Portrait of Ole Worm (Credit: Wellcome Library, London; Creative Commons)

Ole Worm (1588-1654) was the first, and most well-known, collector in Scandinavia during the Renaissance.  In his homeland, Ole was attributed as the founder of the modern disciplines of archaeology, museology, philology, ethnology, and folklore.  Ole’s cabinet of wonder, documented in a catalog of its holdings, Museum Wormianum (which we highlight in this post), was the foundation for what would become Denmark’s National Museum.

Ole was born in Arhus, Denmark, the son of a mayor, and went to grammar school in his hometown and then in Germany, after which he moved to Emmerich on the Rhine in 1603 to study at a Jesuit school.  He returned to Denmark but set out again in 1605 on a “grand tour” of Europe, visiting important cities, museums, and centers of learning; taking such a grand tour was popular at the time among the sons of nobleman and the newly rich.  While on his grand tour, Ole studied philosophy, anatomy, medicine and theology, acted as a private tutor, and received a doctorate in medicine in 1611 for writing a dissertation on almost all known diseases (at the time) and their cures.

It was while Ole was on his grand tour of European cities of learning and culture that he began collecting objects that would come to inhabit his cabinet of wonder–also interchangeably called cabinets of curiosity during the period, or as he referred to it in a letter, his cabinet of naturalia.  (For more on cabinets of wonder, see our blog post on Ferrante Imperato and his cabinet of wonder here).  Ole visited a well-known collector in Italy in 1609, went to Germany and saw a famous art collection, and in Enkhuizen, the famous collector Bernhard Paludanus gave Ole a coffee bean and an exotic reed–both objects obtained through foreign travels and international trade.  Cabinets of wonder during this period especially valued the exotic, objects that came from America or other faraway lands that were now accessible through foreign trade and colonialist empire-building.

Lapis sceleton serpentis, also known as “snake-stone”, found in the section on stones in Museum Wormianum here. In the 1600s, some thought snake-stones from India could heal venomous snake bites, and snake-stones are attributed as the divine stones Homer mentioned in The Iliad that healed Philoctete’s wound.

Ole continued to correspond with various European collectors who were famous for their pursuits of knowledge and virtue.  How does collecting objects make one virtuous?  The pursuit of knowledge was a virtue, and collecting physical objects aided in pursuing knowledge.

According to the philosophy of the time, by collecting physical things that reflected God’s creative powers, one was highlighting God’s power.  And those things that were once considered monstrous in the medieval period–Siamese twins, deformed fetuses, strange creatures–now represented God’s omnipotent ability to intervene with creation and produce wondrous rarities worthy of gazing upon and studying in cabinets of wonder.

Since Ole lived during a period after the Reformation (a break with the ways of the medieval church), scholars and wealthier individuals were able to establish themselves as creators of knowledge, collectors and curators of cabinets of wonder, studying by means of a proto-empiricism where knowledge was gained by physical experience with an object (rather than the later definition of empiricism as knowledge gained through experimentation).

Ole Worm’s cabinet of wonder, from the frontispiece in Museum Wormianum.  The table in the center of the room, where the name of the book is inscribed, is where Ole would have taken down objects for himself, and visitors, to handle and observe. (View the image here.)

After Ole returned from his grand tour, he took a position at the University of Copenhagen and was the chair of pedagogy, Greek and physics, consecutively, and in 1624 became a professor of medicine.  Around 1620 he began creating his museum, “Museum Wormianum”.

In its nascent form, the museum contained the curiosities Ole collected on his grand tour, mostly geological and biological, along with cultural items.  The majority of his museums holdings, or “wonders”, were donated to Ole from other European collectors whom he met and with whom he corresponded and sometimes asked for items.  By the time Ole died in 1654, his museum was held in high regard and contemporaries wrote that the museum had wonderful, curious and odd rarities that were visited by famous and royal people from all over Europe.

What people in the 17th century, and prior, thought was a unicorn horn. (View the image in Museum Wormianum here.)

During the period, people believed they could purchase “unicorn” horns to use for medicinal purposes. Having never seen a horn attached to a skull, Ole was skeptical.  When presented with this “unicorn skull” by another collector, Ole determined that it likely belonged to a narwhal, and he was correct. (View the image in Museum Wormianum here.)

