5/29/2023 0 Comments Contribution of abraham ortelius![]() Plateau was the most-cited of all of Clusius‘ Correspondents, and by taking a closer look at the contributions that this plant-lover made to the knowledge of the famous botanist, we gain an interesting insight in the crucial exchange of knowledge, information, seeds and plant specimens between scholars and amateurs during the late 16th century. He also commissioned, forwarded and made original drawings of plants, some of which are here recognized for the first time. He was an accurate observer of plants, who contributed much to the knowledge of Clusius and brought many new species to his attention. Plateau – here newly identified as a treasurer for the Catholic Church and a magistrate in his local Tournai – owned a impressive garden with more than 450 species of plants: two surviving manuscript catalogues give a detailed impression of his diverse collection of garden plants. Some one hundred letters must have been exchanged between the two plant-lovers. In an era before natural history was professionalized, the humanist ideal of correspondence helped foster and sustain the community of Renaissance natural history.įor a period of nearly twenty-five years the famous botanist Carolus Clusius (1526–1609) was in close contact with the long-neglected Jacques Plateau († 1608) from Tournai in the southern Netherlands. The correspondence of late Renaissance naturalists reveals that this ideal served as a regulative fiction: though often violated in practice, it nonetheless shaped naturalists‘ expectations about how to write letters and how their correspondents should respond. In treatises on letter-writing they discussed the rhetoric of correspondence, analyzed the distinct kinds of letters, and developed the ideal that correspondence was a sincere, conversational exchange among distant friends. Humanist scholars from Desiderius Erasmus to Justus Lipsius took correspondence seriously. Humanist correspondence manuals and the late Renaissance community of naturalists Themenschwerpunkt 2: Physics and Dialectical Materialismįlorike Egmond / Esther van Gelder / Nicolas Robin Gastherausgeber: Esther van Gelder / Nicolas Robin Practice, Expertise and Identity in Clusius‘ World See Dr.Themenschwerpunkt 1: Flowers of Passion and Distinction.
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