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Cuvier’s History of the Natural Sciences

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Georges Cuvier

1. Early Sixteenth-century Anatomists and Zoologists

3. The Early Zoologists: Belon, Salviani, and Rondelet

Texte intégral

Human skeleton Anatomical plate from Belon’s Histoire de la nature… (1555) Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN.

1Messieurs,

  • 1 [William Harvey, see Lesson 2.]
  • 2 [Fabricius d’Aquapendente, see Lesson 1, note 66, above; and Volume 1, Lesson 9, note 38.]

2Over the last two sessions we saw how anatomy, during the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century, went from the rough outlines left by the Ancients to a very acceptable description of most of the body parts in their general structure. We saw as well how anatomy gained more knowledge in the function of organs and how blood circulation was discovered thanks to Harvey’s experiments and research,1 based on the initial research that had taken place in the School of Padua where Harvey had studied with Fabricius.2 Today we are going to study the history of zoology during the same period.

  • 3 [Aristotle, see Volume 1, Lessons 7 and 8.]
  • 4 [Aelian of Praeneste, see Volume 1, Lesson 15.]
  • 5 [Pliny the Elder, see Volume 1, Lesson 13.]
  • 6 [Albert the Great, see Volume 1, Lesson 23.]
  • 7 [Vincent de Beauvais, see Volume 1, Lesson 22, note 29.]

3You remember that after Aristotle3 not much had been done in the general study of this branch of natural history. During the Roman domination, Aelian4 and Pliny5 brought only a few particular facts to those already known. The Middle Ages did not bring any additional progress to the study of this science either; the only authors of that time who wrote about natural history are Albert the Great6 and Vincent de Beauvais7 whose work is mostly a compilation of what the Ancients wrote, with very little critical contribution.

4What was commonly done at that time in the study of all sciences including zoology was to look at what the Ancients had written, try to comment on their work, explain it by comparing what various authors had written on the same subject, and then compare it with nature; this is what scholars in science tried to do. However, it took some time for this method to be broadly used in a consistent manner. The first essays are very light in substance or at least incomplete.

  • 8 [The author of this essay on snakes, entitled De serpentibus opus singulare ac exactissimum (Bolog (...)

5In 1519, a professor from Bologna wrote a small essay on snakes based on Nicander8 that was not very significant.

  • 9 [Paolo Giovio or Paulus Jovius (born 19 April 1483, Como, Lombardy; died 11 December 1552, Florenc (...)
  • 10 [Pope Clement VII, Giulio di Giuliano de Medici (born 26 May 1478, Florence; died 25 September 153 (...)

6Not long after that, another Italian, Paolo Giovio,9 born in Como in 1483 and one of the most polished writers of his time became somewhat interested in the study of natural history. He spent most of his life in Rome and Tuscany. In 1530, he became archbishop of Nocera under Clement VII.10 He died in Florence in 1552. No need to talk about his books on history or about his life, although it was a very interesting life; his writings have very little to do with the science we are studying in class today.

  • 11 [De Romanis piscibus libellus ad Ludouicum Borbonium Cardinalem amplissimum, Rome: Francisci Minit (...)
  • 12 [Louis de Bourbon de Vendôme (born 2 January 1493, Picardy, France; died 13 March 1557, Laon), son (...)

7I will only talk briefly about his book titled De Romanis piscibus libellus.11 It was the first book he wrote and many of his readers do not even know about it. It was dedicated to Cardinal Louis de Bourbon12 and printed in Rome in 1524 and 1527. It was translated into Italian and printed in Venice in 1560. All of these editions are unusually good. In his book, Paolo Giovio studies forty-two fishes that were those commonly found at the Roman market and any other Italian town market. They are organized by size and he gives some broad descriptions of them. He also quotes some of the descriptions of the Ancients that he tries to match to the fishes he describes. He gives their names in the different languages of Italy, but mostly their Roman names. This small book is not very significant in terms of science; however, it gives very interesting facts on the habits of fishes and their use. He tells surprising anecdotes on the adventures of some fishes of an extraordinary size that were served during famous meals, but its real value is in its nomenclature of fishes in the sixteenth century since names change from one period to another.

  • 13 [Francesco Massari (fl. first third of the sixteenth century), author of In nonum Plinii de natura (...)
  • 14 [The ninth book of Pliny’s Naturalis historia treats the natural history of fishes; for Pliny, see (...)

8At the same time, Massaria,13 a physician from Venice, also worked on the same subject, with an annotated version of Pliny’s ninth book.14 His book was printed in Basel in 1537 and in Paris in 1542. His annotation of Pliny’s work on fishes is of significant value. It brings the same benefits as the one that Paolo Giovio wrote but with more erudition, which enables us to identify the fish species that the Ancients talked about.

  • 15 [Pierre Gilles, also known as Pierre Alby; see Volume 1, Lesson 15, note 20.]
  • 16 [Lazare de Baïf (born 1496, La Flèche; died 1547, Paris), French diplomat and humanist, an elegant (...)
  • 17 [Francis I of France, see Volume 1, Lesson 15, note 21.]
  • 18 [Cardinal of Armagnac, Bishop of Rodez, is Georges d’Armagnac (born c. 1501, Avignon; died July 15 (...)
  • 19 The Armagnac family descends from Clovis [see Volume 1, Lesson 19, notes 18-20, 23-24] through the (...)

9Much more significant are the writings of Pierre Gilles (Gyllius in Latin), a French citizen born in Alby in 1490.15 Since his young age, he was passionate about travels and natural history. In 1515, he went to Italy where he was welcomed by Lazare de Baïf16 who was ambassador in Venice for Francis I of France.17 He came back to France under the protection of Cardinal of Armagnac, Bishop of Rodez,18 who was a member of the famous Armagnac family whose roots went as far back as Clovis.19 You will notice that during this century, most scholars were under the protection of clerical men. Clerical men were wealthy and could grant protection to scholars. Furthermore, they were the only ones to have an interest and taste for arts and sciences that were not widespread at that time.

  • 20 [Cardinal of Amboise is Georges d’Amboise (born 1460, Chaumont-sur-Loire; died 25 May 1510, Lyon), (...)

10Cardinal of Armagnac was a very important man at that time. He held different positions and gained his status from being under the protection of Cardinal of Amboise, Prime Minister to Louis XII.20 He hired Gilles to gather everything that had been written about animals in the writings of the Ancients and organize methodically this wealth of information, which Gilles did.

  • 21 [Porphyrius or Porphyry, see Volume 1, Lesson 1, note 39; Lesson 20, note 24].
  • 22 [Oppian of Anazarbus, see Volume 1, Lesson 15.]
  • 23 [Herodotus, see Volume 1, Lesson 7.]
  • 24 [Heliodorus of Emesa (fl. third century AD), author of the Aethiopica (the Ethiopian Story), the l (...)

11I already mentioned how disorganized Aelian’s work was. Gilles managed to bring some order to it. He put all quadrupeds together in the first book and all the other animals, mollusks, insects, cetaceans, snakes, fishes, and birds in sixteen other books. He added to Aelian’s work excerpts from different authors such as Porphyrius,21 Oppian,22 Herodotus,23 and Heliodorus of Emesa,24 author of The Ethopian Story or Theagenes and Chariclea. This work, published in 1533 in quarto, makes up the first somewhat accurate groundwork on the natural history of animals. This book was for quite some time thought to be the work of Aelian since his original writing existed only as a manuscript.

  • 25 [Conrad Gessner, see Lesson 4, below.]
  • 26 [See Aelianus (Claudius), Ex Aeliani Historia Per Petrvm Gyllivm Latini Facti, itemque ex Porphyri (...)
  • 27 [Soliman or Suleiman II (born 15 April 1642, Topkapi Palace, Constantinople; died 22/23 June 1691, (...)

12Conrad Gessner25 completed Gilles’s translation and used Aelian’s original organization of chapters; but Gilles’s version is more methodical, easier to research, and more enjoyable to read. Its title is Ex Aeliani historia latini facti, itemque ex Porphyrio, Heliodoro, Oppiano: tum eodem Gyllio luculentis accessionibus aucti libri XVI; de ui et natura animalium; eiusdem Gyllii liber unus, de gallicis et latinis nominibus piscium, Lyon, Sébastien Gryphe.26 It was dedicated to Francis I who was already a great protector of the humanities. In his dedication, which is quite long, Gilles encouraged this prince to promote travel abroad for scholars, to not only search for original manuscripts as he had already done before, but also to gather all specific facts related to natural productions. Francis I welcomed his suggestion and chose several scholars including Gilles for a trip to the Levant in 1546. But Francis I died in 1547 and the scholars he had sent abroad were left on their own. Gilles who was in Turkey at that time was in such dire straits that he had to enroll in Soliman II’s army in order to survive.27 He remained there for two or three years until some of his friends who he had informed about his situation were able to send him help and money to pay for his release from the army. He finally came back to Rome through Hungary and met again Cardinal of Armagnac. He died in Rome in 1555 at the age of sixty five.

