Jalobeanu, Dana (Author)
Matei, Oana (Author)
This paper investigates the emergence, in the second part of the 17th century, of a new body of experimental knowledge dealing with the chemical transformations of water taking place in plants. We call this body of experimental knowledge a “chemical history of vegetation.” We show that this chemical natural history originated, in terms of recipes and methods of investigation, in the works of Francis Bacon and that it was constructed in accordance with Bacon's precepts for putting together natural and experimental histories. Our paper covers a wide array of experimental investigations, carried out by people with different backgrounds, theoretical assumptions, and metaphysical allegiances (Thomas Browne, Robert Sharrock, Robert Boyle, Nehemiah Grew, John Beale, and John Evelyn). We claim that, despite their differences, these naturalists had a lot in common. First, they treated plants as laboratories of chemical investigation. Second, they used the experiments with plants to develop tools, hypotheses, and operational concepts, which travelled from one naturalist to the other, even when their respective explanatory vocabularies were widely different. Third, we show that some of them also manifested an interest in defining and clarifying the limits and structure of this new body of experimental knowledge, displaying, thus, a certain disciplinary unity.
...More
Article
Doina-Cristina Rusu;
(2020)
Using Instruments in the Study of Animate Beings: Della Porta's and Bacon's Experiments with Plants
(/isis/citation/CBB346946506/)
Article
Antonio Clericuzio;
(2018)
Plant and Soil Chemistry in Seventeenth-Century England: Worsley, Boyle and Coxe
(/isis/citation/CBB365909346/)
Article
Luigi Guerrini;
(2017)
Experiment, Observation, and Anatomy in Federico Cesi's Botanical Researches
(/isis/citation/CBB124036987/)
Book
Himansu Baijnath;
Patricia A. McCracken;
(2018)
Strelitzias of the World: A Historical & Contemporary Exploration
(/isis/citation/CBB220972499/)
Book
Elizabeth Towner;
(2021)
Margaret Rebecca Dickinson: A Botanical Artist of the Border Counties
(/isis/citation/CBB491467846/)
Chapter
Elizabeth Chang;
(2017)
Killer Plants of the Late Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB300940450/)
Article
Dana Jalobeanu;
(2018)
Spirits Coming Alive: The Subtle Alchemy of Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum
(/isis/citation/CBB868354009/)
Article
Alix Cooper;
(2018)
Placing Plants on Paper: Lists, Herbaria, and Tables as Experiments with Territorial Inventory at the Mid-seventeenth-century Gotha Court
(/isis/citation/CBB889851124/)
Article
Parke, Emily C.;
(2014)
Flies from Meat and Wasps from Trees: Reevaluating Francesco Redi's Spontaneous Generation Experiments
(/isis/citation/CBB001420082/)
Chapter
Alexandra Cook;
(2016)
An Idea Ahead of Its Time: Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Mobile Botanical Laboratory
(/isis/citation/CBB406419554/)
Book
Margaret Willes;
(2015)
A Shakespearean Botanical
(/isis/citation/CBB647549819/)
Article
Fabrizio Baldassarri;
(2019)
The Mechanical Life of Plants: Descartes on Botany
(/isis/citation/CBB014952610/)
Article
Edgington, John;
(2007)
A Plant List of 1633: Annotations in a Copy of Thomas Johnson's Iter plantarum
(/isis/citation/CBB000774085/)
Article
Alain Touwaide;
(2018)
Moving Plants, Transforming Medicine
(/isis/citation/CBB649840682/)
Book
Gerit Quealy;
Sumie Hasegawa Collins;
Helen Mirren;
(2017)
Botanical Shakespeare: An Illustrated Compendium of All the Flowers, Fruits, Herbs, Trees, Seeds, and Grasses Cited by the World's Greatest Playwright
(/isis/citation/CBB274758292/)
Article
Perry Guevara;
(2020)
Milton's Plant Eyes: Minimal Cognition, Similitude, and Sexuality in the Garden
(/isis/citation/CBB113300543/)
Article
González Bueno, Antonio;
(2007)
El descubrimiento de la naturaleza del Nuevo Mundo: las plantas americanas en la Europa del siglo XVI
(/isis/citation/CBB000850035/)
Article
Federica Rotelli;
(2018)
Exotic Plants in Italian Pharmacopoeia (16th -17th Centuries)
(/isis/citation/CBB930409086/)
Article
Patrizia Cremonini;
(2016)
Carte verdi nell'Archivio di Stato di Modena: l’Erbario Estense, foglie tra i fogli, un rebus, un progetto
(/isis/citation/CBB333401859/)
Article
Fabrizio Baldassarri;
(2022)
A Clockwork Orange: Citrus Fruits in Early Modern Philosophy, Science, and Medicine, 1564–1668
(/isis/citation/CBB229164183/)
Be the first to comment!