Warburg Work in Progress, Autumn 2024 - ‘Air, Waters, and Places: The Role of Habitat in Renaissance "Historiae plantarum" between Classification, Natural Philosophy and Environmental Awareness’

Fabrizio Baldassarri (Warburg/I Tatti fellow): ‘Air, Waters, and Places: The Role of Habitat in Renaissance Historiae plantarum between Classification, Natural Philosophy and Environmental Awareness’

In this paper, I discuss the role of a small section of Renaissance Historiae plantarum, in which authors describe the loci of cultivation of each specimen, as a relevant feature to help differentiate between plants, and classify specimens. Besides the geo-agricultural role of this feature, generally used to locate the correct habitat or place of cultivation, and ease the propagation of each specimen, during the Renaissance, this notion had a clear theoretical role. Belonging to Theophrastus’ differentiation of plants according to their place (locus) of cultivation, Renaissance scholars used this category with a similar role.

In my talk, I present a few cases, from Ulisse Aldrovandi, who classified plants according to their natural places of cultivation (therefore distinguishing between natural and artificial cultures—an interesting difference in the time of botanical gardens), to Pietro Andrea Mattioli, who attributed habitats with an important role in defining the virtues of plants. Yet, since this notion intersects the issues connected to plant propagation and plant transmutation, this has an important bearing on early modern natural philosophical works with plants, as well as with a nascent attention to the environment as a crucial factor to study botany.

The Work in Progress seminar explores the variety of subjects studied and researched at the Warburg Institute. Papers are given by invited international scholars, research fellows studying at the Institute, and third-year PhD students.

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