  • 28 [Gilles (Pierre), De Bosporo Thracio libri III, Lyon: Guillaume Rouillé, 1561, [4 f °] + 263 p., i (...)
  • 29 [Gilles (Pierre), De topographia Constantinopoleos et de illius antiquitatibus libri quatuor, Lyon (...)
  • 30 [Gilles (Pierre), Descriptio nova elephanti, Lyon: Guillaume Rouillé, 1561, 38 p.]
  • 31 [Demetrius Pepagomenos (fl. thirteenth century), Byzantine Greek savant, physician, veterinarian, (...)
  • 32 [Edward Wotton (born 1492, Oxford; died 5 October 1555, London), English physician, the founder of (...)
  • 33 [Thomas Moufet, see Lesson 4, notes 43 and 71, below.]
  • 34 [Insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum or insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum, Lon (...)

13In addition to the books he wrote before his departure, he had written several other works that were published only after his death. These include a description of the Bosphorus of Thrace,28 a topography of Constantinople,29 and a description of the elephant.30 He was the first among the moderns to describe the elephant after nature. He had seen one in Constantinople, at the small zoo of the Grand-Seigneur. He also translated a small book written by Demetrius Pepagomenos31 on birds of prey, and a manual on how to care for hunting dogs but these books are of little significance compared to his natural history of animals based on Aelian’s work. This was the book of reference, used in later studies, in particular by the man who succeeded Gilles on the subject, Edward Wotton,32 an Englishman born in Oxford in 1492 and who died in 1555, the same year as Gilles. Wotton published in 1552 a book called De differentiis animalium libri decem, which he dedicated to Edward VI, and published in Paris by Vascosan. This small folio is remarkable for its time for the beauty of its printing. It is a complete treatise on zoology, as complete as could be at that time. In his treatise, Wotton describes general and particular characteristics of animals. In his first book, he describes the internal and external parts of the animals; in the second, he describes the differences among animals and the characteristics that enable their determination, but still in a general fashion. In the third book, he deals with the more specific differences among blooded animals. The fourth book describes human differences such as height, color, body structure, strength, instinct, basically all the diverse qualities that humans can embody. In this book he treats the question of races of the human species, and everything related to age, sex, and all hygienic circumstances in which humans can live. The fifth book is about viviparous quadrupeds, which he divides into several sections. The sixth one is about oviparous quadrupeds and snakes; the seventh is about birds and the eighth is on fishes. The ninth and tenth books are about bloodless animals, mollusks, crustaceans, and insects. This book is mostly a collection of the works of other authors, like the one Gilles wrote, but in this case, the author did not take Aelian as the basis for his work. The excerpts he adds to his treatise are mostly from Aristotle. At the time of its publication, this book was very useful. It could have been even more useful if Wotton had cited his sources. Unfortunately, it was not customary to do so at that time. The way authors cited their sources at that time was usually by writing “Aristotle said such and such,” without any mention of the book, or part of the work, where the citation was found. Wotton had started to write another book about insects that was later completed by Moufet;33 its title is Minimorum animalium theatrum.34

14As you can see, both in France and in England, general studies in zoology were emerging at their best with what was available at the time; although America had already been discovered by then, no large voyages had occurred yet and cabinets of curiosity did not yet exist.

  • 35 [Adam Lonicer or Lonicerus (born 10 October 1528, Marburg; died 29 May 1586, Frankfurt), German bo (...)
  • 36 The copy we know has two volumes in-folio, including the illustrations [see Lonicer (Adam), Natura (...)

15In 1551, one year before Wotton’s work was published, another book of a more general nature was published in Germany, written by Adam Lonicerus.35 Adam Lonicerus was born in Marburg; he was a doctor like his father and worked as a doctor in Frankfurt where he died in 1586. His book is called Naturalis historiae opus novum plantarum, animalium et metallorum. It is a one-volume folio36 and treats all the different parts of natural history, as the title of the book indicates, but in a much more abbreviated and of far-less quality than the volumes written by his predecessors. The only advantage this book presents over those of Gilles and Wotton are the illustrations, even though they are very small and inaccurate, and the illuminations poorly executed. Whenever Lonicerus lacked an object to copy, he did not hesitate to draw imaginary illustrations.

  • 37 [Guillaume Rondelet, see Lesson 1, note 42, above.]
  • 38 [Cuvier surely means to say “right after 1550.”]
  • 39 He [Belon] was born in La Souletière, hamlet of the parish of Oisé [M. de St. Agy].

16The three authors worthy of merit are the ichthyologists Belon, Salviani, and Rondelet.37 These naturalists made personal observations, and illustrated with accuracy the objects of their observation without using imaginary illustrations or borrowing representations from the Ancients. Rondelet and Belon were French and Salviani was Italian. By an extraordinary coincidence, the three of them published their works around the same time, right after 1560.38 They also knew each other and had been in communication with one another. The first one, Pierre Belon, was from the region of Maine in France. His publishing name was Belon du Mans, though he was not exactly from Le Mans but from a village next to it where he was born in 1517.39

  • 40 [René du Bellay de Langey (born 1500; died 1546, Paris), French theologian, descendant of an ancie (...)
  • 41 [Guillaume Duprat (born 1507, Issoire; died 1560, Beauregard), French bishop; son of Cardinal Anto (...)
  • 42 [François de Tournon (born 1489, Tournon-sur-Rhône; died 1562, Saint-Germain-en-Laye), French Augu (...)

17At the beginning of his studies, he was under the protection of René du Bellay, Bishop of Le Mans;40 Guillaume Duprat,41 Chancellor of France, founder of the College of Louis le Grand; and of Cardinal of Tournon, whom we will talk about in more detail.42

  • 43 [The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of th (...)
  • 44 [Henri II, see Lesson 2, note 52, above.]
  • 45 [Charles IX, see Lesson 2, note 41, above.]
  • 46 [Colloquy at Poissy, a religious conference that took place in Poissy, France, in 1561, in an atte (...)

18This cardinal was one of the most important of that time. Born in Tournon in 1489, he became archbishop of Embrun. He was later sent to Spain to free Francis I who had been held captive during the Battle of Pavia.43 This helped him secure the protection of the king; he became his prime minister and remained in this position almost all his life. He took some advantage of his position and became one of the most violent persecutors against the Protestants who were starting to voice their opinion at that time. He fell into disfavor under Henri II’s kingdom44 and regained his status under Charles IX;45 he was one of the fiercest firebrands of the fight against Protestants. He attended the Colloquy at Poissy in 1561.46 As far as we are concerned, we need to remember him as a great benefactor of sciences and humanities of his time and his contributions deserve our gratitude. Many books bear his dedication based on the same merit, including some that were written by naturalists who called on him for help.

  • 47 [Valerius Cordes or Cordus (born 18 1515, Kassel; died 25 September 1544, Rome), German botanist, (...)
  • 48 [Pope Paul III, Alessandro Farnese (born 29 February 1468, Canino, Latium, then part of the Papal (...)
  • 49 [Marcello Cervini (born 6 May 1501, Montefano in the Marches; died 1 May 1555, Rome), cardinal und (...)

19In 1540, he sent Belon to Germany for a first trip. Belon went to Württemberg and took some courses with Valerius Cordes,47 a renowned professor of botany. In 1546, his trips became longer and took him farther away. He went to Italy, Turkey, Greece, and Egypt and visited almost all the countries bordering the Mediterranean. He came back in 1549 and went to Rome to visit Cardinal of Tournon who was at that time in Rome for the Conclave that followed the death of Paul III.48 There he met Rondelet, another zoologist, and he saw Rondelet’s prodigious collection of fish illustrations, which we will have the opportunity to praise very soon. He also met Salviani who had also commissioned a large number of fish illustrations. Salviani was Cardinal Cervini’s doctor who later became pope under the name of Marcel II.49 The communication these three ichthyologists shared about their respective work on the same topic led to jealousy and accusations of plagiarism. However, it is easy to see that these accusations are without foundation.

  • 50 [Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro (also Barbarus) (born 8 February 1514, Venice; died 13 April 1570, (...)
  • 51 [Thionville, a commune in the Moselle department in Lorraine in northeastern France, located on th (...)
  • 52 [We have been unable to further identify this Dehamme.]
  • 53 [Pierre de Ronsard (born 11 September 1524, Couture-sur-Loir, Vendômois, in present-day Loir-et-Ch (...)

20Belon ended his travels quite rapidly and went to England in 1550 where he met Daniel Barbaro, a noble from Venice, Ambassador of the Republic of Venice in England, and Patriarch of Aquilea.50 Barbaro had commissioned the painting of three hundred fishes and he authorized Belon to reproduce them, thus giving Belon access to a major collection of drawings. He went to Paris to manage the publication of his book. There he was awarded his doctorate in medicine, yet with great difficulty. Not long afterward, in 1554, he was abducted in Thionville51 by a Spanish group. He did not have the funds required to pay for his ransom and a gentleman named Dehamme52 lent him the funds on the sole ground that Belon was a compatriot of the poet Ronsard.53

  • 54 [In 1526, King Francis I of France (see Volume 1, Lesson 15, note 21) began construction of a roya (...)
  • 55 [Pedanius Dioscorides, see Volume 1, Lesson 12, note 62.]
  • 56 [Theophrastus, see Volume 1, Lesson 9.]
  • 57 It is said that he was murdered by five men right inside the forest of Boulogne [see note 54, abov (...)

