Wandering Exotica.: The illustrations in Nieremberg's Historia Naturae (1635)

• Autores: José Ramón Marcaida
• Localización: The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science. Barcelona, 18-20 November 2010 / coord. por Antoni M. Roca Rosell, 2012, ISBN 978-84-9965-108-8, págs. 975-979
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Juan Eusebio Nieremberg’s Historia Naturae (1635) constitutes a rare contribution to natural history and natural philosophy coming from Spain during the first half of the seventeenth century. Featuring a theologically oriented approach to nature, mainly focused on the curious and the rare, the book is particularly noteworthy for the way it makes use of the materials (texts and illustrations) gathered by Francisco Hernández during his expedition to the New World in the 1570s. The story of these materials is well known among scholars, especially in relation to the Roman edition of Hernández’s texts and illustrations produced by the Accademia dei Lincei.

    Nieremberg’s treatment of these materials, however, has not received as much attention, despite some significant work being done on the American flora featured in his book. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the visual content of Historia Naturae and interpret it as a reflection of the kind of processes involved in the production and distribution of natural knowledge, in particular, circulating images representing unknown subjects such as New World animals and plants.