Illustration of a narwhal, whimsical but not completely accurate, in Museum Wormianum, which can be viewed here.

The reason for collecting objects from the natural world, as well as curiosities and antiquities, was to enrich visitors’ own knowledge.  In 1639, Ole wrote of his museum and its “curiosities” saying:

“I have collected various things on my journeys abroad, and from India and other very remote places I have been brought various things: samples of soil, rocks, metals, plants, fish, birds, and land-animals, that I conserve well with the goal of, along with a short presentation of the various things’ history, also being able to present my audience with the things themselves to touch with their own hands and to see with their own eyes, so that they may themselves judge how that which is said fits with the things, and can acquire a more intimate knowledge of them all.”

During this great period of collecting, a new form of literature was created: the catalog.  Collectors used catalogs of their items to promote their collections and display their own wisdom.  Ole published two catalogs (one in 1642 and one in 1645) with inventories of the wonders in his cabinet of curiosity.  However, it was the third catalog, which came to be the version of Museum Wormianum we explore today, published posthumously in 1655 that contained the most information, as well as engravings.

The catalog is divided into four categories: minerals, plants, animals and artificialia (man-made objects); the books go in ascending order from “lowest” form of life, minerals, to “highest” form of life, animals, with the fourth category, artificialia, existing outside that context of the three kingdoms of nature.

Man is cataloged with “animals” in Book III, along with divine monstrosities such as deformed fetuses, a giant tooth and giant skull believed to have come from an ancient race of giant humanoids.  Curiously, mummies, although they are human remains, are cataloged with “minerals” in Book I.

Book II deals with plants, and includes a section on tree “monstrosities”, so-called because they were thought to resemble animals or other objects.

Horse mandible around which a tree has grown, found in Book III, on Animals (including man), in Museum Wormianum. (View the image here.)

Book IV, De artificiosis, discusses man-made objects in the collection, including both contemporary-but-exotic items like bows, arrows and tobacco pipes from America, and antiquities like Roman and Danish jewelry and metal weapons from India and Norway.

Two of the most amazing man-made creations were wooden automata created by contemporaries: mus rotis actus, a wooden mouse covered with a mouse hide that operated by means of internal clockworks; and statua librata pondere mobilis, a human automaton made of wood with flexible limbs that could imitate human movement by means of a wheel crank.  This figure was dressed in clothes believed to be worn by native peoples in America and given a spear to hold, and is clearly visible in the frontispiece to the book in the middle of the image of Ole’s cabinet of wonder (see image below).

If one views the objects in the frontispiece to Museum Wormianum from right to left, the order of objects mirrors the order of the same objects as they are listed in the books that comprise this work.

Humanoid automata, visible in the frontispiece to Museum Wormianum here, could run around and pick things up.  It was dressed to represent what the creator thought native people in America looked like, and held a spear.

Ole Worm inspired future generations of collectors and multitudes of visitors to his cabinet of wonder by showing them curiosities they likely never would have seen otherwise.  For Ole and many of his contemporaries, these items were outward symbols of the divine creative powers of God and of the powerful knowledge and virtue possessed by the scholar who collected them.

Interesting Facts:

Ole was considered a great academe and writer in Europe after publishing a compendium on Danish runestones in 1643, called Danicorum Monumentorum Libri Sex.  To create this work, he sent artists around the Danish kingdom to accurately sketch the monuments and their engraved runes.

In attempting to create a book of medieval Icelandic sagas, Ole worked with a prominent Icelandic historian, Arngrimur Jonsson; when both men had no luck finding the sagas, Arngriumur told Ole that he heard of an old woman who lived on a distant coast who knew about the medieval sagas and could perhaps retell them, and that they could send a poet to her to have them written down.  There is no record of any success in this venture.

During his grand tour of Europe, Ole had an autograph book which he filled with the signatures of famous cultural figures, including professors and dignitaries, whom he met during his travels. 

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References:

Barroso, M.D.S. (2013). Bezoar stones, magic, science and art. In Duffin, C.J., Moody, R.T.J., & Gardner-Thorpe, C. (Eds.), A history of geology and medicine (pp. 193-208). London: The Geological Society.

Grice, G. (2015). Cabinet of curiosities: Collecting and understanding the wonders of the natural world. New York, N.Y.: Workman Publishing.

