Ulisse Aldrovandi (11 September 1522 – 4 May 1605) was an Italian

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

, the moving force behind Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

and the

comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, and cosmologist. He held the position of ''intendant'' (director) at the ''Jardin du Roi'', now called the Jardin des plant ...

reckoned him the father of

natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

studies. He is usually referred to, especially in older scientific literature in Latin, as Aldrovandus; his name in Italian is equally given as Aldroandi.

Life

Aldrovandi was born in

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

to Teseo Aldrovandi and his wife, a noble but poor family. His father was a lawyer, and Secretary to the Senate of Bologna, but died when Ulisse was seven years old. His widowed mother wanted him to become a

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

. Initially he was sent to apprentice with merchants as a scribe for a short time when he was 14 years old, but after studying

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

, and

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

, initially at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

, and then at the

University of Padua The University of Padua (, UNIPD) is an Italian public research university in Padua, Italy. It was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from the University of Bologna, who previously settled in Vicenza; thus, it is the second-oldest ...

in 1545, he became a

notary A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems. A notary, while a legal professional, is distin ...

. His interests successively extended to

and

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

, which he combined with the study of medicine. In June 1549, Aldrovandi was accused and arrested for heresy on account of his espousing of the anti-trinitarian beliefs of the

Anabaptist Anabaptism (from Neo-Latin , from the Greek language, Greek : 're-' and 'baptism'; , earlier also )Since the middle of the 20th century, the German-speaking world no longer uses the term (translation: "Re-baptizers"), considering it biased. ...

Camillo Renato. By September, he publicly abjured, but was nevertheless transferred to Rome, and remained in custody or house arrest until absolved in April, 1550. During this time, he befriended many local scholars. While in light captivity there, he became more and more interested in

botany Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

, and

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

(he is credited for the invention/first written record of this word). From 1551 onward, he organized a variety of expeditions to the Italian mountains, countryside, islands, and coasts to collect and catalogue plants. He obtained a degree in medicine and

in 1553 and started teaching

and philosophy in 1554 at the University of Bologna. In 1559, he became professor of philosophy and in 1561 he became the first professor of

natural sciences Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

at Bologna (). Aldrovandi was a friend of Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1574 – 1587), visiting his garden at Pratolino and travelling with him, compiling a list of the most valuable plants at Pratolino. He also formed fruitful associations with botanical artists such as Jacopo Ligozzi, to further develop illustrated texts. He died in Bologna on 4 May 1605, at the age of 82. Aldrovandi's wife Francesca Fontana was invaluable to his research. He utilized her dowry to build their massive country estate that ultimately included his natural history collection. She was a research partner who located texts for him to cite and use in his books, edited his books, and wrote sections of them as well. She wrote the preface for his posthumous book ''On the Remains of Bloodless Animals'', which Suzanne Le-May Sheffield described as "their shared work".

Work

Over the course of his life, he would assemble one of the most spectacular cabinets of curiosities: his "theatre" illuminating

comprising some 7000 specimens of the '' diversità'' , of which he wrote a description in 1595. Between 1551 and 1554, he organized several expeditions to collect plants for a

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...

, among the first botanizing expeditions. Eventually, his herbarium contained about 4760 dried specimens on 4117 sheets in sixteen volumes, preserved at the University of Bologna. He also had various artists including Jacopo Ligozzi, Giovanni Neri, and Cornelio Schwindt, compose illustrations of specimens.

Botanic garden

At his demand and under his direction, a public

botanic garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is ...

was created in Bologna in 1568, now the Orto Botanico dell'Università di Bologna. Due to a dispute on the composition of a popular medicine with the pharmacists and doctors of Bologna in 1575, he was suspended from all public positions for five years. In 1577, he sought the aid of

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

Gregory XIII Pope Gregory XIII (, , born Ugo Boncompagni; 7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 May 1572 to his death in April 1585. He is best known for commissioning and being the namesake ...

(a cousin of his mother), who wrote to the authorities of Bologna to reinstate Aldrovandi in his public offices and request financial aid to help him publish his books.

Collections

His vast collections in botany and zoology he willed to the Senate of Bologna; until 1742 the collections were conserved in the Palazzo Pubblico, then in the

Palazzo Poggi The Palazzo Poggi is a '' palazzo'' in Via Zamboni 33, Bologna, Italy. It is the headquarters of the University of Bologna and of the rector of the university. History The Palazzo Poggi was built as the home of Alessandro Poggi and his brother ...

, but were distributed among various libraries and institutions in the course of the nineteenth century. In 1907 a representative part were reunited at Palazzo Poggi, Bologna, where the 400th anniversary of his death was memorialized in a celebrative exhibition in 2005.

Neurofibromatosis

He was the first to have extensively documented the disease neurofibromatosis, a type of skin tumour. Recently, however, it has been observed that in a work by

Andrea Mantegna Andrea Mantegna (, ; ; September 13, 1506) was an Italian Renaissance painter, a student of Ancient Rome, Roman archeology, and son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with Perspective (graphical), pe ...

, this type of disease had been pictured 80 years earlier than in Androvandi's work.

