Izvorni znanstveni članak
Three Croatian Jesuits and the Development of Botany in the Eighteenth Century
Mijo Korade
; Hrvatski studiji Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
Through the activity and works of three Croatian Jesuits, professors of philosophy and among them an explorer and missionary from the eighteenth century, I will show the development of botany that witnessed a major breakthrough in this century.
The first of the three scholars was Josip Zanchi (1710–1786) from Rijeka, who in his philosophy textbook Philosophia mentis et sensuum (1750), in the third part entitled Physica particularis, provides a survey of botany. Zanchi describes plants according to the current authors and researchers, and they were Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694) and Nehemiah Grew (Graevius, 1641–1712) whose works Anatomia Plantarum (1675–1679) and Anatomy of Plants (1682) by the first part of the eighteenth century had already brought them recognition as pioneers of plant anatomy. Zanchi thus describes the nature, structure, generation, nutrition and growth of plants, origin, species, features and plant diseases. In addition, he draws on ten contemporary authors whose research and most recent findings have done much to advance this natural science.
Franjo Ksaverski Haller (1716–1755) from Varaždin took part in a Spanish expedition for the demarcation of the colonial borders in South America and was appointed assistant to a Swedish botanist Pehr Löfling (1729–1756), assigned to explore the flora and fauna of the South-American continent, in whose expedition Haller largely participated. Löfling, the first scientific explorer of fauna and flora in the territories of Venezuela, was a student of Carl Linné (1707–1778), father of modern botany, and during the expedition from Cumaná to Rio Orinoco he sent him regular reports on the basis of which Linné published the results of Löfling’s short but very successful expedition in Iter Hispanicum: Plantae Americanae (1758).
As professor of philosophy and physics in Gorica, Augustin Michelazzi (1734–1820) from Rijeka published two manuals in natural sciences: on plants Compendium regni vegetabilis (1780, 1788), and on ores and minerals Compendium regni fossilium (1781, 1788). In these manuals Michelazzi consistently follows Linné’s system and method (binary nomenclature or Linnaean system, i.e. classification of flora and fauna by class, order, family, genus and species). The former manual deals with the nature and classification of plants and their medicinal properties, while the latter discusses flint soil (limestones, loam, composite and artificial soil) and minerals. These were the first manuals of the kind to have been published by Croatian authors.
Ključne riječi
natural philosophy; botany; 18th century; Josip Zanchi; Franjo Ksaver Haller; Augustin Michelazzi; Carl Linné; Marcello Malpighi; Nehemiah Grew
Hrčak ID:
154364
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.10.2015.
Posjeta: 1.457 *