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

viii
Introduction
face. Six months later, the IEA decided to celebrate an International
Conference, devoted to splead Lastanosa beyond the aragonese frontiers.
In Lastanosa. Art and Science in Baroque, coordinated by Mar Rey-Bueno
and Miguel López-Pérez, we explored the history of Lastanosa as
scientific collector. The Conference was articulated in five sections,
correspondent to some other highlighted aspects in Lastanosa universe:
Collection, Garden, Laboratory, Library and Cabinet. Collection took as
aim the study of Lastanosa cabinet of curiosities. Garden was devoted to
the knowledge of the gardens created in the enviroment of his palace.
Laboratory was destined to discover the unknown facet of a Lastanosa
collector of secrets and chemical practitioner. Library analyzed the books,
manuscripts, maps and other curiosities collected by Lastanosa. Cabinet,
finally, appeared as a metaphor of the circle of writers, artists and
intellectuals who had relation with Lastanosa.
***
The working guideline followed in Lastanosa. Art and Science in the
Baroque have come out the habitual dynamics of these meetings. Even it
might be said that we are before an innovative experiment. The
participants did not know nothing related to Lastanosa. This is why the
Organizing Committee was deciding to facilitate them copies of the
principal sources that remain related to the Lastanosa collections. They are
the so-called Descripción en prosa, Descripción en verso, Catálogo
Sparvenfeldt, Narración de 1662 and Habitación de las Musas.
Descripción en prosa was written about 1650 by Juan Francisco Andrés of
Uztarroz, Chronicler of the Kingdom of Aragon and personal friend of
Lastanosa. Entitled Descripción de las Antigüedades y Jardines de Don
Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa, it is the most detailed and important
description on the collections of Lastanosa. We know an only copy, in the
Hispanic Society of America, which has been the used one 3 .
Descripción en verso is a poetical version of the previous one, written by
Uztarroz in 1647 and printed in Saragossa with the title of Descripcion de
las antiguedades, i jardines de Don Vincencio Iuan de Lastanosa ... /
3 Ms B2424, ff. 24r-51vº.