List of selected publications

Of the several hundred books and essays he wrote, only a handful were published during his lifetime: *
Antidotarii Bononiensis, siue de vsitata ratione componendorum, miscendorumque medicamentorum, epitome
' (1574) *
Ornithologiae hoc est de avibus historiae libri XII
' (Bologna, 1599)
another copy
*
Ornithologiae tomus alter cum indice copiosissimo
' (Bologna, 1600) *
De animalibus insectis libri septem, cum singulorum iconibus ad vivum expressis
' (Bologna, 1602
1618 edition
*
Ornithologiae tomus tertius, ac postremus
' (Bologna, 1603
1637 edition
*
De reliquis animalibus exanguibus libri quatuor
' (Bologna, 1606) *
De piscibus libri V, et De cetis lib. vnus
' (Bologna, 1613) *
Quadrupedum omnium bisulcorum historia
' (Bologna, 1621) *
Serpentum, et draconum
' (Bologna, 1640) (Natural History of Snakes and Dragons) *
Monstrorum historia cum Paralipomenis historiae omnium animalium
' (Bologna, 1642
1658 edition
from the

University and State Library Düsseldorf The University and State Library Düsseldorf (, abbreviated ULB Düsseldorf) is a central service institution of Heinrich Heine University. Along with Bonn and Münster, it is also one of the three State Libraries of North Rhine-Westphalia. ...

*
Musaeum metallicum in libros IV distributum Bartholomaeus Ambrosinus
' (Bologna, 1648) *
Dendrologiae naturalis scilicet arborum historiae libri duo sylua glandaria, acinosumq
' (Bologna, 1667) * Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, Ms. 136, XI folio 73

Honors

* The

wrinkle ridge A wrinkle ridge is a type of feature commonly found on lunar maria, or basalt plains. These features are low, sinuous ridges formed on the mare surface that can extend for up to several hundred kilometers. Wrinkle ridges are tectonic features ...

'' Dorsa Aldrovandi'' on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

is named after him. * The Civico Orto Botanico "Ulisse Aldrovandi" in San Giovanni in Persiceto is named in his honor. * The plant genus '' Aldrovanda'' is named after him.

Gallery

Ulisse Aldrovandi00.jpg, ''

Cucurbita maxima ''Cucurbita maxima'', one of at least five species of cultivated Squash (plant), squash, is one of the most diverse domesticated species. This species originated in South America from the wild subspecies ''Cucurbita maxima subsp. andreana'' over ...

'' Duchesne (c1660) Basilisk aldrovandi.jpg,

Basilisk In European bestiary, bestiaries and legends, a basilisk ( or ) is a legendary reptile reputed to be a Serpent symbolism, serpent king, who causes death to those who look into its eyes. According to the ''Natural History (Pliny), Naturalis Histo ...

from ''Serpentum, et draconum historiae libri duo'' (1640) Aldrovandi-0337.jpg,

Harpy In Greek and Roman mythology, a harpy (plural harpies, , ; ) is a half-human and half-bird mythical creature, often believed to be a personification of storm winds. They feature in Homeric poems. Descriptions Harpies were generally depict ...

from ''Monstrorum Historia'' (1642) Aldrov tatzelwurm.jpg, Two headed lizard from ''Historia serpentum et draconum'' (1640) Ulisse Aldrovandi - Specimens of Nature - WGA00143.jpg, Specimens of Nature Aldrovandi Owl.png, Purdue Owl Ulisse Aldrovandi - Blue-Headed Quail-Dove - WGA00142.jpg, Blue-Headed Quail-Dove Gallina patavina.jpg, Paduan Hen Gallus patavinus.jpg, Paduan Rooster Gallus turcicus.jpg, Turcicus Rooster Ulisse Aldrovandi - Blackbuck - WGA00139.jpg, Blackbuck Ulisse Aldrovandi - Red Hartebeest and Blackbuck - WGA00136.jpg, Red Hartebeest and Blackbuck Ulisse Aldrovandi - Red Hartebeest and Mountain Coati - WGA00140.jpg, Red Hartebeest and Mountain Coati

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * *

External links

Aldrovandi's CatsDe Avibus Historiae (1666)AMS Historica – Ulisse Aldrovandi – University of Bologna
(in Italian)
Ulisse Aldrovandi at arthistoricum.netOnline Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries
High resolution images of works by and/or portraits of Ulisse Aldrovandi in .jpg and .tiff format.
"Ornithologiae ... libri XII" at the GDZ
(Latin)
''Serpentum, et draconum historiae libri duo''
(1640) - digital facsimile from

Linda Hall Library The Linda Hall Library is a privately endowed American library of science, engineering and technology located in Kansas City, Missouri, on the grounds of a urban arboretum. It claims to be the "largest independently funded public library of sc ...

''Musaeum Metallicum''
(1648) - digital facsimile from

''Ornithologiae''
(3 vols., 1599) - digital facsimiles from

''De quadrupedib.' digitatis viviparis libri tres...''
(1663) - digital facsimile from

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aldrovandi, Ulisse 1522 births 1605 deaths 16th-century Italian physicians 16th-century Italian botanists Italian botanical illustrators Scientists from the Papal States Italian entomologists Italian naturalists Italian ornithologists Italian painters of animals Scientists from Bologna Pre-Linnaean botanists Victims of the Inquisition Academic staff of the University of Bologna 16th-century naturalists