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Ancient writings on nature reflected belief in divine forces and influences and included poetry, stories, and fables that offered moral instruction. They often included the religious or magical rituals performed when harvesting the plant or slaughtering the animal, which often involved astrology. 

They also described real and imaginary animals without distinguishing between the two. Accurate descriptions and fabulous accounts were given equal weight. 

We’re looking at the origins of today’s animal biology in the writings of the ancient Greeks, though they were not the first to observe and theorize about the animal kingdom.

Europeans copied their writings and theories on nature for centuries without questioning their veracity. Only after the introduction of the printing press did Europeans begin to add their own observations and try to sort fact from fiction. The fables and moralizing texts found in ancient texts were used throughout Europe to teach Christian lessons about piety and behavior. Ancient ideas about nature and creation were repeated through the early Renaissance.

Thales of Miletus (6th c BCE) was one of the first to question the role of the mythical actions of the gods on the forces and structures of nature and to develop a philosophy built on observation. However, none of his writing has survived, and so what is known about him is based on the writings of others.

Anaximander (follower of Thales) of Miletus (6th c. BCE) believed that life forms were combinations of water and earth heated by the sun.

Empedocles (5th c. BCE) thought that the elements (earth, fire, air, and water) were shaped by forces of love and hate; that limbs and bodies formed first and then were joined by these forces, sometimes creating monsters.

Encyclopedic collections on nature appeared first as illuminated manuscripts and then as books. Artists copied the work of their predecessors, and as they copied existing images, the appearance of each animal morphed over time.

Bibles and books of prayer were, of course, the first and most popular text to be printed, but "herbals," or books on natural history were a close second. Most major cities around Europe opened a publishing house, which included a team of craftsmen that could carve woodblocks for printing illustrations. Sometimes the original drawing for the print matrix (woodblocks at this time) were done by an artist and transferred to the block by the carver. When an artist or original drawing was not available, carvers copied illustrations from other books. Copyright laws had not yet been established, so multiple editions of the same book were printed around the continent, resulting in a wide variety of similar images.

Occasionally, artists were able to work from live specimens, but more commonly they copied the work of others or worked from dried or preserved (stuffed or in liquid) specimens, so both the object and image underwent a form of abstraction. Coloring changes quickly after death, so artists were faced with the additional challenge of trying to reflect their specimen's colors accurately. And they tended to omit the individual colors or markings of a species so that it would reflect the general population (before they realized how many species of a genus may exist).

The "emblematic" or symbolic meanings were more important to the European Christians of this era than the biological particulars. Renaissance thinking held that everything in the cosmos contained multiple hidden meanings, and images of the natural world were useful in understanding all of these meanings.

The Hortus Sanitatis is one of the earliest printed publications on nature and popular medicine. It mimicked earlier medicinal illuminated manuscripts called herbals and combined descriptions of rocks and minerals and countless species of mammals, birds, and fish  and their medicinal uses and preparations. It also includes mythical animals and superstitions.

It was published first by Peter Schofer in 1484 with the title “Herbaria,” and a year later by Jacob Meydenbach with the title Ortus or Hortus Sanitatis. A foreword in the first edition says, “Here follows the book of nature which treats first the peculiarities and nature of man, then of the nature and the properties of the heavens, of beasts, of birds, of plants, of stones and of many other natural things.” It was extremely popular and was translated into several languages and re-printed in several cities around Europe for the next 50 years.

left: Matthaus Merian, 1657        right: Konrad Gessner, 1569

Konrad Gessner (1516- 1565)

Gessner was enormously ambitious and a prolific writer and is considered the father of modern zoology. He wrote or edited around 70 books. Before turning 21, he published a Latin-Greek dictionary; he wrote the first ever bibliography, which listed the name of  every known book and author; and attempted to compile an encyclopedia of every language. (At that time, only 300 of the world's 7,000+ languages were known of.)

At this time, naturalists began to consider the importance of first-hand observation and he attempted to identify fiction or mythology in the work of his predecessors. 

