OPTIMA Newsletter 38

Publications
gives a lively account of its transformations
through history, mentioning in passing examples
of unbelievable secondary radial
growth of its old palm trees. The all but unknown
historical museum, inaugurated in
1991 but open to visitors only on special
request, is presented at length and illustrated
by several of its items, such as botanists’
portraits of the 16 th and 17 th century and wax
models of the famous Florentine school, and
also by is its beautifully restored façade in
grotesque style. The garden’s oldest part,
known as botany school, has long lost its
original symbolistic layout, but the central
water basins of its six basic squares are believed
to be the four century old originals.
The last picture shows an unusual view
of the Garden covered with snow. Is it perhaps
meant to be symbolic? Recently announced
dramatic budget cuts for Italy’s
universities might well result in a new Ice
Age for structures which, like botanic gardens,
are kind of marginal in academic life.
Yet the unique value of the Pisa Garden, and
of others throughout Italy alike, will hopefully
help secure their survival.
W.G.
118. 117BSabine SCHULZE (ed.) – Gärten: Ordnung
– Inspiration – Glück. – Hatje
Cantz, Ostfildern, 2006 [catalogue edition].
392 pages, photographs and facsimiles,
mostly in colour; paper.
The exhibition on “Gardens: order, inspiration,
happiness” was opened in the Städel
Museum in Frankfurt on the Main in
November 2006 and moved on to Munich in
April 2007. It illustrated gardens and gardening
through the ages, mainly through
paintings but also photographs, silhouettes,
and even herbarium sheets. Starting with the
“little paradise garden” by an unknown Rhenish
painter of the early 15 th century and
ending in the 20 th century with works of Paul
Klee and Joseph Beuys, it conveyed a fascinating
picture of the changing yet essentially
stable human perception of man-made “en-
closed spaces of domesticated nature”. The
sumptuous catalogue documenting the exhibition
is a worthy way to keep its memory alive.
Some of the book’s contents are of direct
relevance to botanical science, to begin
with Walter Lack’s thoughtful general chapter
on the essence of gardens and gardening.
Among the botanical highlights here illustrated
are some of Humboldt’s Latin American
specimens, including types, kept in the
Willdenow Herbarium (B-W; how Bignonia
chica came to be renamed B. chicagoensis is
a complete mystery); other herbarium sheets,
linked to the names of Clifford, Goethe, and
Klee; Hans Weiditz’ original ink with watercolour
illustrations from which the woodcuts
in Brunfels’ “Herbarum vivae eicones” of
1530 were made – arguably the first scientific
minded, naturalistic plant representations
ever; and a few of Conrad Gessner’s admirable,
annotated original plates meant to illustrate
his “Historia plantarum”, made around
1560 but not published before our time.
W.G.
Bibliography and Biography
119. 118BGunnar BROBERG – Carl Linnaeus. –
Swedish Institute, Stockholm, 2006
(ISBN 978-91-520-0912-3). 44 pages,
illustrations in colour; paper.
Broberg, one of the best experts of the
life and writings of the great Linnaeus, published
his first biographic essay in 1978 on
the occasion of the 200 th jubilee of Linnaeus’s
death. What is declared the original
edition of the present text appeared (in English
and Swedish) in 1992. This new edition,
designed to commemorate the 3 rd centenary
of Linnaeus’s birth, was apparently first
published in 2005 (reprinted 2006) in Spanish,
then in 2006 (with some reissues dated
2007) in English, Swedish, French, German,
Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, and probably in
other languages.
Writings on Linnaeus, taken together,
fill several library shelves, yet this one has
(62) OPTIMA Newsletter No. 38 2009