21In recognition of his contributions, Henri II gave Belon in 1556 a pension certificate that never yielded any money and as a result he was poor all his life. Nevertheless, he went on several trips to France and to the province of Savoy. When Charles IX was king, Belon was granted a place to live in the Bois de Boulogne in the small castle of Madrid.54 He was working at that time on the translation of Dioscorides55 and Theophrastus56 until one evening he was murdered on his way from Paris to Boulogne.57 This event deprives us of many works that he could have written since he was only forty-seven when he died. However, the few works he wrote are proof of the strong abilities and knowledge he had gained through his life.

  • 58 [Malarmat, common French name for the armored searobin, Peristedion cataphractum, a marine fish of (...)
  • 59 [A reference to “Cleopatra’s Needle,” the popular name for the ancient Egyptian obelisk presented (...)

22The first book is called Histoire de la nature des estranges poissons marins, avec la vraie peincture et description du daulphin. This book is a small quarto essay, with wood engravings that was published in Paris in 1551. No engraving as accurate as this had been published before. It features the sturgeon, tuna, and malarmat.58 It even features the first illustration of the hippopotamus. He had it drawn based on the obelisk of the Nile that we now have in Paris,59 on which crocodiles and hippopotamus are represented. The Ancients had not taken advantage of this source since their descriptions of these animals are very inaccurate.

  • 60 [Cardinal of Châtillon is Odet de Coligny (born 10 July 1517, Châtillon-Coligny; died 14 February (...)
  • 61 The reading of some of Calvin’s writings, but mostly the influence of his brother, Dandelot [Franç (...)
  • 62 He was excellent during the battle [of St. Denis in 1567,] as described by [Pierre de Bourdeille, (...)
  • 63 [François Rabelais (born c. 1494, Chinon; died 9 April 1553, Paris), celebrated French Renaissance (...)

23Belon’s book also gives a very accurate description of the dolphin, also called Delphinus by the Ancients, a species of cetacean whose head, largely extended, terminates with a goose-like beak. The dolphin’s appeal was related to heraldry, because at that time the dolphin was very often featured on coats of arms and crests. Thus, the dolphin was an object of curiosity more for the general public than for naturalists. The second part of the book is dedicated to Cardinal of Châtillon,60 one of the main prelates of that time whose life was more exceptional than the life of both Cardinals of Tournon and Armagnac. He was born in 1515; Pope Clement VII made him cardinal with deference to Francis I. He would probably have abstained from naming him Cardinal if he had been able to predict his future behavior. Cardinal of Châtillon converted to Protestantism and then got married.61 However, he kept his privileges. At the Court, his wife was referred to as Mme. Cardinal or Mme. Countess of Beauvais since he was both Count and Peer of France. He participated in the battle of St. Denis in 1567.62 He had to flee to England where he died, poisoned by one of his servants. This cardinal, like the other Italian cardinals, was a great protector of scholars in humanities. Rabelais63 dedicated one of his main works to him, and several naturalists, as we will see later on, also shared their work with him.

  • 64 [Petri Bellonii Cenomani De aquatilibus, libri duo cum conibus ad viuam ipsorum effigiem, quoad ei (...)
  • 65 [Transverse: we would describe the book today as oblong or in landscape format.]
  • 66 [Gymnetrus is the oarfish, now known as Regalecus glesne, also called the King of Herrings, the wo (...)

24In 1553, Belon wrote another book called De Aquatilibus;64 it is a duodecimo transverse65 that includes one hundred and ten illustrations of fishes, drawn after nature. While they are not always accurate in their details, they are acceptable as a whole. Most of these illustrations were copied from those that Daniel Barbaro had commissioned on the Adriatic Sea. They illustrate some species that are still rare today and that were described with accuracy only a few years ago, such as Gymnetrus.66 Belon gives the name of each species in Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and sometimes in Illyriac, modern Greek, Arabic, and Turkish. He adds to the illustrations a basic description since usually at that time the descriptive part of the study was the most neglected piece.

25The terminology that now exists to describe the variety of colors and shapes did not exist at that time; thus, authors relied on illustrations to make up for it. Belon gives a few details on the habits and lifestyle of fishes; however, this is merely a compilation of what the Ancients had written on the species he was observing. However, he is often wrong, as all the other authors were at that time, since determining the species that were known to the Ancients is never an easy task. It could only be done once every single kind of fish was collected from the Mediterranean; yet this work is still incomplete because many fishes were described by the Ancients with only a few words, and some of them still remain unknown.

26However, I think that among the three zoologists that I have just introduced, Belon is the one who is the most analytical and intellective in matching to species the names left by the Ancients.

  • 67 [Belon (Pierre), La Nature et diversité des poissons, avec leurs pourtraicts, representez au plus (...)

27The Latin edition of his book was published by Belon himself in 1553; then a French edition was published in 1555, called De la nature et diversité des poissons67 and is dedicated to Cardinal of Châtillon. It is in duodecimo transverse. It includes the same plates and almost the same text as in the Latin version, except for a few small differences; thus, it is necessary to have both editions to get an accurate description.

  • 68 [Belon (Pierre), Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables trouvées en Grèce (...)
  • 69 [Mouflon, a subspecies (Ovis aries orientalis) of the wild sheep, thought to be an ancestor of all (...)
  • 70 [Tartarin or hamadryas, a species of baboon: African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to th (...)
  • 71 The moderns, based on the Ancients, thought this fish was able to chew [Aristotle, for example, de (...)

28In 1553, Belon also published the account of his travels in his book called Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables trouvées en Grèce, Asie, Judée, Égypte, Arabie et autres pays étranges.68 A large number of these observations are outside of our curriculum; thus, I will only talk about those that are related to natural history. Belon gives illustrations of several species of birds, quadrupeds, and elephants; he illustrates the civet, the mongoose, the cameleon, the mouflon,69 and a monkey called Tartarin (hamadryas), a kind of Papio.70 These illustrations, which are engraved on wood, are not bad. Their level of accuracy in the details is acceptable; however, one represents a scarid (parrot fish), the characteristics of which are not to be found. Belon thought it was the scarid that the Ancients described;71 we believe it is not.

  • 72 [Belon (Pierre), L’histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions et naïfs portraicts (...)
  • 73 [For Lonicerus, see note 35, above.]

29In 1555, he wrote a new book called L’histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions et naïfs portraicts retirez du naturel, escrite en sept livres.72 It is a small folio that was published in Paris and dedicated to King Henri II. The illustrations of the birds represent for the first time a large number of species. They were engraved on wood, as the ones from Lonicerus.73 We wish they were more refined. Furthermore, some of them are not very well illuminated; however, they are quite accurate and this book is the first ornithology book of some quality to be published.

30In the first volume, the author deals with generalities, the second is about birds of prey, the third about swimming birds, the fourth about coastal birds, the fifth about poultry, the sixth about crows and similar birds, and the seventh and last is about small singing birds. The way he tackles the study of these species is similar to what he did with fishes. He gives their names, and synonyms used by the Ancients; then he infers some kind of natural history for each species.

  • 74 [Frederick II (born 26 December 1194, Marche, Italy; died 13 December 1250, Apulia, Italy), one of (...)

31The description of birds of prey is the subject of further explanation. This kind of hunting was in fashion at that time. Originating in the Middle East and mostly practiced by the Persians and the Arabs in the Middle Ages, it was introduced in the West by the Crusaders. Frederick II published a treatise about it.74 This activity required very violent exercise since it involved following by horse both the hunted bird and the hunting bird at the same time in order to reach the hunting bird at the precise moment when it would catch the hunted bird. Furthermore, it required traveling through vast plains, which could only be done at a time when many lands were not cultivated. Nowadays, most princes have stopped breeding prey birds.

  • 75 [Gyrfalcon, Falco rusticolus, the largest of the 37 recognized species of falcon.]

32However, this kind of hunting was very interesting; it was quite difficult to train large birds in the art of hunting game and bringing it back. People had to learn about the habits of falcons and of various game; thus, this study contributed to progress in natural history of birds. Belon used the knowledge of the main falcon breeders on the gyrfalcon75 and other prey birds. We will see other works about hunting with hounds in which these facts are mentioned.

  • 76 [Belon (Pierre), Portraicts d’oyseaux, animaux, serpens, herbes, arbres, hommes et femmes d’Arabie (...)

33Belon’s plates were also used for another work called Portraicts d’oyseaux, animaux, serpens, herbes, arbres, hommes et femmes d’Arabie et d’Égypte,76 with a map of Mount Athos and Mount Sinai. It was published in 1557. Ornithology is the main topic of this book and the author only added a few illustrations of quadrupeds and men, as well as different customes he noticed during his travels. The whole text of the book is made up of four bad verses written under the illustration of each bird. They express the major features of each bird’s characteristics and habits. This book, which was the last one that Belon wrote, is far less useful than his natural history of birds. Except for these books that we just mentioned, Belon spent all his life translating Theophrastus and Dioscorides, the two most significant botanists of Antiquity. His translation was probably not good enough to be published after he was murdered since nothing remains of it.