His greatest contribution to the study of nature was his Historia Animalium, a 5 volume encyclopedia that attempts to describe all animals known (at least by Europeans) by 1565, based on a combination of his own research and information from old sources, such as the Old Testament, Aristotle, Pliny, folklore, and earlier bestiaries, as well as species recently discovered in the New World and East Indies.

He also incorporated information acquired from contemporary naturalists, though he could not always confirm the accuracy of their contributions.

One of the challenges that he and his contemporaries faced was identifying similar species based on centuries of varied and sometimes conflicting descriptions; multiple translations that could include errors, and inconsistent illustrations. His understanding of nature was based in part on first hand observation and dissection.

 Unicorns had been described by the ancients and seemed as probable as elephants or armadillos, and so were included. The tusks of the narwhals were assumed to be unicorn horns, and so were taken as proof of their existence.

Gesner included the names and etymology of each animal in multiple languages; epithets and metaphors for each; sounds each made; and observations on diet, habitat, and behavior. He described the variation in similar species found in different locations and discussed all of the ways that animals have been incorporated into human culture. He included the uses, medicinal uses or nutritional value of various animals, and instructions on slaughter and cooking. He also included unproven theories on animal traits, for example, that elephants love their own country, worship the sun, moon, and stars, are chaste, and hate mice. 

The illustrations were created by a number of illustrators, including Gessner, but only one received credit- an artist named Lucas Schan. Gessner did the majority of the illustrations in the bird volume.

Aldrovandi described himself as a modern-day Aristotle. He wrote over 400 books on natural history, though very few were published.  He was the first professor of natural history at the U of Bologna, was involved in creating the botanical garden there, and amassed one of the largest collections of curiosities of his day, with over 18,000 specimens- many of them acquired from European explorations of the New World, Asia, and Africa.

Like most Renaissance men, he studied philosophy and logic and medicine. He was accused of heresy and called to Rome to face trial. While under house arrest awaiting trial, he met the scholars who introduced him to natural history. He was pardoned by the incoming bishop and afterwards traveled throughout Italy gathering specimens and studying nature.

He published an encyclopedia on preparing medicines, called the Antidotarium, but recognized the importance of studying nature beyond its medical potential. His later work included several volumes on natural history that combined previously published material with his own empirical observations.

Despite his claim that he would not include observations that he didn’t make first-hand and his stated intention of omiting misinformation, his books still included plenty of myths and legends that were not distinguished from the actual. 

He compiled 13 volumes on natural history that covered birds; insects; mollusks and crustaceans; fish; mammals; minerals; serpents and dragons, and creatures from folklore and legend. He included information on the distribution of species and the various names for each species; their dietary and medicinal uses; details of sexual habits and reproduction; and cultural references- such as their image used on coins, emblems, or heiroglyphs; and reference to them in verse or prose. 

The publication of the series was an enormous collaborative effort between collectors, transcribers, and illustrators. He commissioned artists to illustrate every specimen in the book and oversaw the production, which involved draftsmen, woodcutters, and painters.

His wife, Francesca Fontana, was a crucial partner in his research. She researched texts for him to cite, wrote some sections of his books and did the editing and shared responsibilities in the writing of On the Remains of Bloodless Animals, published after his death. 

In fact, little of his writing was published during his lifetime- it was the collection that made him famous.

He rose to prominence in the field and was sent by the French king, Francis I, to Constantinople with a group of diplomats to study the nature of the region. He spent three years traveling through Greece, Italy, Asia Minor, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt, gathering information on flora and fauna as well as on the people and places, and compiled first hand accounts of the flora, fauna, people, and places in a work called “Observations of many singular and memorable things found in Greece, Asai, Judea, Egypt, aramia, and other foreign countries” 

With funding from the French government, his studies of fish, trees, and birds were published in 3 separate volumes in the mid-1500s.

One of his duties was to create a catalog of the king’s collection. While working on the descriptions, he developed his theories on natural history, and published it under the title Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particuliere . It was published in 36 volumes between 1749-1804 and illustrated by Jacques de Seve.

His books mark the transition from the traditional Christian understanding of nature to the influences of the Enlightenment era.

He studied nature on his estate in Burgundy and while traveling, and noticed that despite similar environments, flora and fauna varied from one place to the next. He suggested that species may improve or degenerate once leaving the center of creation. This hinted at Darwin’s theory of adaptation decades before Darwin was born. LeClerc also suggested that change in climate may have driven species from their original homes.