>Hafstein, V. (2003). Bodies of knowledge: Ole Worm & collecting in late Renaissance Scandinavia. Ethnologia Europaea 33(1), 5-20.

Hoskin, D. (2015). Born on this day: Ole Worm — collector extraordinaire. Victoria and Albert Museum Blog. Retrieved from http://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/creating-new-europe-1600-1800-galleries/born-on-this-day-ole-worm-collector-extraordinaire.

Meier, A. (2013). Ole Worm returns: An iconic 17th century curiosity cabinet is obsessively recreated. Atlas Obscura. Retrieved from http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ole-worm-cabinet.

Richards, S. (2012). The world in a cabinet, 1600s. The Scientist. Retrieved from http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31897/title/The-World-in-a-Cabinet–1600s/.

Cabinets of Wonder: What Are They and Why Were They Created?

The term, “cabinet of wonder”, comes from the term “wunderkammer” (literally meaning “wonder chamber”).  The tradition of creating cabinets of wonder began during the Renaissance, the period of time between the 14th and 17th centuries.

In England and France, these cabinet of wonder collections were called “cabinets” or “curiosity cabinets”.  German speaking countries called the collections a variety of more specific terms: kunstkammer (“art cabinets”), schatzkammer (“treasure cabinets”), rüstkammer (history cabinets), and eventually wunderkammer (“marvel or curiosity cabinets”).  People during the Renaissance referred to these collections generically using the terms “wunderkammer” or “curiosity cabinet” interchangeably.

The first published pictorial representation of a Renaissance cabinet of curiosity in Ferrante Imperato’s Dell’historia Naturale. (Image digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.)

The Renaissance idea of creating a collection of (formerly) animate, inanimate, and botanical objects, and even odd specimens, came from a human desire to place mankind somewhere within the larger scheme of things.  Formerly, European princes built their own private studiolo or cabinets, which contained rare natural objects and books, and acted as status symbols to impress others.  Then the cabinets came to be used for scientific observation and contained more humble–but important–natural objects and specimens.  During the Renaissance, theorists from all fields of academia were making new scientific and philosophical discoveries, and realized that all of this new knowledge sometimes challenged previous beliefs about existence and mankind’s place within it.

Salamander, from Ferrante Imperato’s Dell’historia Naturale (1599). Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Different from modern museums, wunderkammer were generally created by a single scholar: in our example, Ferrante Imperato (1550-1625), an apothecary and scholar living in Naples.  In addition, the objects were believed to be interconnected by some singular purpose that could shed light on man’s place within existence.

Humanism was one of the most predominant movements in Italy during the Renaissance, and some humanists believed, among other things, in a notion of universalism–the idea that all things and all people were connected by some shared visible and/or invisible similarities, and all created by the divine.

The Renaissance humanists endeavored to use reasoning to explain unknown aspects of nature, which developed into the study of natural history: empirical observations and experimentation were used to make conclusions about the physical world.  Thus the Renaissance, and the creators of cabinets of wonder, were important in setting the stage for extraordinary advances in scientific knowledge in the decades following.

Remora fish, from Ferrante Imperato’s Dell’historia Naturale (1599). Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

What Were the Beliefs of Some Creators of Cabinets of Wonder, and Why Was Ferrante Imperato So Important?

Some creators of cabinets of wonder used for scientific observation and experimentation were pietistic, and stressed living a good and helpful life.  For this reason, the cabinets’ creators often wrote of their collections and made them open to the public to make people aware of the beauty of nature and the usefulness of natural objects.  The creators would also observe and experiment on items in their collections in an endeavor to increase knowledge of all aspects of the world.  Additionally, creators of cabinets of wonder often corresponded with, and visited, one another and discussed their collections and findings to increase the collective knowledge about the natural world and existence.

In this vein of sharing knowledge, Ferrante Imperato was convinced by his son, Francesco, and by his own friends, to produce a written account of his cabinet of wonder, in the form of the 28 books which comprise his work Dell’historia Naturale.  The majority of the work’s books are concerned with stones, minerals, gems and earth (i.e., minerology and related fields).  The last two books deal with living organisms: plants and animals.  Imperato especially featured and worked with herbs used to create medicines as an apothecary.

