Natural Interactions in the Book as Art and Making Knowledge

Primary Sources

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Album of pressed botanical specimens from Norfolk, England : manuscript. Norfolk, England, 1793.

Merian, Maria Sibylla. Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium : In qua erucæ ac vermes Surinamenses ... ad vivùm delineantur & describuntur. Amstelodami [Amsterdam]: Sumtibus auctoris, habitantis in de Kerk-Straat, tussen de Leydse- en Spiegel-Straat, ubi impressa & colorata prostant. Venduntur & apud Gerardum Valk op den Dam, in de Waakende Hond., Anno 1705.

Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library

Aldrovandi, Ulisse. Monstrorum historia : cum Paralipomenis historiae omnium animalium. Bononiae: Typis Nicolai Tebaldini, 1642.

Belon, Pierre. L'histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins, avec la vraie peincture & description du daulphin, & de plusieurs autres de son espèce. Paris: De l'imprimerie de Regnaud Chaudiere, 1551.

Blackwell, Elizabeth. A curious herbal, containing five hundred cuts, of the most useful plants, which are now used in the practice of physick : engraved on folio copper plates, after drawings taken from the life / by Elizabeth Blackwell ; to which is added a short description of ye plants; and their common uses in physick. London : Printed for John Nourse, 1739-1751.

Charleton, Walter. [Onomasticon zoicon], continens plerumque animalium quadrupedu, serpentium, insectorum, avium, & piscium differentias ... Cui accedunt mantissa anatomica, et nonnulla de variis fossilium generibus. Londini [London]: apud Jacobum Allestry, 1671.

Clusius, Carolus. Exoticorvm libri decem: quibus animalium, plantarum, aromatum,aliorumq́ue peregrinorum fructuum historiae describuntur. Item Petri Belloni Observationes, eodem Carolo Clvsio interprete. Series totius operis post praefationem indicabitur. Antverpiae [Antwerp]: ex officina Plantiniana Raphelengii, 1605.

Fuchs, Leonhart. De historia stirpium commentarii insignes : maximis impensis et vigiliis elaborati, adiectis earundem vivis plusquam quingentis imaginibus, nunquam antea ad naturae imitationem artificiosius effictis & expressis : ... / Leonharto Fuchsio ... autore ; accessit ijs succincta admodum uocum difficilium & obscurarum passim in hoc opere occurrentium explicatio ; unà cum quadruplici indice, quorum primus quidem stirpium nomenclaturas Graecas, alter Latinas, tertius officinis seplasiariorum & herbarijs usitatas, quartus Germanicascontinebit. Basileae [Basel]: In officina Isingriniana, anno Christi 1542.

___Primi de stirpium historia commentariorum tomi uiuae imagines,in exiguam angustioremq́[ue] formam contractae, ac q̀uam fieri potest artificiosissimè expressae, ut quicunq[ue] rei herbariae radicitus cognoscendae desidero tenentur, eas uel deambulantes uel peregrinantes in finu cōmodius gestare, adq́[ue] natiuas herbas conferre queant. Additus est index, qui stirpium nomenclaturas continet. Basileae [Isingrin], 1545.

Gesner, Konrad. Historiae animalium lib. I. De quadrupedibus uiuiparis. Tiguri: Abud Christ. Froschoverum, 1551.

Hooke, Robert. Micrographia, or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies;made by magnifying glasses : with observations and inquiries thereupon.London: Printed by Jo. Martyn, and Ja. Allestry, printers to the Royal Society, and are to be sold at their shop at the Bell in S. Paul's Church-yard, 1665.

Imperato, Ferrante. Dell'historia naturale di Ferrante Imperato ... Libri XXVIII. Nella quale ordinatamente si tratta della diuersa condition di miniere, e pietre. Con alcune historie di piante, & animali, sin'hora non date in luce. Napoli : C. Vitale, 1599.

Mattioli, Pietro Andrea. De plantis epitome utilissima, Petri Andreae Matthioli, senensis,medici excellentissimi, &c. / novis iconibus et descriptionibus pluribus nunc primum diligenter aucta, à D. Joachimo Camerario ... ; accessit catalogus plantarum, quae in hoc compendio continentur, exactiss. Francofurti ad Moenum : [Sigmund Feyerabend], 1586.

Seris, Jean. Herbarium with dried specimens. 1761.

Turner, William. The first and seconde partes of the herbal lately oversene,corrected and enlarged with the thirde parte, lately gathered, and nowe set oute with the names of the herbes, in Greke Latin, English, Duche, Frenche, and in the apothecaries and herbaries Latin, with the properties, degrees, and naturall places of the same. Here unto is joyned also a Booke of the bath of Baeth in England, and of the vertues of the same with diverse other bathes, moste holsom and effectuall, both in Almanye and England. Collen: Arnold Birckman, 1568.

Yale University Art Gallery

Bry, de Johann Theodore. “Tulips.” In Florilegium novum, hoc est Variorum Maximeque Radiorum Florum ac Plantorum. Oppenheim, 1612-1618.