His books addressed his ideas on the history of the earth and minerals, the degeneration of animal species, and compiled all existing knowledge on geology and anthropology.

His intended audience was wealthy aristocrats and fellow academicians. He was less interested in the usual exhaustive descriptions of animals and their habits and more focused on their anatomy, based on the work of his assistants. His writings were closer to prose than science. His books were enormously popular, due to  a growing interest in natural history and collecting.

LeClerc rejected some important current advances in science, claiming that finding order in nature was not helpful and rejected the usefulness of the microscope- a newly refined tool- in understanding nature.

The intro to his book criticized Linnaeus’ system of taxonomy, questioned the usefulness of math, and outlined a history of Earth that contradicted the teachings of the church.

Professional engravers copied animal illustrations by Jacques de Seve and bird illustrations by Francois-Nicolas Martinet. The illustrations are aesthetically pleasing and anatomically correct. The settings are imaginative- sometimes dreamlike or referring to myths. 

Thomas Jefferson and Charles Willson Peale put much energy into disproving this theory. While serving as a diplomat in France, Jefferson wrote to the governor of New Hampshire and asked him to send the full skeletons of a moose, caribou, or elk to Jefferson while in Paris. He specified that the horns, hooves, and skin should be left intact to show their full size. He also created charts comparing the sizes of animals on both continents. Unfortunately, LeClerc died before the matter was settled.

Cuvier studied fossils and was the first to recognize that some animals no longer existed, which contradicted the understanding of nature and creation as static.

He demonstrated that the fossilized bones belonged to extinct species and reconstructed some of the lost species in his book, Discours sur les Revolutions du Globe. This book proposed that a series of catastrophic events on the earth’s surface caused the sudden extinction of animals.

He dissected and drew almost all forms of animal life and established the foundations of vertebrate paleontology and comparative anatomy. He was influenced by the work of botanist Antoine-Laurent de Jussiue, who demonstrated that not all the characteristics of plants were of equal significance in classifying them and applied that to zoology to create a new system of classification.

He discovered the illustrations of Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle as a youth and then devoured the writings of Linneaus and Aristotle, and began researching and writing about the animal kingdom. He was a prolific writer and formulated a classification system of the animal kingdom that is as important as Linnaeus’ work on plants.

He was appointed as professor of animal anatomy of the natural history museum in Paris and created an immense collection of over 16,000 specimens, which were arranged to show the relationships between form and function, rejecting the notion of the Great Chain of Being. His collection inspired several imitations in museums around Europe.

He held several very important positions, including perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences and was given several official posts in education and science under Napoleon.

His understanding of comparative anatomy was key to his extraordinary discovery- he recognized that the teeth of fossil mammoths found in Siberia were not elephants, as previously believed, but that of the woolly mammoth- an extinct species. 

He also identified other extinct species, including the Pterodactyl and a large marine lizard called a Varans.

He separated the animal kingdom into the following groups:

Vertebrates

Articulata (arthropods)

Mollusca (mollusks)

Radiata (starfish, jellyfish, etc.)

Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672-1733) was a Swiss naturalist and author of Kupfer-Bibel, aka Physica Sacra, which covered plants, animals, and natural phenomena mentioned in the Bible. The book was published around 1735 and was intended to demonstrate its authenticity through the lens of natural history.

MENAGERIES 

Evidence of keeping menageries or zoos dates as far back as 1150 BCE to the Chinese emperor Wen Wang, who kept a 900 acre "Park of Knowledge" that held assorted species of deer, birds, and fish. There are also descriptions of such menageries in ancient Egypt, Greece, Persia, and the Aztec empire.

Lorenzo the Magnificent receives the tribute of the ambassadors by Giorgio Vasari and Marco da Faenza (Palazzo Vecchio fresco) (1556–58)

Article: Jews, Giraffes, and the Italian Renaissance (from the Katz Center at U Penn)

We'll revisit some of these naturalists next week, when we discuss human anatomy.