The first version of Dell’historia Naturale, printed in 1599, totaled 791 pages between the 28 books that comprised it, with 119 woodcut illustrations interspersed throughout the text.  One of the first European natural history research collections, Imperato’s cabinet may have contained as many as 35,000 plant, animal and mineral specimens.  Imperato quoted other authors at the beginning of his subject sections and discussed what he thought of the authors’ ideas, and then launched into his own beliefs about the subjects based on his experimentation on, and observation of, specimens in his cabinet of wonder.

Marine creature and Horned Viper, from Ferrante Imperato’s Dell’historia Naturale (1599). Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Many creators of these cabinets were drawn to collecting specimens in an endeavor to make life more comfortable for people in acts of piety, either by collecting herbs and natural materials like Imperato did in order to create medicines, or by collecting natural materials believed to be alchemical or metallurgical in order to experiment with new recipes (“segreti”, or “secrets”) to ease human ailments. Sometimes piety, however, was considered heretical by the Catholic Church in Italy at this time due to pietism’s emphasis on individual religious devotion (which leaves room for the idea that the Church may not be needed).

Imperato’s friend and scientific rival, Giovanni Battista Della Porta, who practiced pietism, created the Academia Secretorum Naturae (“Accademia dei Segreti”), which translates to “The Academy of the Mysteries of Nature”, in order to study and share information about natural science with like-minded scholars.  In 1579, Della Porta’s Accademia was accused of sorcery and disbanded by the Pope.

Insects from Ferrante Imperato’s Dell’historia Naturale (1599). Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Arachnids and other insects from Ferrante Imperato’s Dell’historia Naturale (1599). Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Some humanist scholars did, in fact, possess objects in their cabinets of wonder believed to have magical properties based on arcane knowledge, and these items included magical lanterns, speaking tubes, and distorting mirrors.  So the humanist sharing of “secrets of nature” did include, for some, secret of a magical (heretical) sort.

Imperato saw his cabinet of wonder as a place to derive knowledge directly from the artifacts before him, rather than trying to apply secret knowledge from arcane ancient and contemporary manuscripts to the objects in order to try and produce a result, like other scholars of his time, such as Girolamo Ruscelli (who had his own Accademia Segreta).

When Imperato’s Dell’historia Naturale was being printed in 1599, and more people knew about the pietism, and beliefs in magical properties of some items in some cabinets of wonder, Imperato’s son, Francesco, feared his father’s text might lead to heresy charges.  Francesco thus quickly printed another shorter version of his father’s text with many references to saints and Christian writers.

Imperato was not charged by the Church with heresy or sorcery when his full text, in all 28 books, came out, and this text became the first to feature an illustration of a cabinet of wonder, and the first work on natural history completely written in Italian (rather than scholarly Latin).

An experiment with asbestos, from Ferranto Imperato’s Dell’historia Naturale (1599). Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Interesting Facts:

Some of the scholars and knowledgeable men with whom Ferrante Imperato corresponded included: Ulisse Aldovrandi, Gaspard Bauhin, Pierandrea Mattioli, and Fabio Colona.

Imperato was amazed by asbestos, which was a relatively new substance at the time, with paradoxical and malleable qualities.  Imperato experimented with asbestos and included an illustration of one of his experiments with it in Dell’historia Naturale (fig. 18)–the only experiment depicted in the work.

In order to argue that a toad’s skull was actually a stone unlike any other natural stones, Imperato captured a pregnant viper and gathered many toads to prove that the viper could not penetrate the toad’s skull, and called the toad’s skull “toadstone” (pietra di rospo).

In 1611, Galileo demonstrated for other scholars the luminescent nature of a stone called the “Bologna stone” (lapis Bononiensis), or the “solar sponge”.  When Imperato heard about this stone, he was fascinated but thought it qualified as natural magic and claimed: “I believe that it is not natural but artificial”.

Cabinets of wonder often included fossils–Imperato had many–and humanist debate in Italy in the early fifteenth century led to subsequent discussions about what the existence of fossils meant; European students visiting Italy spread this debate throughout many regions when they returned to their home towns.

Ferrante Imperato’s Dell’historia Naturale contains medical folklore such as the ideas that wearing amethyst in the navel prevents drunkenness, sapphire cleans the eyes in such a way as to prevent lust, and jasper worn as an amulet can stop bleeding.

