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

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