  • 77 [For Cervini, see note 49, above.]
  • 78 It is said that he was poisoned, but there is no proof of it [M. de St. Agy].
  • 79 [Pope Jules III, Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte (born 10 September 1487, Rome; died 23 March 155 (...)
  • 80 [Pope Paul IV, Gian Pietro Carafa (born 28 June 1476, Capriglia Irpina, near Avellino; died 18 Aug (...)

34Contemporary to Belon lived a man in Italy who also wrote about fishes. His name was Hyppolyte Salviani and he was born in Citta di Castello in Umbria in 1514. Salviani became doctor to Marcel Cervini,77 cardinal of the order of the Saint-Cross, who was pope for three weeks78 under the name of Marcel II. Cervini, before he became pope, gave Salviani the position of doctor to Pope Jules III,79 his predecessor, and Salviani kept his position under Paul IV80 who was better known as Caraffa, successor of Marcel II. Thus, he was in a very good position to study ichthyology since the Mediterranean Sea is much richer in fishes than all the Northern Seas. Actually, the markets of Rome offer a large number of its fishes, thus the only thing he had to do was to send someone over to the market to buy fishes and draw them as a basis for his work. This is indeed what Salviani did.

  • 81 [Salviani (Ippolito), Aquatilium animalium historia libri primus [illustrated by Lafréry Antoine ( (...)
  • 82 [The Eurasian Ruffe, also simply Ruffe or Pope, is Gymnocephalus cernua, a freshwater fish found i (...)
  • 83 [Peter Artedi, see Volume 1, Lesson 13, note 17.]
  • 84 [Salviani (Ippolito), La Ruffiana (“The Pimp”), Roma: Per Valerio & Luigi Dorici fratelli Bressani (...)

35His book is called Aquatilium animalium historia.81 It was printed in his own house, in Rome, and published from 1554 to 1558. It is a one-volume folio that has become rare. The plates that are featured in this book are the first ones to be engraved on copper with elegance. Roman artists were numerous at that time. It was a time when arts bloomed, especially in engraving, which was introduced after painting. If the characters of the fishes had been represented better, Salviani’s work would be perfect. However, for a painter to bring his skills to natural history with accuracy, he needs to know what is important to emphasize; if he does not have that knowledge, then the naturalist who hires the painter needs to be specific and tell the painter what details need to be emphasized. Nobody at that time thought that someday it would be important to count the number of rays on the fins of the fishes, the small serrations or spines that are sometimes located on the bones of their head, thus these particularities were not represented enough in Salviani’s illustrations. However, as a whole his work is perfect and these are the best drawings we have had until today. There are ninety-nine of them, and like the illustrations of Belon and Rondelet, which are more numerous, they were often copied. They represent fishes from Rome, some from Illyrie and the Archipelago, a few mollusks, a few ruffes (Gymnocepha lus cernua) or popes.82 The text that accompanies each species represented is the same as in Belon and Rondelet. Also indicated are their names in common languages, with their synonyms taken from books of the Ancients. However, it is very difficult to match synonyms to the different fishes. Belon gave some fishes a different name than Rondelet, and Salviani gave them a third name. Thus, it was very confusing until finally precise characters were available and some order was brought to this confusion. Artedi83 was the first one to bring some clarity in this confusion of nomenclature. However, Salviani was, more than any other scholar, capable of handling the scholarly work that he had undertaken. He was a very well-educated scholar in the humanities who wrote several books other than the ones I mentioned. He also wrote a comedy called The Ruffiana in which he describes the vices of his time; it was reprinted many times in Italy.84

  • 85 [Gonthier of Andernach, better known as Johannes Winter von Andernach (born c. 1505, Andernach; di (...)

36However, another man stood out as a scholar of higher quality than Salviani and Belon at the same period of time. His name was Guillaume Rondelet and he was born in 1507 in Montpellier; his father was a pharmacist. Because Guillaume was in poor health, his father only left him with one hundred crowns to pay for his admission to a convent and divided the remainder of his fortune among his other children. Rondelet, however, did not feel any vocation for monastic life and left it at the age of eighteen to pursue his studies with dedication. With the help of his older brother he went to Paris to finish his studies in the humanities. There he became friends with Gonthier of Andernach85 for whom he worked as prosector. He went back to Montpellier in 1529. He was a very skilled anatomist and a great naturalist and was the first one to teach anatomy in this town, with great success. He was granted his doctorate in 1537 at the age of thirty. It is in fact important to acknowledge since at that time, the honorable title of doctor was given only after very long studies and at an age that was usually much older.

  • 86 [Guillaume Pellicier, bishop of Montpellier; see Lesson 1, note 42, above.]
  • 87 [Rondelet (Guillaume), Libri de piscibus marinis: in quibus verae piscium effigies expressae sunt: (...)

37In Montpellier, Rondelet was under the protection of the bishop of the town, Guillaume Pellicier,86 who was a well-educated scholar who had studied natural history, especially related to fishes. Pellicier used to be ambassador in Venice. The help he provided Rondelet led some authors to claim that Pellicier was the author of the book called De piscibus marinis libri XVIII, in quibus vivae piscium imagines expositae sunt, published in 1554.87 However, based on the complete works that were published at that time and how Rondelet mentions the extent of help Pellicier provided him, it is obvious that Pellicier’s contribution to his work was only indirect.

  • 88 [We have not been able to find support for this reference to the founding of the Academy of Arcadi (...)
  • 89 Jean de Coras [also called Corasius; born 1515, Réalmont; died 1572, Toulouse] was a famous jurist (...)
  • 90 [For Rabelais, see note 63, above.]

38Rondelet was appointed professor in Montpellier in 1545. For some time already he had been attached to Cardinal of Tournon as his doctor and he followed the cardinal to Italy and the Netherlands where he further expanded his knowledge in natural history. After more than a year in Rome, he was granted permission by the cardinal to go back to France to work as a professor. Before he returned to France he visited Venice, Parma, Piacenza, Padua, and Bologna. During his stay in Italy, Cardinal of Tournon founded the famous Academy of Arcadia.88 When Rondelet came back to Montpellier in 1551, he established an amphitheater of anatomy. Each day he taught several classes that a large number of students attended. He died in 1556 as he was visiting Jean de Coras’s wife in Realmont who was ill at that time.89 A robe that is said to have belonged to him is still kept in this town. Rabelais90 talks about Rondelet in his book and refers to him as Rondibilis.

39He probably held him in esteem since all the discourses he quotes from Rondelet are full of wisdom and common sense.

40Rondelet’s main work that made him an authority both in ichthyology and natural history is his book called De piscibus marinis libri XVIII, in quibus vivae piscium imagines expositae sunt, Lyon, 1554; Universae aquatilium historiae pars altera, cum veris ipsorum imaginibus, Lyon, 1555, in-folio. This book is divided into two parts.

  • 91 [Rondelet’s artist was Georges Reverdi, an “engraver preferred by publishers” at Lyon, born in the (...)

41The first part includes eighteen chapters and the second part has seven. You will notice that the three ichthyology works from the sixteenth century were published almost at the same time. The first, a volume in duodecimo of Italian format is the one written by Belon and was published in 1551. The second is the one from Salviani, in folio, that he started in 1554 and completed in 1558. Rondelet’s ichthyology was published from 1554 to 1555. It is the most perfect one beyond compare. The drawings are better and the species more numerous than in the other two. The accuracy of the illustrations is even astonishing, though they were engraved in wood and lacked some refinement. All the small details, the spines, the small serrations, the shape of the scales, and of the fins are much better represented than in the engravings used in Salviani’s book. It includes one hundred and ninety-seven illustrations of marine fishes and one hundred and forty-seven of freshwater fishes. In addition to these illustrations are several other illustrations of shells, mollusks, and worms, as well as a few of reptiles and cetaceans. They are all so accurate that we can identify each of them today. Represented among these illustrations are some very rare fishes that we only found very recently, some last year and some even this year. The more we study fishes of the Mediterranean, the more we recognize Rondelet’s drawings that were unknown to the northern ichthyologists. We do not know the name of the artist who drew these illustrations with such perfect accuracy, but he certainly would have deserved to be famous since he was much more skilled than his predecessors and all those who followed after him for more than a century.91 The text that goes with each illustration is also of a higher quality. It is based more on observation than the ones by Belon and Salviani. Rondelet also added more anatomical observations than Belon and Salviani, which is not surprising since Rondelet was professor of anatomy. Furthermore, the excerpts he includes from the Ancients are translated in a more elegant fashion; they are also organized in such a way that they make a whole; the only part that is missing is an accurate synonymy, which is almost impossible to achieve.

42As I showed you earlier, fishes from the Mediterranean were better described by Rondelet than by most of the Moderns, apart from the technical details of the descriptions that could not be known at that time as they are today. But Rondelet did not know as much about the fishes from the north, the ocean’s coast and the channel, unlike Belon who only lived in Paris and in the north.

  • 92 [Labrids, bony fishes of the family Labridae, the second largest family of marine fishes, containi (...)
  • 93 [Triglids, bony fishes of the family Triglidae, commonly known as the searobins or gurnards, conta (...)

