Non-colonial botany or, the late rise of local knowledge?

Pugliano, Valentina

doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2009.09.009

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“… “We are also told that the nature of the foreign was understood through its natural objects. What this nature was, we are often left to wonder” 1 . …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking into the flora of Dutch Brazil: botanical identifications of seventeenth century plant illustrations in the Libri Picturati

Rodríguez

Françozo

Andel

2021

Sci Rep

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The Libri Picturati includes a collection of plant illustrations from seventeenth century Dutch Brazil that is kept in the Jagiellonian library in Krakow since World War II. While many studies focused on the artistic details and history of these images, we identified the flora depicted. We used contemporary textual sources (e.g., Historia Naturalis Brasiliae), monographs and taxonomist’ assessments. We checked origin, life form, domestication and conservation status and the plant parts that are represented. We identified 198 taxa, consisting mostly of wild, native rainforest trees and 35 introduced species. Fertile branches are the most represented, although some loose dry fruits and sterile material were also painted, which sheds light into the collection methods by naturalists in Dutch Brazil. Several species are no longer abundant or have become invasive due to anthropogenic influences since colonialism. Through this botanical iconography, we traced the first records of the sunflower and the Ethiopian pepper in Brazil, as well as the dispersion and assimilation of the flora encountered in the colony by Indigenous, African and European peoples. We emphasized the relevance of combining visual and textual sources when studying natural history collections and we highlighted how digitalization makes these artistic and scientific collections more accessible.

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“… “We are also told that the nature of the foreign was understood through its natural objects. What this nature was, we are often left to wonder” 1 . …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking into the flora of Dutch Brazil: botanical identifications of seventeenth century plant illustrations in the Libri Picturati

Rodríguez

Françozo

Andel

2021

Sci Rep

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“…Introduction "We are also told that the nature of the foreign was understood through its natural objects. What this nature was, we are often left to wonder" [1] Background In 1977, in the Jagiellonian library of Krakow (Poland), zoologist Peter Whitehead found a treasure that most scholars had already considered lost: a collection of Brazilian illustrations in the Libri Picturati [2] [3]. The Libri Picturati consists of thousands of drawings and paintings of ora, fauna and people from several ethnical backgrounds, which were bound together in the nineteenth century [4].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking into the flora of Dutch Brazil: botanical identifications of seventeenth century plant illustrations in the Libri Picturati

Rodríguez

Françozo

Andel

2021

Preprint

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The Libri Picturati includes a collection of plant illustrations from seventeenth century Dutch Brazil that is kept in the Jagiellonian library in Krakow since World War II. While many studies focused on the artistic details of these images, we identified the flora depicted. We used contemporary textual sources (e.g., Historia Naturalis Brasiliae), monographs and taxonomist’ assessments. We checked origin, life form, domestication and conservation status and the plant parts that are represented. We identified 198 taxa, consisting mostly of wild, native rainforest trees and 35 introduced species. Fertile branches are the most represented, although some loose dry fruits and sterile material were also painted, which sheds light into the collection methods by naturalists in Dutch Brazil. Several species are no longer abundant or have become invasive due to anthropogenic influences since colonialism. Through this botanical iconography, we traced the first records of the sunflower and the Ethiopian pepper in Brazil, as well as the dispersion and assimilation of the flora encountered in the colony by Indigenous, African and European peoples. We emphasized the relevance of combining visual and textual sources when studying natural history collections and we highlighted how digitalization makes these artistic and scientific collections more accessible.

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“…The unreliable and expensive supply of materials from Europe was certainly also a factor in this process, but a careful consideration of the deemed efficacy of local plants in local contexts raises a caution against an overestimation of the utility of knowledge of medicinal plants in a global context. For example, Barrera () highlighted the inadequacy of European remedies and practices in the Americas, while Cooper () argued that the global trade which flooded European markets with imported goods inspired a heated debate about the value of the local and the exotic (see also Pugliano, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Ex epistulis Philippinensibus: Georg Joseph Kamel SJ (1661-1706) and His Correspondence Network

Kroupa

2015

Centaurus

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When sent as a pharmacist to the Philippines in 1688, the Bohemian Jesuit Georg Joseph Kamel turned to the local nature to identify resources, which he could use in his practice. Remarkably for a Jesuit of his low rank, Kamel soon entered into communication with European scholars and exchanged knowledge and materials with figures both in the Indies and Europe, namely Willem ten Rhijne (1647–1700), a Dutch botanist in Batavia; English surgeons in Madras; and two members of the Royal Society, the apothecary James Petiver (c.1665–1718) and the naturalist John Ray (1627–1705). Based on an analysis of the letters and consignments involved, this article provides an insight into the construction and operation of long‐distance networks of knowledge exchange based on factors other than nationality and spanning geopolitical, social and confessional boundaries. Attention will be drawn to the associations between early modern colonial science and trade and, in particular, the role of local merchants as go‐betweens. It will be shown how commercial routes provided the infrastructure for knowledge circulation; how agents who travelled by way of established networks of trade mediated material exchange on a global scale; and how intellectual and social incentives, as well as the etiquette of correspondence played a pivotal role in the formation and maintenance of Kamel's correspondence network. Furthermore, in tracing knowledge exchange restricted to the colonial periphery and highlighting the agency of actors stationed overseas, this article contributes to the recent efforts to think beyond national and imperial narratives and re‐examine colonial history from the view of the peripheries.

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Non-colonial botany or, the late rise of local knowledge?

Cited by 6 publications

References 18 publications

Looking into the flora of Dutch Brazil: botanical identifications of seventeenth century plant illustrations in the Libri Picturati

Looking into the flora of Dutch Brazil: botanical identifications of seventeenth century plant illustrations in the Libri Picturati

Looking into the flora of Dutch Brazil: botanical identifications of seventeenth century plant illustrations in the Libri Picturati

Ex epistulis Philippinensibus: Georg Joseph Kamel SJ (1661-1706) and His Correspondence Network

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