Zoology

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The taste for the collections of precious treasures, coins, cameos, but also of strange, monstrous animals, exotic plants, various crystals and rarities that in the sixteenth century adorned the palaces of lords – with the aim of "astonishing" the guests or the Court and of communicating power – was also transmitted to the seventeenth century, becoming a common practice for many amateurs and scientists. These, however, creating their own "Wunderkammer", did nothing but give substance to their scientific research, satisfying at the same time the curiosity of the eye without neglecting the documentary rigor that was increasingly asserting itself as an indispensable basis of scientific analysis in the study of botanical and zoological species.


Wunderkammer Domenico Remps, Cabinet of Wonders, circa. 1689 (Opificio delle Pietre dure, Florence, via Wikimedia Commons)


Even the publishing industry hastened to adapt to this new need by enriching printed publications of tables, illustrations and drawings so that reality can be viewed with the maximum descriptive capacity, the result of direct observation and without concessions to the imagination. At least a hundred volumes of zoology can be counted among Marsili's books: in addition to fish and reptiles, particular interest is given to birds and molluscs.

PAGE INDEX

J.P. Breyn, Dissertatio physica de polythalamiis (1732)

The term polythalamia, introduced into the scientific nomenclature by Breyn with this work, was applied to describe those molluscs, endowed with shells characterized by growth chambers connected to each other, but empty except for the last one in which the mollusc lives and moves; Nautili and the extinct Ammonites are an example. The author, who hailed from Gdansk, was a guest of Antonio Vallisneri in Padova during his stay in Italy in 1703, and the two became friends.

Breyn-1 Breyn-2 Two tables of Dissertatio physica de polythalamiis (from Phaidra)

F. Buonanni, Ricreatione dell'occhio e della mente nell'osservation delle chiocciole (1681)

Another very famous work, the first dedicated exclusively to shells, printed in 1681 by the Jesuit Filippo Buonanni (or Bonanni, 1638–1725), divided into two volumes: the first in which the systematic treatise is preserved and the second, with the atlas of 106 tables.

436 figures, drawn and engraved by the same author, which shows a careful precision in the morphological description of the shells, though forgetting that the printing process would have produced reversed images: so it is that the spirals seem, erroneously, to grow counterclockwise. Particularly beautiful are the three frontispieces engraved on copper, by Giovan Francesco Venturini: the two title pages with the same subject, two tritons supporting a shell with the title, holding aside curtains that open onto a seascape: Neptune's chariot in the background while in the foreground some characters collect shells on the seashore. The third engraving of the second volume, presenting a sort of trophy of shells, is certainly inspired by Arcimboldo.

The uncritical adhesion of Buonanni to the Aristotelian theories of spontaneous generation, of the absence of a heart, blood and senses for these animals, raised a lively controversy which saw the participation of Redi, Malpighi, Vallisneri and Anton Felice Marsili (1651–1710), the brother of the more famous Luigi Ferdinando (1658–1730), the founder of the Institute for Sciences of Bologna; the Prefect also possessed his Relazione del ritrovamento dell'uova delle chiocciole, to which Buonanni replied in that same year with the Riflessioni sopra la relatione del ritrovamento dell'uova delle chiocciole.

Breyn-1 Breyn-2 The frontispiece of the first volume and an internal table of the Ricreatione dell'occhio e della mente nell'osservation delle chiocciole (from Phaidra)

G.P. Olina, Uccelliera overo discorso della natura, (1684)

"A sensitive and never monotonous account of the wonder of the cosmos": these are the birds in the Vccelliera ouero discorso della natura, e proprieta di diuersi vccelli, e in particolare di que' che cantano. Con il modo di prendergli, conoscergli, alleuargli, e mantenergli, by the novarese Giovan Pietro Olina (Jori 1998, 117), a philosopher, theologian, doctor of law and naturalist (ca. 1585–1645) who composed his treatise at the behest of the great Cassiano dal Pozzo, scholar and art lover, of whom the Author was “master of the house”.

The book is the second edition (the first was published in 1622 in Rome) illustrated with the refined tables of Antonio Tempesta and Francesco Villamena, and is one of the oldest Italian ornithology works.

45 species of birds are described and represented, together with the specific techniques for their capture and breeding: the work was a great success also for the hunting-related interest it received; it is not by chance that Olina is also considered the inventor of the bird-catching technique "a ragnaja", which is carried out by means of suitably prepared nets, following the example of spiders.

Olina Three plates of the Uccelliera (from Phaidra)

G. Ginanni, Delle uova e dei nidi degli uccelli (1737)

A naturalist from Ravenna, Giuseppe Ginanni built up a specialised library that had few equals in Italy and dedicated himself with commitment to both botany and entomology, dealing with grasshoppers and especially with eggs and bird nests. It was precisely in this area that he succeeded, not only in filling a void in Italian and world scientific literature – as he had the opportunity to write in his preface – but also in opening up a vast and new field of research, encouraging collectors to form or expand their collections, recommending the best strategies to preserve them, obtaining awards in Italy and even from the Royal Society. The text is enriched with illustrations, which he also prepared on the specimens of his own collection that he kept in Ravenna; the tables are divided into three groups: eggs of terrestrial birds, predators and non-predators, and those of water birds, with the description of colours, sizes and nest shapes. On the title page the author writes "First Book": however, no other collection followed this volume because he could not "make another sufficient Collection of Bird's Eggs" (dedication of the Opere postume of 1755).

S. Manetti, Storia naturale degli uccelli (1769)

In the 2018 exhibition at Palazzo Cavalli, in a dedicated room, surrounded by windows with stuffed birds, the visitor was greeted by an example of the monumental Storia naturale degli uccelli by Saverio Manetti, a work in five volumes illustrated with 600 watercolor etchings by the abbot Lorenzo Lorenzi and Violante Vanni (1732–1778) who evoked the images of the collection of Marquis Giovanni Gerini on drawings made from life. This volume, dedicated to parrots, is, in terms of colour, the most beautiful of the collection thanks to the variegated and multicoloured feathered cloaks of the subjects – perching on twigs or soaring in flight – that still shine brightly through the brushstrokes of the illustrators who show them in poses that are never repetitive.