43Although in Rondelet there is still no order, genera, nor organization by species, or anything of what we need today to be able to find our way in the multitude of beings that natural history encompasses, we can feel, however, a sense of methodology; it is easy to see that Rondelet had noticed some relationships among species. The ones that he talks about are somewhat put together according to their genera; thus he puts together all the labrids.92 He also noticed common features in the triglids;93 thus, even though they were not established as they are today, the authors of the genera that came later only had to give a more scientific shape to Rondelet’s information.

  • 94 [Francis Willughby (born 22 November 1635, Middleton Hall, Warwickshire; died 3 July 1672, Middlet (...)
  • 95 [Georg Marcgrave or Marcgraf (born 1610, Liebstadt, Saxony; died 1644, Guinea), German naturalist (...)

44Rondelet’s work, together with those of Salviani and Belon, was the basis for all future studies in ichthyology, not only in the sixteenth century but also during the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century. If we look at Willughby’s work for example, who wrote a book on fishes at the end of the seventeenth century,94 we can see that except for the species brought back from America by Marcgrave95 and those brought from India by a few other explorers, Willughby pretty much only copied Rondelet’s illustrations. He did not add any new species. Furthermore, Willughby did not have the chance to see some of the species that Rondelet included in his work and he merely reported what he found in Rondelet’s book. Nothing can be better praise for a book than remaining complete and being considered a reference book for one hundred and fifty years. It is quite unique in the natural sciences, in which progress is so rapid that the science changes almost every decade.

  • 96 [Gilbert Longolius or Gilbert de Longueil (born 1507, Utrecht; died 1543, Cologne), Dutch physicia (...)
  • 97 [Longueil (Gilbert de), Dialogus de avibus et earum nominibus graecis, latinis et germanicis, non (...)

45If we add Gilbert Longolius’s book to the writings of the three naturalists we just talked about, we have a full library in zoology, not just two or three small books on the same topic. Gilbert Longolius96 was born in Utrecht in 1507. He died in Cologne in 1543. He wrote a book called Dialogus de avibus et eaarum nomminibus graecis, latinis et germanicis, etc. (Dialogue on birds and their names in Greek, Latin, and German).97 This compilation is not very important.

  • 98 [William Turner (born c. 1508, Morpeth, Northumberland; died 13 July 1568, London), an English the (...)
  • 99 [Henry VIII (born 28 June 1491, Greenwich; died 28 January 1547, London), king of England from 21 (...)
  • 100 [Lucrezia de’Medici, Duchess of Ferrara (born 14 February 1545, Florence; died 21 April 1561, Ferr (...)
  • 101 . [Edward VI (born 12 October 1537, Hampton Court Palace, Middlesex; died 6 July 1553, Greenwich Pa (...)
  • 102 [Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford and first Duke of Somerset (born c. 1500; died by decapitation, (...)
  • 103 [Mary Tudor (born 18 March 1496, Richmond Palace, Surrey; died 25 June 1533, Westhorpe Hall, Suffo (...)
  • 104 [Elizabeth I (born 7 September 1533, Palace of Placentia, Greenwich; died 24 March 1603, Richmond (...)
  • 105 [Turner (William), Avium praecipuarum, quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et su (...)
  • 106 [Paolo Giovio, see note 9, above.]

46Another book on birds was written by William Turner,98 an Englishman born in Morpeth around 1500. Turner had to leave England under Henry VIII99 because of the persecutions that had started against the Protestants. He fled to Ferrara where Protestants were able to find protection because the Duchess of Ferrara100 shared their feelings. He came back home when Edward VI101 was king and he became doctor to the protector of that time who was Hertfort, Duke of Somerset.102 When Mary103 took power, he had to leave England again; he came back under Elizabeth’s reign.104 He died in Cologne in 1568. His book is called Avium praecipuarum, quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et succincta historia (Short history of the main birds that are mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny).105 It was published in octavo in Cologne in 1554. It is a compilation somewhat similar to the one on fishes written by Paolo Giovio.106 These two books are written as compilations of former works, with excerpts from the Ancients and others from new authors. But Paolo Giovio experienced less difficulty in his research since he was studying in Italy, while Turner was studying in the north.

  • 107 [Conrad Gessner, see Lesson 4, below.]

47Here are the works by Turner that were published in the first half of the sixteenth century when Conrad Gessner107 undertook the huge task of writing a zoological encyclopedia in which all species would be included, where everything that was said by the Ancients, the Moderns, and the authors from the Middle Ages would be compiled, and where all material would be organized methodically and accompanied with observations gathered from all over Europe. This work was the main reference book for all zoologists for two centuries. It is where future authors learned most of their knowledge on the subject. This story deserves more of our interest than the authors we talked about earlier and we will study it in our next class.

Notes

1 [William Harvey, see Lesson 2.]

2 [Fabricius d’Aquapendente, see Lesson 1, note 66, above; and Volume 1, Lesson 9, note 38.]

3 [Aristotle, see Volume 1, Lessons 7 and 8.]

4 [Aelian of Praeneste, see Volume 1, Lesson 15.]

5 [Pliny the Elder, see Volume 1, Lesson 13.]

6 [Albert the Great, see Volume 1, Lesson 23.]

7 [Vincent de Beauvais, see Volume 1, Lesson 22, note 29.]

8 [The author of this essay on snakes, entitled De serpentibus opus singulare ac exactissimum (Bologna: Joannem Antonium juniorem de Benedictis, [1518], [108] p.), is Nicolaus Leonicenus (see Lesson 7, note 15, below; for Nicander, see Volume 1, Lesson 10, note 16.]

9 [Paolo Giovio or Paulus Jovius (born 19 April 1483, Como, Lombardy; died 11 December 1552, Florence), Italian physician, historian, and biographer, author of a collection of lives of famous men, Vitae virorum illustrium (1549-1557); a celebrated work of contemporary history, Historiarum sui temporis libri XLV (1550-1552); and Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (1554). He is remembered also for his chronicles of the Italian Wars; his eyewitness accounts of many of the battles form one of the most significant primary sources for the period. see Giovo (Paolo), Nouocomensis opera quotquot extant omnia, a mendis accuratè repurgata, vivisatque imaginibus eleganter & opportunè suis locis illustrata (vol. I, Historiarum sui temporis, libri XLV. Regionum et Insularum atque locorum descriptiones...; vol. II, Vitae illustrium virorum...: t. 1., Elogia virorum literis illustrium... & Vitarum illustrium aliquot virorum, t. II., Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium...), Basil.: typ. P. Pernae, 1575-1578, 2 vols ([12] + 408 + [22] + 617 + [29] + 156 + [6] p.; [12] + 427 + 231 + [8] + 225 + [8] + 391 + [14] p.), illus.; in-folio.]

10 [Pope Clement VII, Giulio di Giuliano de Medici (born 26 May 1478, Florence; died 25 September 1534, Rome), head of the Catholic Church from 19 November 1523 to his death.]

11 [De Romanis piscibus libellus ad Ludouicum Borbonium Cardinalem amplissimum, Rome: Francisci Minitii Calui, 1524; three other editions appeared during Giovio’s lifetime, all printed in Rome, in 1527, 1528, and 1531, the latter at Basel by Hieronymum Frobenium; eight years after Giovio’s death it was translated into Italian by Carlo Zancaruolo and printed in Venice in 1560 by Gualtieri, under the title Paolo Giovio de’ pesci romani. See Giovo (Paolo), De romanis piscibus libellus ad Ludouicum Borbonium cardinalem amplissimum, [Basileae]: In officina Frobeniana, 1531, 144 + [6] p., in-12; Libro di Mons. Paolo Giovio de’pesci romani tradotto in volgare da Carlo Zancaruolo (translated into Italian by Zancaruolo Carlo), Venice: appresso il Gualtieri, 1560, 198 p., in-4°.]

12 [Louis de Bourbon de Vendôme (born 2 January 1493, Picardy, France; died 13 March 1557, Laon), son of Francis, Count of Vendôme (born, 1470; died 30 October 1495), and Marie of Luxembourg (died 1 April 1547); he was Elected Bishop of Laon in 1510, took his vows in front of King Francis I in June 1517, and was elevated to cardinal in July 1517.]

13 [Francesco Massari (fl. first third of the sixteenth century), author of In nonum Plinii de naturali historia librum castigationes et annotationes. Quisquis de natura aquatilium ac remotiore piscium cognitione edoceri cupis, hunc Massarii commentarium eme & lege. Admiraberis laborem ac ingenium hominis candidissimi, qui longè maximam operam in hiis indagandis, ut studiosi juvarentur, insumpsit, Basel: Hieronymus Froben, 1537, 367 + [17] p., in-4°.]

14 [The ninth book of Pliny’s Naturalis historia treats the natural history of fishes; for Pliny, see Volume 1, Lesson 13.]

15 [Pierre Gilles, also known as Pierre Alby; see Volume 1, Lesson 15, note 20.]

16 [Lazare de Baïf (born 1496, La Flèche; died 1547, Paris), French diplomat and humanist, an elegant writer of Latin verse, and French ambassador to Venice; he published a translation of the Electra of Sophocles in 1537, and afterwards a version of the Hecuba.]

17 [Francis I of France, see Volume 1, Lesson 15, note 21.]