Secondary Literature

Acheson, Katherine. “Gesner, Topsell, and the Purpose of Pictures in Early Modern Natural Histories.” In Printed Images in Early Modern Britain, ed Michael Hunter. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2010.

Baadj, Nadia. Jan van Kessel I (1626-1679): Crafting a Natural History of Art in Early Modern Antwerp. London: Harvey Miller Publishers, an Imprint of Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, 2016.

Bass, Marisa. Insect Artifice: Nature and Art in the Dutch Revolt. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2019.

Blair, Ann. “Humanist methods in natural philosophy: The commonplace book.”Journal of the History of Ideas 53, no. 4 (1992): 541-551.

___Too Much To Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.

Bleichmar, Daniela. “Looking at Exotica in Baroque Collections: The Object, the Viewer, and the Collection as a Space.” In The Gentleman, the Virtuoso, the Inquirer: Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa and the Art of Collecting in Early Modern Spain, eds. Mar Rey Bueno and Miguel Lopez Perez. Middlesex: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.

Cave, Roderick. Impressions of nature: a history of nature printing. London : British Library ; New York, NY : Mark Batty Publisher ; London : Thames & Hudson [distributor], 2010.

Dackerman, Susan. Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Art Museums; New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press [distributor], 2011.

___ Painted Prints: The Revelation of Color in Northern Renaissance &Baroque Engravings, Etchings & Woodcuts. University Park, PA.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002.

DaCosta Kaufmann, Thomas. The Mastery of Nature: Aspects of Art, Science, and Humanism in the Renaissance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993.

___ “Remarks on the Collection of Rudolph II: The Kunstkammer as a Form of Representatio.” In Grasping the World: The Idea of the Museum, eds. By Donald  Preziosi, and Claire Farago. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004.

Daston, Lorraine, and Katherine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750. New York: MIT Press, 1998.

Egmond, Florike. Eye for detail: images of plants and animals in art and science, 1599-1630. London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2017.

Enenkel, Karl, A.E., and Paul J. Smith, eds. Zoology in early modern culture: intersections of science, theology, philology, and political and religious education. Leiden, the Netherlands ; Boston : Brill, 2014.

Findlen, Paula. Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Grafton, Anthony. Inky Fingers: The Making of Books in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020.

Harkness, E. Deborah. “Elizabethan London’s Naturalists and the Work of John White.” In European Visions: American Voices, ed Kim Sloan, London: British Museum Research Publication, 2009.

Jorink, Eric. Reading the Book of Nature in the Dutch Golden Age, 1575-1715. Translated by Peter Mason. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, Volume 191, 2010.

___ “Insects, Philosophy, and the Microscope.” In H.A. Curry, Worlds of Natural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Karr Schmidt, Suzanne. Altered and Adorned: Using Renaissance Prints in Daily Life. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.

Kunukawa, Tomomi. “Learned vs. Commercial? The Commodification of Nature in Early Modern Natural History Specimen Exchange in England, Germany, and the Netherlands.” In Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 43 (2013): 589-618.

Kusukawa, Sachiko. Picturing the Book of Nature: Image, Text, and Argument in Sixteenth-century Human Anatomy and Medical Botany. Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, 2012.

Kramer, Fabian. “The Persistent Image of an Unusual Centaur. A Biography of Aldrovandi’s Two-Legged Centaur Woodcut.” Nuncius, XXIV, 2-2009, 313-340.

Margocsy, Daniel. Commercial Visions: Science, Trade, and Visual Culture in the Dutch Golden Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.

Neri, Janice. Visualizing Nature in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

Ogilvie, Brian.  The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

___ “Image and Text in Natural History, 1500-1700.” In The Power of Images in Early Modern Science, edited by Wolfgang Lefèvre, Jürgen Renn. Basel : Birkhäuser Basel, 2003.

Olariu, Dominic. “Herbs under Pressure: plant illustrations and nature printing in the first half of the fifteenth century.” In Naturalismen : Kunst, Wissenschaft und ÄsthetikKunst, Wissenschaft und Ästhetik, eds Robert Felfe und Mauarice Sass. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2019.

Ratcliff, Marc.  The quest for the invisible : microscopy in the Enlightenment. Farnham, England ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate Pub. Limited, 2009.

Reitsma, Ella. Maria Sibylla Merian & daughters: women of art and science. Amsterdam: Rembrandt House Museum; Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum; Zwolle: Waanders, 2008.

Rudy, Kathryn M. Postcards on Parchment: The Social Lives of Medieval Books. New Haven, CT; London.: Yale University Press, 2015.

Schickore, Jutta.  The microscope and the eye: a history of reflections, 1740-1870. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007

Schiebinger, Londa, and Claudia Swan. Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.

Sherman, H. William. Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.

Smith, Pamela. The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Smith, Pamela, and  Amy R. W. Meyers, and Harold J. Cook, eds. Ways of making and knowing: the material culture of empirical knowledge. Bard Graduate Center, 2017.

Vries, de Jan. Barges and Capitalism: Passenger Transportation in the Dutch Economy, 1632-1839. HES Publisher: Utrecht, 1981.

Wragge-Morley, Alexander. Aesthetic science representing nature in the Royal Society of London, 1650-1720. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 2020.