

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Authors & Contributors
Olmi, Giuseppe
Bleichmar, Daniela
Deniz Martinez
Sylva Dobalová
Adéla Pokorná
Lucie Strnadová
Concepts
Scientific illustration
Science and art
Visual representation; visual communication
Natural history
Botany
Biological specimens
Time Periods
17th century
18th century
19th century
16th century
15th century
Renaissance
Places
Colombia
Netherlands
London (England)
Spain
Italy
Germany
Institutions
McGill University (Canada)
Natural History Museum (London, England)
Royal Society of London
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