18 [Cardinal of Armagnac, Bishop of Rodez, is Georges d’Armagnac (born c. 1501, Avignon; died July 1585, Avignon), French humanist, patron of the arts, and diplomat deeply embroiled in the Italian Wars and in the French Wars of Religion; he was appointed Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rodez in 1529 and made a cardinal in December 1544 (see Volume 1, Lesson 15, note 20).]

19 The Armagnac family descends from Clovis [see Volume 1, Lesson 19, notes 18-20, 23-24] through the Dukes of Aquitaine [rulers of the ancient region of Aquitaine under the supremacy of Frankish, English, and later French kings] and the Dukes of Gascogne [rulers of Gascony, a region lying southwest of the Duchy of Aquitaine and bordering on northeastern Iberia] [M. de St. Agy].

20 [Cardinal of Amboise is Georges d’Amboise (born 1460, Chaumont-sur-Loire; died 25 May 1510, Lyon), French Roman Catholic cardinal and minister of state; he was made cardinal in September 1498 and appointed prime minister to Louis XII in December 1498.]

21 [Porphyrius or Porphyry, see Volume 1, Lesson 1, note 39; Lesson 20, note 24].

22 [Oppian of Anazarbus, see Volume 1, Lesson 15.]

23 [Herodotus, see Volume 1, Lesson 7.]

24 [Heliodorus of Emesa (fl. third century AD), author of the Aethiopica (the Ethiopian Story), the longest and most readable of the extant ancient Greek novels, which tells the story of an Ethiopian princess and a Thessalian prince who undergo a series of perils before their eventual happy marriage in the heroine’s homeland. See Heliodorus (of Emesa), The Ethiopian Story [translated from the ancient Greek by Lamb Walter; edited by Morgan J. R.], London: Rutland; Vermont: J. M. Dent, 1997, xxix + 310 p. (The Everyman library).]

25 [Conrad Gessner, see Lesson 4, below.]

26 [See Aelianus (Claudius), Ex Aeliani Historia Per Petrvm Gyllivm Latini Facti, itemque ex Porphyrio, Heliodoro, Oppiano, tum eodem Gyllio luculentis accessionibus aucti libri XVI. De ui [et] natura animalium, Eiusdem Gyllij Liber unus, De Gallicis [et] Latinis nominibus piscium [edited by Gilles Pierre], Lyon: Seb. Gryphius, 1533, (24) + 598 + (7) p., in-4°.]

27 [Soliman or Suleiman II (born 15 April 1642, Topkapi Palace, Constantinople; died 22/23 June 1691, Edirne, Eastern Thrace), sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1687 to 1691.]

28 [Gilles (Pierre), De Bosporo Thracio libri III, Lyon: Guillaume Rouillé, 1561, [4 f °] + 263 p., in-4°.]

29 [Gilles (Pierre), De topographia Constantinopoleos et de illius antiquitatibus libri quatuor, Lyon: Guillaume Rouillé, 1561, [4 f °] + 245 p., in-4°.]

30 [Gilles (Pierre), Descriptio nova elephanti, Lyon: Guillaume Rouillé, 1561, 38 p.]

31 [Demetrius Pepagomenos (fl. thirteenth century), Byzantine Greek savant, physician, veterinarian, and naturalist who lived in Constantinople, credited for providing a general description of gout; as a veterinarian, he wrote treatises on the care and treatment of hawks and of dogs.]

32 [Edward Wotton (born 1492, Oxford; died 5 October 1555, London), English physician, the founder of modern zoology, a title attributed to him largely because of his rigorous rejection of myth and folklore that had come to be generally accepted over time as part of the body of zoological knowledge.]

33 [Thomas Moufet, see Lesson 4, notes 43 and 71, below.]

34 [Insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum or insectorum sive minimorum animalium theatrum, London: Thomas Cotes, 1634, 10 pls + 326 (i.e. 316) + [4] p., illus.; see Lesson 4, notes 70 and 71, below.]

35 [Adam Lonicer or Lonicerus (born 10 October 1528, Marburg; died 29 May 1586, Frankfurt), German botanist, son of a theologian and philologist, he studied at Marburg and the University of Mainz, obtaining a Magister degree at sixteen years of age; he later became professor of mathematics at the University of Marburg (1553), Doctor of Medicine (1554), and eventually town physician in Frankfurt am Main. He is best remembered for his work on herbs —for which he was later commemorated by Linnaeus (see Volume 1, Lesson 7, note 34) by naming the honeysuckles, Lonicera, in his honor— the Kräuterbuch, published in four editions, between 1557 and 1577. See Lonicer (Adam), Kreuterbuch. Kunstliche Conterfeytunge der Bäume, Stauden, Hecken, Kreuter, Getreyde, Gewürtze: Sampt künstlichem und artlichem Bericht desz Distillierens. Item von fürnembsten Gethieren der Erden, Vögeln, und Fischen, Deszgleichen von Metallen, Ertze, Edelgesteinen, Gummi, und gestandenen Säfften. Jetzo auffs fleissigst zum sechsten Mal von neuwem ersehen..., Franckfort am Mayn: Getruckt bey Martin Lechlern, 1577, 16 + ccclviii + [1] p.]

36 The copy we know has two volumes in-folio, including the illustrations [see Lonicer (Adam), Naturalis historiae opus novum: in quo tractatur de natura et virbus arborum, fruticum, herbarum, Animantiumque terrestrium, uolatilium & aquatilium... Frankfurt: Christian Egenolph, 1551, [18] + 352 + [1] p.; Naturalis historiae. Tomus II, De plantarum earumque potissimum quae locis nostris rariores sunt, descriptione, natura et viribus, jam recens summo studio et diligentia congestus: accessit onomasticon, continens varias plantarum nomenclaturas, utpote graecas, latinas, italicas, gallicas, germanicas: vocunque, quarum in plantarum descriptionibus frequens est usus, explicationem, cum indice multiplici..., Frankfurt: Christian Egenolph, 1555, 83 p., in-folio] [M. de St. Agy].

37 [Guillaume Rondelet, see Lesson 1, note 42, above.]

38 [Cuvier surely means to say “right after 1550.”]

39 He [Belon] was born in La Souletière, hamlet of the parish of Oisé [M. de St. Agy].

40 [René du Bellay de Langey (born 1500; died 1546, Paris), French theologian, descendant of an ancient noble family of Anjou, whose origins date back to the twelfth century; he was named commendatory abbot of Saint-Meen in 1532 and bishop of Le Mans from 1535, resigning his abbey in 1539.]

41 [Guillaume Duprat (born 1507, Issoire; died 1560, Beauregard), French bishop; son of Cardinal Antoine Duprat, he was appointed Bishop of Clermont in 1529; later he took part in the last sessions of the Council of Trent. He was a patron of the Jesuits —not only did he receive them in his diocese, where they were put in charge of the colleges of Billom and Mauriac, but, in the face of opposition, he helped them financially and in other ways, in particular by founding the College de Clermont.]

42 [François de Tournon (born 1489, Tournon-sur-Rhône; died 1562, Saint-Germain-en-Laye), French Augustinian diplomat and cardinal. From 1536, he was also a military leader of French forces operating in Provence, Savoy, and Piedmont; in the same year he founded the Collège de Tournon, and a for a while he was effectively France’s foreign minister.]

43 [The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521-1526. A Spanish-Imperial army under the nominal command of Charles de Lannoy (born c. 1487; died 23 September 1527) attacked the French army under the personal command of Francis I of France (see Volume 1, Lesson 15, note 21) in the great hunting preserve of Mirabello outside the city walls. In the four-hour battle, the French army was split and defeated, suffering massive casualties, including many of the chief nobles of France. Francis himself, captured by the Spanish troops, was imprisoned by Charles V (see Lesson 1, note 69, above) and forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Madrid, surrendering significant territory to his captor. The outcome of the battle cemented Spanish Habsburg ascendancy in Italy.]

44 [Henri II, see Lesson 2, note 52, above.]

45 [Charles IX, see Lesson 2, note 41, above.]

46 [Colloquy at Poissy, a religious conference that took place in Poissy, France, in 1561, in an attempt to reconcile differences between the Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots) of France. The conference was opened on 9 September in the refectory of the convent of Poissy, the French king (aged 11) himself being present; it ended inconclusively a month later, on 9 October, by which point the divide between the doctrines appeared ir

47 [Valerius Cordes or Cordus (born 18 1515, Kassel; died 25 September 1544, Rome), German botanist, artist, pharmacologist, and naturalist, remembered for his floristic studies in central and southern Germany, in which he described numerous new and rare plant species.]

48 [Pope Paul III, Alessandro Farnese (born 29 February 1468, Canino, Latium, then part of the Papal States; died 10 November 1549, Rome) head of the Catholic Church from 13 October 1534 to his death.]

49 [Marcello Cervini (born 6 May 1501, Montefano in the Marches; died 1 May 1555, Rome), cardinal under the Basilica of Holy Cross in Jerusalem, elected Pope of the Catholic Church on April 10 1555, under the name of Marcellus II, but served just 20 days after his accession to the papacy.]

50 [Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro (also Barbarus) (born 8 February 1514, Venice; died 13 April 1570, Venice), Italian humanist, best known for his vast output in the arts, letters, and mathematics, and as translator of the works of the celebrated Roman engineer Marcus Vitruvius (born c. 80-70 BC, died after c. 15 BC); he also had a significant ecclesiastical career, reaching the rank of cardinal.]

