The Gentleman, the Virtuoso, the Inquirer - Cambridge Scholars ...

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6 Chapter One make discoveries simply by the application of creative imagination and art to the world? Doesn’t the world “bite back” in some way that constrains scientific discovery, that prevents one producing a new discovery just because one wants to? 7 Not all planets have moons, and the number of planets in our solar system is limited: otherwise we are simply “making something up.” Nor can one make an object of antiquity without “counterfeiting” it. In short, when it comes to the content of knowledge and its relationship to kinds of truth, there are some important differences between art and science, between objects produced according to a patron’s wishes—such as shaped boxwood in Lastanosa’s garden—and objects brought to a patron’s attention--such as local antiquities or exotic species he placed in it. In other words, from what we can tell from the documents, Lastanosa’s collecting appears to have been very purposeful when it comes to works of art and literature, but more haphazard with regard to things pertaining to naturalia, with the possible exception of his keen pursuit of alchemical experiments. This may well be because he did not cultivate the necessary expertise about naturalia either in his own studies or by patronizing knowledgeable scholars. One of the most important absences from his documented list of associates is medical advisers. Physicians and apothecaries were among the most important experts of the period when it came to the assemblage of cabinets of curiosity that contained large amounts of naturalia. After all, their livelihoods depended on their command of the information embodied in the products of nature they handled, which included foods and other preservatives of health, drugs and medicinals, and other useful and curious items found in nature. For instance, when in the 1550s one of the first known cabinets of curiosity was being assembled by Francesco I d' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, many medical experts were present in Florence; when at about the same time, Hans Jacob Fugger of Augsburg also built a wunderkammer he employed the physician Samuel Quickelberg (or Quiccheberg) to help him. Medical people themselves even began their own collections. Fugger’s collections inspired the famous Zurich physician and humanist Conrad Gesner to begin to assemble a cabinet of naturalia, while other famous collections were being put together by the physician and botanist Michele Mercati in Rome, the physician and botanist Ulisse Aldrovandi in Bologna, the apothecary Ferrante Imperato in Naples, and the apothecary Francesco Calceolari (or Calzolari) in Verona. In the low countries, the collections of Bernhard Paludanus, physician of Enkhuizen, became especially famous, many visitors declaring that because so many of the specimens came from the East Indies, his collection was superior to those
Lastanosa as an Example of His Time: Natural History and Medicine in Italy. In Spain, too, the greatest collections of naturalia seem to have been associated with physicians such as Monardes, people who worked with physicians (among others) such as Benito Arias Montanus, or the King of Castile, who could draw on his experts from the Indies as well. 8 In other words, we need to bear in mind a point very well made by Carlo Ginsburg when discussing “clues”: the expert adviser who had to determine whether a work of art had been done by a certain painter or not, like the expert on shells or butterflies, needed to have a keen and exacting eye for detail more than an appreciation of aesthetics. 9 But the documents do not show that Lastanosa cultivated such exacting expertise for naturalia himself, nor that he employed expert advisers to do it for him. From various indications about the content of his collections, then, Lastanosa seems to have gathered together items that fit not so much with an interest in naturalia per se as with an interest in religion, the classics, and similar subjects associated with virtue, which we may assume were related to his humanist education. For example, the items mentioned in Habitación de las Musas include a few items from Asia that would have had great monetary value, presumably purchased from Portuguese sources (which until the early 1630s had dealings with Japan and still continued to trade within China). They include items such as the snails of mother of pearl with Chinese characters, the chest of Chinese work, a Japanese idol, and the ivory horn once belonging to the king of Japan or of India. But note the confusion in the description of the last: it is not quite clear where it comes from, nor whether the “king” of Japan was the emperor or the shogun, nor which of the many “kings” of India it might have been. The listing of accounts of information from Asia also mentions many authors of the sixteenth century, three maps from the early 17th century, and various books, also mainly from the 16th century with the addition of the 1628 Roman edition of Hernandes. Lastanosa therefore does not seem to have been particularly eager to find out about the nature of Asia. If one compares these few and slightly out of dated items acquired by Lastanosa with those of his contemporary in Amsterdam, the elder Swammerdam (born one year before Lastanosa and dying three years before him), it is clear that Lastanosa’s interest in naturalia, especially that from Asia, was far less keen. Jan Jacobsz. Swammerdam owned a flourishing apothecary’s shop on Oude Schans at “The Star” (no. 18), close to the Montelbaenstoren and thus right by the harbor. On the upper floor of his shop he collected Chinese porcelain and everything else he could, including naturalia, which he purchased from sailors of the East- India ships and elsewhere. After his death in 1678, his sons and daughter argued about how best to dispose of the collection, for which they 7
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Page 6 and 7: vi Table of Contents Chapter Eight.
Page 8 and 9: viii Introduction face. Six months
Page 10 and 11: x Introduction Coster article "Une
Page 13 and 14: CHAPTER ONE LASTANOSA AS AN EXAMPLE
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Page 27 and 28: CHAPTER TWO THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY
Page 29 and 30: The Seventeenth-Century Spanish Sci

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