EXTRA: As discussed, several genres of fine art painting developed in the "Lowlands" that took inspiration from the study of nature. That includes the genre of hunting paintings, which were inspired by the tapestries on the same topic. Below are just a couple of examples.

The study of nature influenced painters of the Northern Renaissance and new genres evolved, such as "game still lifes."

Hunting laws changed at the turn of the 16th century so that princes were given sovereignty over territorial states. They received increased control of the forests and peasants were deprived of access to hunting. Peasants could expect their crops to be trampled by hunting parties and were forced to provide free room and board to the hunters and their animals.

Meat had become a staple of the royal courts by this time and only princes were allowed to hunt big game. Aristocracy and the higher clergy could hunt small game and large birds.  

Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753)

Sloane was a physician, scientist, and collector who is renowned for his writing on the natural history of Jamaica and other islands and for providing the vast collection of naturalia and antiquities that formed the basis of the British Museum. He also introduced hot cocoa to Europe, which he had seen prepared in Jamaica with water. He added milk and sugar to it and it was an instant success.

Sloane collected tens of thousands of items through scouting, purchase, trade, and often with the help of enslaved people. His collection was not limited to plants and other natural objects, but included  a large number of ethnographic objects, like a Chinese ear tickler, that were common in cabinets of curiosities. He was very interested in the music of the enslaved, described it in detail, and collected the instruments they made of gourds and horse hair. He also collected artifacts of slavery, like clothing, nooses, and whips, and described the punishment of death of rebellious enslaved people as merited.

He was a captain in the British Royal Navy, and is best known for the three voyages he made between 1768-1779 to the Pacific Ocean and Australia. Though he was not the first European to set foot in many of these places, the copious illustrations produced on these expeditions has played a large role in shaping the Western vision of the natives of the South Pacific. The sketches, drawings, and paintings from these voyages were published in travelogues into the 19th century.

The stated mission of the Endeavor voyage, made in 1769, was to observe the transit of Venus across the sky, but in fact the goal was to explore the South Pacific in the interest of England. They were looking for the continent of Terra Australis, which was believed to be a land mass that would counterbalance the continents of the northern hemisphere.

On the way, they stopped in the Madeira Islands and Tahiti to gather supplies and collect specimens. There they met a high priest and navigator named Tupaia, who joined them voluntarily and greatly impacted the success of their trip.

Only after the celestial observations were made could Cook reveal the orders from the Admiralty to find and lay claim to the Terra Australis Incognita.

He shared the directions from the Admiralty, which were as follows:

'You are [...] to observe the Genius, Temper, Disposition and Number of the Natives, if there be any and endeavor by all proper means to cultivate a Friendship and Alliance with them, making them presents of such Trifles as they may Value inviting them to Traffick, and Shewing them every kind of Civility and Regard; taking Care however not to suffer yourself to be surprised by them, but to be always upon your guard against any Accidents.

'You are also with the Consent of the Natives to take Possession of Convenient Situations in the Country in the Name of the King of Great Britain: Or: if you find the Country uninhabited take Possession for his Majesty by setting up Proper Marks and Inscriptions, as first discoverers and possessors.

'You are also to carefully to observe the Nature of the Soil, and the Products thereof; the Beasts and Fowls that inhabit or frequent it, the Fishes that are to be found in the Rivers or upon the Coast and in what Plenty and in Case you find any Mines, Minerals, or valuable Stones you are to bring home Specimens of each, as also such Specimens of the Seeds of the Trees, Fruits and Grains as you may be able to collect, and Transmit them to our Secretary that We may cause proper Examination and Experiments to be made of them.'

These voyages entailed sailing thousands of miles across uncharted areas of the globe. 

With the help of Tupaia, Cook surveyed and named land features and recorded islands and coastlines from New Zealand to Hawaii, demonstrating his skills in surveying and cartography, seamanship, and his ability to lead.

Cook’s was the first recorded contact between Europeans and those living on the eastern coastline of Australia. The ship made landfall in what would be called Botany Bay, after the flora collected by the ship’s botanists, Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. They returned with over 1,000 unknown species, including many orchids. Banks and Solander directed the work of several artists that accompanied the ship to document their findings.