51 [Thionville, a commune in the Moselle department in Lorraine in northeastern France, located on the left bank of the River Moselle.]

52 [We have been unable to further identify this Dehamme.]

53 [Pierre de Ronsard (born 11 September 1524, Couture-sur-Loir, Vendômois, in present-day Loir-et-Cher; died 27 December 1585, La Riche), celebrated French poet, called the “prince of poets” by his own generation in France.]

54 [In 1526, King Francis I of France (see Volume 1, Lesson 15, note 21) began construction of a royal residence, the Château de Madrid, in the forest (Bois de Boulogne) in what is now Neuilly; used for hunting and festivities, it was named after a similar palace in Madrid, where Francis had been held prisoner for several months. Despite its royal status, the forest remained dangerous for travelers and the château was rarely used by later monarchs, falling into ruins in the eighteenth century and demolished after the French Revolution.]

55 [Pedanius Dioscorides, see Volume 1, Lesson 12, note 62.]

56 [Theophrastus, see Volume 1, Lesson 9.]

57 It is said that he was murdered by five men right inside the forest of Boulogne [see note 54, above] [M. de St. Agy].

58 [Malarmat, common French name for the armored searobin, Peristedion cataphractum, a marine fish of the eastern North Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean.]

59 [A reference to “Cleopatra’s Needle,” the popular name for the ancient Egyptian obelisk presented to France in 1826 by then ruler of Egypt and Sudan, Muhammad Ali (born 4 March 1769, died 2 August 1849). King Louis-Philippe (born 6 October 1773, died 26 August 1850) had it placed in the center of Place de la Concorde in 1833 near the spot where Louis XVI (born 23 August 1754, died 21 January 1793) and Marie Antoinette (born 2 November 1755, died 16 October 1793) had been guillotined in 1793.]

60 [Cardinal of Châtillon is Odet de Coligny (born 10 July 1517, Châtillon-Coligny; died 14 February 1571, Canterbury, England), French cardinal of Châtillon, bishop of Beauvais, and son of Gaspard I de Coligny (born 1465/1470, died 1522) and Louise de Montmorency (born 1496, died 1547).]

61 The reading of some of Calvin’s writings, but mostly the influence of his brother, Dandelot [François d’Andelot de Coligny (born 18 April 1521, Châtillon-sur-Loing; died 27 May 1569, Saintes, Charente-Maritime), one of the leaders of French Protestantism during the French Wars of Religion], who was colonel general in the infantry, started to weaken the faith of the cardinal; further conferences with the leaders of the Reform led him to completely embrace the new principles; however, he waited until the first civil war to say it officially. Pius IV [Jean Angelo de Medici (born 31 March 1499, Milan; died 9 December 1565, Rome) pope from 1559 to 1565], when informed of his behavior, removed him from the list of cardinals; after that he was completely overt in his new way of life and he married publicly Isabelle de Hauteville [his mistress, also known as Elizabeth de Kanteville or Mme. la Cardinale] who was then introduced to the Court; he even appeared in public with her dressed in his robe of cardinal at the ceremony held to celebrate Charles IX’s adulthood [M. de St. Agy].

62 He was excellent during the battle [of St. Denis in 1567,] as described by [Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de] Brantôme [French historian, soldier, and biographer, born c. 1540, died 15 July 1614], and he showed the world that a noble and generous heart cannot lie nor fail, wherever he might be and in whatever outfit he might wear. After that day, he was under arrest warrant, which is the reason why he fled to England [M. de St. Agy].

63 [François Rabelais (born c. 1494, Chinon; died 9 April 1553, Paris), celebrated French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk, and Greek scholar, who produced works of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes, and songs; he is considered one of the great writers of world literature and among the creators of modern European writing.]

64 [Petri Bellonii Cenomani De aquatilibus, libri duo cum conibus ad viuam ipsorum effigiem, quoad eius fieri potuit, expressis, Paris: Charles Estienne, 1553, [32] + 448 p., illus., in-8°; considered the greatest single advance in the scientific study and classification of fishes since Aristotle. It was a standard ichthyology text well into the seventeenth century, before it was superseded.]

65 [Transverse: we would describe the book today as oblong or in landscape format.]

66 [Gymnetrus is the oarfish, now known as Regalecus glesne, also called the King of Herrings, the world’s longest bony fish; ribbon-like and laterally compressed, it is known to reach a record length of 11 meters, with unconfirmed specimens measuring up to 17 meters. See Roberts (Tyson R.), Systematics, Biology, and Distribution of the Species of the Oceanic Oarfish Genus Regalecus (Teleostei, Lampridiformes, Regalecidae), Paris: Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 2012, 268 p. (Mémoires du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle; 202).]

67 [Belon (Pierre), La Nature et diversité des poissons, avec leurs pourtraicts, representez au plus pres du naturel, Paris: Charles Estienne, 1555, [40] + 448 p., figs, in-8°.]

68 [Belon (Pierre), Les observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses memorables trouvées en Grèce, Asie, Judée, Égypte, Arabie et autres pays étrangèrs, redigées en trois livres, Paris: Guillaume Cavellat, 1553, [30] + 210 [i. e. 422] p., illus., in-8 °; a second edition, published by Jean Steelsius, in Anvers, appeared in 1555, and later, a Latin edition, translated by Charles de l’Écluse, was published in 1589.]

69 [Mouflon, a subspecies (Ovis aries orientalis) of the wild sheep, thought to be an ancestor of all modern domestic sheep breeds.]

70 [Tartarin or hamadryas, a species of baboon: African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to the genus Papio; the five known species (including the hamadryas, Papio hamadryas) are some of the largest non-hominoid members of the primate order; only the mandrill and the drill are larger.]

71 The moderns, based on the Ancients, thought this fish was able to chew [Aristotle, for example, declared this to be the only fish that ruminates]; Ovide says this about it: At contra herbosa pisces laxantur arena, / Ut scaurus, spastas solus qui ruminat escas [“Of all the fish that graze beneath the flood, He only ruminates his former food”, tr. by Goldsmith Oliver]. According to [Francis] Willughby [see note 94, below], [as described in his De Historia piscium of 1686], the scarid (parrot fish) has obtuse teeth and uses the anterior ones, which look a lot like those of humans, to pull grass [algae] from rocks. He adds that the most delicious part of this fish is the stomach because of the tasty grass [algae] it is filled up with; to eat it, it is seasoned as is, without cleaning the inside, and the liver, which is very large, is added to it; cooked a different way, the scarid would be a flavorless dish. Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus (born 8 December 65 BC; died 27 November 8 BC), the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus; see Volume 1, Lesson 11, notes 17 and 20] also talks about the scarid as a very delicate dish [M. de St. Agy].

72 [Belon (Pierre), L’histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions et naïfs portraicts retirez du naturel, escrite en sept livres (Paris: Gilles Corrozet, 1555, [28] + 381 + [1] p., in-folio) which contains Belon’s famous comparison of the skeleton of a human and a bird, signaling the beginning of the study of comparative anatomy.]

73 [For Lonicerus, see note 35, above.]

74 [Frederick II (born 26 December 1194, Marche, Italy; died 13 December 1250, Apulia, Italy), one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages; his political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous; however, his enemies, especially the popes, prevailed, and his dynasty collapsed soon after his death. He is the author of the first treatise on the subject of falconry, De arte venandi cum avibus (The art of hunting with birds), written in the 1240s and first printed in 1596. See Frederick II, De arte venandi cum avibus, cum Manfredi regis additionibus ex membranis vetustis nunc primum edita. Albertus Magnus de falconibus, asturibus et accipitribus, Augustae, Vindelicorum: apud J. Praetorium, 1596, 415 p., pls, in-8°.]

75 [Gyrfalcon, Falco rusticolus, the largest of the 37 recognized species of falcon.]

76 [Belon (Pierre), Portraicts d’oyseaux, animaux, serpens, herbes, arbres, hommes et femmes d’Arabie et d’Égypte observez par P. Belon du Mans, le tout enrichi de quatrains pour la plus facile cognoissance des Oyseaux et autres portraicts, plus y est adjousté la Carte du Mont Attos et du Mont Sinay pour l’intelligence de leur religion, Paris: Guillaume Cavellat, 1557, [10] + 122 + [2] p., illus., in-8°.]

77 [For Cervini, see note 49, above.]

78 It is said that he was poisoned, but there is no proof of it [M. de St. Agy].

79 [Pope Jules III, Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte (born 10 September 1487, Rome; died 23 March 1555, Rome), head of the Catholic Church from 7 February 1550 to his death. Distinguished as an effective diplomat, he was elected to the papacy as a compromise candidate; as Pope he made only reluctant and short-lived attempts at reform, mostly devoting himself to a life of personal pleasure.]

80 [Pope Paul IV, Gian Pietro Carafa (born 28 June 1476, Capriglia Irpina, near Avellino; died 18 August 1559, Rome), member of a prominent noble family of Naples; head of the Catholic Church from 23 May 1555 until his death. He was instrumental in setting up the Roman Inquisition, and was opposed to any dialogue with the emerging Protestant party in Europe. His anti-Spanish outlook colored his papacy, and confronted the Papal States with serious military defeat.]