References:

Dion, M. (n.d.). History of the wunderkammern (cabinet of curiosities). Mark Dion: Tate Thames Dig. Retrieved from http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/mark-dion-tate-thames-dig/wunderkammen

Duffin, C.J., Moody, R.T.J., & Gardner-Thorpe, C. (Eds.). (2013). A history of geology and medicine. Geological Society: Special Publication, 375, 23-24.

Findlen, P. (1994). Possessing nature: Museums, collecting, and scientific culture in Early Modern Italy. Berkeley, C.A.: University of California Press.

Grice, G. (2015). Cabinet of curiosities: Collecting and understanding the wonders of the natural world. New York, N.Y.: Workman Publishing.

Guitard, E. (1937). Ferrante Imperato. Revue d’histoire de la pharmacie, 25(100), 196.

Mottana, A. (n.d). The first modern translation of Theophrastus’ “On Stones” (pi epsilon rho Anot sign lambda AI omega I1/2; De lapidibus): Ferrante Imperato (1599). Rendiconti Lincei-Scienze Fisiche E Naturali, 21(1), 1-25.

Philippe, J. (2003). Les curiosités de trois apothicaires. Revue d’histoire de la pharmacie, 91(340), 603-610.

Rosenberg, G.D. (Ed.). (2009). The revolution in geology from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. GSA Memoir Series, 203, 84.

Vai, G. B., & Cavazza, W. (2006). Ulisse Aldrovandi and the origin of geology and science. The origins of geology in Italy: GSA special papers, 411, 43-63.

Today’s book is truly filled with Page Frights! Sea and Land: An Illustrated History of the Wonderful and Curious Things of Nature Existing Before and Since the Deluge, by James W. Buel (1849-1920), highlights some truly horrific creatures and plants, with colorful tales and an abundance of amazing illustrations.  You can read about, and see images of, giant prehistoric and contemporary land, air and sea creatures, sometimes in battle with one another and sometimes battling humans–including early man.

Some of the creatures covered and treated with illustrations read like a carnival of monstrosities: Animals not destructible by fire!  The monster sea-elephant!  The terrible water-spout!  The sea-serpent of ancient legend!  There are many gruesome tales, fables, and even ghost tales!  We will highlight a few of Buel’s tales of monsters in nature, in his own words, with accompanying illustrations.

It is important to remember that this book is a reflection of the culture of its time, and scientific inquiry has yielded much more information about these species and helped demystify many of the myths and legends that are sensationalized in the book.  Bearing that in mind, get ready for some fantastic and frightful tales and images!

The Tale of a Kraken Attacking a Ship!

Adventures with the Frightful Squid [Kraken]. Account below from Buel’s Sea and Land:

“In olden times sailors were harassed by many groundless fears, superstitions being abundant and ignorance general.  The early Spanish poetic chroniclers, who delighted in telling the story of Columbus’ voyages, invariably disfigured their narratives with miracles and wonders.  In those days Jack, looking over the side of his vessel, was prepared to see anything, and to this willing disposition may be attributed the creation of mermaids, sea-serpents, grinning or winking monsters, and leviathans big enough to swallow a ship.  There was the squid which, as the sepia octopus, we know in these days to be an extremely large and most diabolically unpleasant beast; but in the olden times this animal was reckoned to be larger than a cathedral, in proof of which the following story is recited:

“A big ship was on the West African Coast; the men were getting the anchor, when a squid arose and wreathed its fearful snake-like limbs around the vessel’s spars.  The tips of these limbs soared quaveringly high above the mastheads, and the weight of the cuttle drove the ship down on to her beam ends.  Here now was a lively situation.  The crew plied axes and knives, but in vain, whereupon they invoked the aid of their patron saint, Thomas.  Eventually the wounded monster grew alarmed and sank, and the crew afterward, to commemorate their deliverance, marched in a body to the Church of St. Thomas, where subsequently there was hung up a painting, representing the unparalleled conflict. […]

“Pliny, the ancient, relates the history of an enormous cuttle-fish that haunted the coast of Spain and destroyed fishing ground.  He asserts that this creature was finally captured, and weighed seven hundred pounds, and that its arms were thirty feet in length.  As the cuttle-fish was esteemed by the ancients a most savory dish, the head of this formidable monster was given to Lucullas to whom it belonged rightfully by reason of his exalted rank” (Buel, 1887, pp. 75-77).

