Fabrizio Baldassarri – författare

This volume aims to uncover the diverse approach to plants in the Renaissance and seventeenth century that paved the way for a definition of botany as a fully-fledged discipline. Its scope expands beyond the natural historical interest in collections and the fabrication of materia medica: moving from Varchi, Matthioli and Bauhin to Locke, Pinelli, and Linnaeus, among others, the contributions collected here connect practical and theoretical features, dealing with the challenges that characterized any involvement with plants. The authors focus on the linguistic shortcomings, problems in authenticating specimens, and efforts to establish new botanical geographies to favour trades, as well as the pursuits of new methodologies, artisanal technologies, and chymical experiments with plants. Botany thus emerges as a suitable discipline to disclose the complexities and challenges of early modern science in general.

Shedding new light on the understudied Italian Renaissance scholar, Andrea Cesalpino, and the diverse fields he wrote on, this volume covers the multiple traditions that characterize his complex natural philosophy and medical theories, taking in epistemology, demonology, mineralogy, and botany.By moving beyond the established influence of Aristotle’s texts on his work, Andrea Cesalpino and Renaissance Aristotelianism reflects the rich influences of Platonism, alchemy, Galenism, and Hippocratic ideas. Cesalpino’s relation to the new sciences of the 16th century are traced through his direct influences, on cosmology, botany, and medicine. In combining Cesalpino’s reception of these traditions alongside his connections to early modern science, this book provides a vital case study of Renaissance Aristotelianism.

Shedding new light on the understudied Italian Renaissance scholar, Andrea Cesalpino, and the diverse fields he wrote on, this volume covers the multiple traditions that characterize his complex natural philosophy and medical theories, taking in epistemology, demonology, mineralogy, and botany.By moving beyond the established influence of Aristotle’s texts on his work, Andrea Cesalpino and Renaissance Aristotelianism reflects the rich influences of Platonism, alchemy, Galenism, and Hippocratic ideas. Cesalpino’s relation to the new sciences of the 16th century are traced through his direct influences, on cosmology, botany, and medicine. In combining Cesalpino’s reception of these traditions alongside his connections to early modern science, this book provides a vital case study of Renaissance Aristotelianism.

The volume analyzes the natural philosophical accounts and debates concerning the vegetative powers, namely nutrition, growth, and reproduction. While principally focusing on the early modern approaches to the lower functions of the soul, readers will discover the roots of these approaches back to the Ancient times, as the volume highlights the role of three strands that help shape the study of life in the Medieval and early modern natural philosophies. From late antiquity to the early modern period, the vegetative soul and its cognate concepts have played a substantial role in specifying life, living functions, and living bodies, sometimes blurring the line between living and non-living nature, and, at other moments, resulting in a strong restriction of life to a mechanical system of operations and powers. Unearthing the history of the vegetative soul as a shrub of interconnected concepts, the 24 contributions of the volume fill a crucial gap in scholarship, ultimately outlining the importance of vegetal processes of incessant proliferation, generation, and organic growth as the roots of life in natural philosophical interpretations.

The volume analyzes the natural philosophical accounts and debates concerning the vegetative powers, namely nutrition, growth, and reproduction. While principally focusing on the early modern approaches to the lower functions of the soul, readers will discover the roots of these approaches back to the Ancient times, as the volume highlights the role of three strands that help shape the study of life in the Medieval and early modern natural philosophies. From late antiquity to the early modern period, the vegetative soul and its cognate concepts have played a substantial role in specifying life, living functions, and living bodies, sometimes blurring the line between living and non-living nature, and, at other moments, resulting in a strong restriction of life to a mechanical system of operations and powers. Unearthing the history of the vegetative soul as a shrub of interconnected concepts, the 24 contributions of the volume fill a crucial gap in scholarship, ultimately outlining the importance of vegetal processes of incessant proliferation, generation, and organic growth as the roots of life in natural philosophical interpretations.

This book explores René Descartes’s attempts to describe particular bodies, such as rocks, minerals, metals, plants, and animals, within the mechanistic interpretation of nature of his philosophical program.

This book explores René Descartes’s attempts to describe particular bodies, such as rocks, minerals, metals, plants, and animals, within the mechanistic interpretation of nature of his philosophical program.

In the pre-modern times, while medicine was still relying on classical authorities on herbal remedies, a new engagement with the plant world emerged. This volume follows intertwined strands in the study of plants, examining newly introduced species that captured physicians' curiosity, expanded their therapeutic arsenal, and challenged their long-held medical theories. The development of herbaria, the creation of botanical gardens, and the inspection of plants contributed to a new understanding of the vegetal world. Increased attention to plants led to account for their therapeutic virtues, to test and produce new drugs, to recognize the physical properties of plants, and to develop a new plant science and medicine.

In the pre-modern times, while medicine was still relying on classical authorities on herbal remedies, a new engagement with the plant world emerged. This volume follows intertwined strands in the study of plants, examining newly introduced species that captured physicians' curiosity, expanded their therapeutic arsenal, and challenged their long-held medical theories. The development of herbaria, the creation of botanical gardens, and the inspection of plants contributed to a new understanding of the vegetal world. Increased attention to plants led to account for their therapeutic virtues, to test and produce new drugs, to recognize the physical properties of plants, and to develop a new plant science and medicine.