81 [Salviani (Ippolito), Aquatilium animalium historia libri primus [illustrated by Lafréry Antoine (born 1512, died 1577) and Beatrizet Nicolas (born c. 1520, died after 1560)], Rome: Apud H. Salvianum, 1554, [viii] + 256 p.; the first book to use the technique of copper engraving to depict fishes.]

82 [The Eurasian Ruffe, also simply Ruffe or Pope, is Gymnocephalus cernua, a freshwater fish found in temperate regions of Europe and northern Asia; its common names are ambiguous: “ruffe” may refer to any local member of the genus Gymnocephalus, which as a whole is native to Eurasia.]

83 [Peter Artedi, see Volume 1, Lesson 13, note 17.]

84 [Salviani (Ippolito), La Ruffiana (“The Pimp”), Roma: Per Valerio & Luigi Dorici fratelli Bressani, 1554, 120 p.]

85 [Gonthier of Andernach, better known as Johannes Winter von Andernach (born c. 1505, Andernach; died 4 October 1774, Strasburg), German physician, one of the foremost humanistic physicians of his time.]

86 [Guillaume Pellicier, bishop of Montpellier; see Lesson 1, note 42, above.]

87 [Rondelet (Guillaume), Libri de piscibus marinis: in quibus verae piscium effigies expressae sunt: quae in tota piscium historia contineantur, indicat elenchus pagina nona et decima: postremo accesserunt indices necesarij, Lyon: Matthias Bonhomme, 1554-1555, 2 vols ([16] + 583 + [25] p.; [12] + 242 + [10] p.)]

88 [We have not been able to find support for this reference to the founding of the Academy of Arcadia. The well-known Accademia degli Arcadi or Accademia dell’Arcadia was an Italian literary academy founded in Rome in 1690, well over a century after the death of the Cardinal of Tournon (see note 38, above).]

89 Jean de Coras [also called Corasius; born 1515, Réalmont; died 1572, Toulouse] was a famous jurist and counselor at the [royal] court of the sixteenth century [M. de St. Agy].

90 [For Rabelais, see note 63, above.]

91 [Rondelet’s artist was Georges Reverdi, an “engraver preferred by publishers” at Lyon, born in the region of Dombes in eastern France and active from about 1529, when he worked in Italy, to about 1560 at Lyon. In preparing the woodcuts that illustrate Rondelet’s book, Reverdi is said to have worked directly from the author’s drawings.]

92 [Labrids, bony fishes of the family Labridae, the second largest family of marine fishes, containing 68 genera and about 453 species, commonly known as the wrasses; the family is widely distributed in tropical and temperate waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.

93 [Triglids, bony fishes of the family Triglidae, commonly known as the searobins or gurnards, containing ten genera and about 105 species, widely distributed throughout all tropical and temperate seas.]

94 [Francis Willughby (born 22 November 1635, Middleton Hall, Warwickshire; died 3 July 1672, Middleton), English naturalist, born of an ancient lineage in England, the several branches of which have had or still have peerages; he joined with John Ray (English theologian and one of the great naturalist of the seventeenth century; born 1637, died 1705), his teacher and friend, to work on the natural history of animals. See Willughby (Francis), De Historia piscium libri quatuor jussu et sumptibus Societatis regiae Londinensis editi, in quibus non tantum de piscibus in genere agitur, sed et species omnes... Oxford: Teatro Sheldoniano, 1686, 344 + 30 p. + 188 engraved pls [1 vol. in-folio, with one set of 188 plates dating from 1685]; engraving expenses were met by the members of the Royal Society of London, the president of which, Samuel Pepys (born 1633, died 1703), alone had 60 of them printed.]

95 [Georg Marcgrave or Marcgraf (born 1610, Liebstadt, Saxony; died 1644, Guinea), German naturalist and astronomer; after having studied botany, mathematics, and medicine in Germany and Switzerland, he was in 1637 appointed astronomer of a company being formed to sail to the Dutch colony in Brazil, accompanying Willem Piso (Dutch physician and naturalist; born 1611, died 1678), the newly appointed governor of the Dutch possessions in that country. He later entered the service of Count Maurice of Nassau (Johann Moritz; born 17 June 1604, died 20 December 1679), whose generosity supplied him with the means to explore a considerable part of Brazil. There he undertook the first zoological, botanical, and astronomical expedition, exploring various parts of the colony to study its natural history and geography; traveling later to the coast of Guinea, he fell victim to the climate.]

96 [Gilbert Longolius or Gilbert de Longueil (born 1507, Utrecht; died 1543, Cologne), Dutch physician who produced a number of translations and comments on Greek and Roman works.]

97 [Longueil (Gilbert de), Dialogus de avibus et earum nominibus graecis, latinis et germanicis, non minùs festiuus, quàm eruditus, et omnibus studiosis ad intelligendos Poëtas maximè utilis, Cologne: Joannes Gymnicus, 1544, 118 p.]

98 [William Turner (born c. 1508, Morpeth, Northumberland; died 13 July 1568, London), an English theologian, physician, and naturalist; he studied medicine in Italy, and was a friend of the great Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner (see Lesson 4, below). He is best remembered today as an early herbalist and ornithologist.]

99 [Henry VIII (born 28 June 1491, Greenwich; died 28 January 1547, London), king of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was lord, and later king, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France. Henry was the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding his father, Henry VII (King of England and Lord of Ireland after seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death; born 28 January 1457, died 21 April 1509). Considered in his prime by contemporaries to be an attractive, educated, and accomplished king, he has been since described as “one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne.” Besides ruling with considerable power, he also engaged himself as an author and composer. His desire to provide England with a male heir —which stemmed partly from personal vanity and partly because he believed a daughter would be unable to consolidate the Tudor dynasty and the fragile peace that existed following the Wars of the Roses— led to the two things for which Henry is most remembered: his six marriages and the English Reformation. Henry became morbidly obese and his health suffered, contributing to his death in 1547. He is frequently characterized in his later life as a lustful, egotistical, harsh, and insecure king.]

100 [Lucrezia de’Medici, Duchess of Ferrara (born 14 February 1545, Florence; died 21 April 1561, Ferrara), daughter of Cosimo I de’Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (born 1519, died 1574), and Eleanor of Toledo (born 1522, died 1562).]

101 . [Edward VI (born 12 October 1537, Hampton Court Palace, Middlesex; died 6 July 1553, Greenwich Palace, Kent), crowned on 20 February at the age of nine, he was king of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England’s first monarch raised as a Protestant. During Edward’s reign, the realm was governed by a Regency Council, because he never reached his majority.]

102 [Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford and first Duke of Somerset (born c. 1500; died by decapitation, 22 January 1552, Tower [Hill, London) Lord Protector of England during the minority of his nephew King Edward VI (see note 101, above), in the period between the death of King Henry VIII (see note 99, above) in 1547 and his own indictment in 1549.]

103 [Mary Tudor (born 18 March 1496, Richmond Palace, Surrey; died 25 June 1533, Westhorpe Hall, Suffolk), younger of the two surviving daughters of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and the younger sister of King Henry VIII of England (see note 99, above). She was also queen consort of France through her marriage to Louis XII (born 27 June 1462, died 1 January 1515). Following his death, which occurred less than two months after her coronation as his third wife, she married Charles Brandon, first Duke of Suffolk (born c. 1484, died 22 August 1545). Their marriage, which was performed secretly in France, took place without her brother Henry’s consent. This necessitated the intervention of Thomas Wolsey (born c. March 1473, died 29 November 1530) and the couple was eventually pardoned by King Henry. Mary’s second marriage produced four children; through her eldest daughter Frances, Mary was the maternal grandmother of Lady Jane Grey, who was the de facto monarch of England for a little over a week in July 1553.]

104 [Elizabeth I (born 7 September 1533, Palace of Placentia, Greenwich; died 24 March 1603, Richmond Palace, Surrey), queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called “The Virgin Queen,” “Gloriana,” or “Good Queen Bess,” Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. The daughter of Henry VIII (see note 99, above), she was born into the royal succession, but her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed two and a half years after her birth, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. On his death in 1553, her half-brother, Edward VI (see note 101, above), bequeathed the crown to Lady Jane Grey, cutting his two half-sisters, Elizabeth and the Roman Catholic Mary, out of the succession in spite of statute law to the contrary. His will was set aside, Mary became queen, and Lady Jane Grey was executed. In 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister, during whose reign she had been imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.]

105 [Turner (William), Avium praecipuarum, quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et succincta historia, Cologne: Joannes Gymnicus, 1544, 76 p., in-8°; the first printed book devoted entirely to birds, it not only discussed the principal birds and bird names mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, but also added accurate descriptions and life histories of birds from Turner’s own extensive ornithological knowledge; see note 98, above).]

106 [Paolo Giovio, see note 9, above.]

107 [Conrad Gessner, see Lesson 4, below.]

Table des illustrations

Légende Human skeleton Anatomical plate from Belon’s Histoire de la nature… (1555) Cliché Bibliothèque centrale, MNHN.
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