The artists employed on these trips came from different backgrounds and had various amounts of training. Their work was used as source material for engravings, which were often refined to suit the neoclassical tastes of European readers and published in official accounts. The images and descriptions of life in faraway lands captured the imagination of the European audience and were imitated and reprinted by various publishers.

He began to exhibit his work in the 1760s and was eventually introduced to Joseph Banks and a zoologist named Thomas Pennant. He copied some of the animal paintings in a local collection, which were then used as source material for engravings published in Pennant’s books. He worked on images for Bank’s collection gathered on his 1766 voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador, producing sketches and watercolors from specimens preserved in alcohol and stuffed birds. He was then hired by Banks as an illustrator on Cook’s voyage to the Pacific, where he made close to a thousand drawings of plants and animals gathered by Banks and Daniel Solander. 

Living and working conditions on the Endeavor were poor- he lived and worked in a small cabin filled with hundreds of specimens, and was plagued by flies in Tahiti that ate the paint while he worked. Like so many mariners, he died of dysentery aboard the ship.

Herman Sporing (1768-1771)

Sporing was a surgeon, naturalist, secretary, and draughtsman/artist aboard the Endeavor.  His experience working as a watchmaker provided him with important skills in repairing instruments. He died near the end of Endeavor’s voyage, between Indonesia and South Africa.

These are two versions of an aquatint of a coastal view at Mercury Bay. The landscape is drawn by Herman Sporing; he copied the canoe from one of Parkinson’s drawings, and it was engraved by G. Castellini. The pair of etchings demonstrates how commonly natural history illustrations are revised and repeated and how many hands are involved in the process.

Cook was killed on his third voyage while trying to detain the ruler of a Hawaiian island. Cook had been holding the ruler in an attempt to get the cutter taken from his ship after Cook’s crew took wood from a Hawaiian burial ground.

 Joseph Banks (1743-1820)

Banks’ combination of curiosity and wealth made him an important contributor to the sciences. He believed in the importance of sharing information and knowledge and provided much financial support to voyages of exploration and discovery. In fact, he donated more to the funding of the Endeavor’s voyage than did King George III. He made two additional voyages to collect and identify species and then continued to fund the explorations of others.

His first trip was to Newfoundland and Labrador on HMS Niger. The purpose of the trip was to build a fort and survey the coast. He served as the ship’s botanist and was admitted to the Royal Society upon return.

He served as advisor to the king, established Kew Gardens as a scientific hub, and  received specimens from voyages to Australia, Northwest America and Vancouver, Tahiti, and India. 

He wanted to help improve Britain’s economy during the period of expanding trade and European competition for colonial territory and was interested in establishing the production of materials that could be exported from the colonies to Britain, including indigo, cocoa, vanilla, cotton, and cochineal. 

He was involved in sending Captain Bligh to Tahiti to obtain breadfruit and other plants that could be cultivated to feed enslaved people of the Caribbean Islands and identified Assam, India as an ideal locale to grow tea for the British market. It was Banks that suggested sending British convicts to a colony in Australia.

Banks and two other artists/naturalists on the Endeavor (Sydney Parkinson and Daniel Solander) recorded over 1,000 unfamiliar species to Western botanists, including acacia, eucalyptus and banksia, a genus named in his honour. He also documented several unfamiliar bird species, including the Great Auk, which was hunted to extinction by 1844 because of its desirable feathers, meat, and oil.

Top: Denon sketching the ruins at Hieraconopolis, from Vivant Denon

Bottom: The portico of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, from Vivant Denon

Dominique-Vivant Denon was one of the artists invited by Napoleon on his Egyptian expedition to record the monuments and architecture of Egypt. He depicted the temples and ruins at Thebes, Philae, Esna, and Edfu. He often had to work as quickly as possible, sketching only when the troops paused. He returned on other expeditions with engineers commissioned by Napoleon to do hydrographic studies and documented the architectural achievements of the Egyptians in drawings. 

The trip was successful from a naturalist’s or scientist’s perspective, but a military failure. The French were defeated by the British, who seized much of the French loot, including the Rosetta stone, and Napoleon abandoned his troops and fled to France with three of his “savants,” as he called them, in tow, including Denon.