A Clockwork Orange: Citrus Fruits in Early Modern Philosophy, Science, and Medicine, 1564–1668

• Autores: Fabrizio Baldassarri
• Localización: Nuncius: annali di storia della scienza, ISSN 0394-7394, Vol. 37, Nº. Extra 2, 2022 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Plants in Early Modern Knowledge), págs. 255-283
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In the early modern time citrus fruits unpredictably drew enormous attention, not only in mythology or artistic knowledge, but also in natural philosophy and medicine. Embedded within two lesser-known texts belonging to the sciences, in this article I analyse diverse sources to appraise the richness and plurality of approaches to citrus fruits that pool different ways of constructing a complex knowledge of plants. First, I explore the classificatory attempts of Renaissance botanists. Second, I discuss the experimental investigation in the enchantment for monstrosities and teratologies in Della Porta’s natural magic and Aldrovandi’s naturalism. Then, I present the more structured obsession displayed by Giovanni Battista Ferrari. Finally, I investigate the natural philosophical systematization of citrus in Gassendi’s corpuscularianism and Descartes’ mechanics. In outlining a combination of frameworks, the study of citrus fruits surfaces as a suitable case study to assess the complex knowledge of plants in early modern Europe.