Adventures with the Frightful Squid, also called “Kraken” (see image here)

A Giant, Man-Attacking Crab!

Monster Sea-Spiders. Account below from Buel’s Sea and Land:

“From an article in a recent number of St. Nicholas, I condense the following interesting information about crabs:

“Among the most remarkable, and the largest of crabs, is the Japanese sea-spider, highly esteemed in the Orient as an excellent article of food.  Its principal claws are each five feet in length, measuring from ten to twelve feet between the tips of the nippers, and presenting an astonishing spectacle when entangled in the nets and hauled aboard the boats.  With their slow, measured movements and the powerful weapons of defense, these crabs are the giants of the spiders of the sea.  Professor Ward, who has collected them in Japan, states that they have a remarkable habit of leaving the water at night and crawling up the banks presumably to feed, and that there they are sought by the crab-hunters.  A story is told of a party of fishermen who had camped out on a river bank, and one of whom aroused the others in the night by yells and screams.  Running to the spot they found that one of these monster crabs, in wandering over the flats, had accidentally crawled over him with his great claws, frightening him almost to death” (Buel, 1887, pp. 64-65).

Japanese Spider Crab (see image here)

“The robber-crab, peculiar to the Samoan Islands. . .lives principally in the branches of the cocoanut tree.  It exercises no little intelligence in getting at the fruit, which it accomplishes by carrying the nut to the very top of the tree, and then dashing it down with force enough to break the shell.  A gentleman relates that upon an occasion, while he was walking in a Samoan forest, he saw a robber-brab reach down its claws from a thick palm branch and seize a goat by the ears that was passing underneath.  So powerful was the crab that it lifted the goat almost clear from the ground” (Buel, 1887, pp. 65, 67).

Robber-Crab lifting a goat off the ground (see image here)

A Horrifying Man-Eating Tree!

A Man-Eating Plant. Account below from Buel’s Sea and Land:

“Travelers have told us of a plant, which they assert grows in Central Africa and also in South America, that is not contented with the myriad of large insects which it catches and consumes, but its voracity extends to making even humans its prey.  This marvelous vegetable Minotauris represented as having a short, thick trunk, from the top of which radiate giant spines, narrow and flexible, but of extraordinary tenaciousness, the edges of which are armed with barbs, or dagger-like teeth.  Instead of growing upright, or at an inclined angle from the trunk, these spines lay their outer ends upon the ground, and so gracefully are they distributed that the trunk resembles an easy couch with the green drapery around it.  The unfortunate traveler, ignorant of the monstrous creation which lies in his way, and curious to examine the strange plant, or to rest himself upon its inviting stalk approaches without a suspicion of his certain doom.  The moment his feet are set within the circle of the horrid spines, they rise up, like gigantic serpents, and entwine themselves about him until he is drawn upon the stump, when they speedily drive their daggers into his body and thus complete the massacre.  The body is crushed until every drop of blood is squeezed out of it and becomes absorbed by the gore-loving plant, then the dry carcass is thrown out and the horrid trap set again.

“A gentleman of my acquaintance, who, for a long time, resided in Central America,, affirms the existence of such a plant as I have here briefly described, except that instead of the filaments, or spines, resting on the ground he says they move themselves constantly in the air, like so many huge serpents in an angry discussion, occasionally darting from side to side as if striking at an imaginary foe.  When their prey comes within reach the spines reach out with wonderful sagacity (if I may be allowed to apply the expression to a vegetable creature), and grasp it in an unyielding embrace, from whence it issues only when all the substance of its body is yielded up.  In its action of exerting pressure upon its prey, this dreadful plant resembles the instrument used in the dark ages for inflicting a torturous death.  It was made of two long iron cylinders, on the inside of which were sharp, projecting pikes.  The victim was placed inside, and the two cylinders then brought forcibly together, thus driving a hundred or more of the pointed pikes into all parts of his body and producing a frightful death.  Generally this inquisitorial instrument was made, somewhat crudely, to represent a woman, hence the name applied to it was “The Maiden,” by which it is still known.

“Dr. Antonio Jose Marquez, a distinguished gentleman of the city of Barranguilla, in the United States of Colombia, in describing this wonderful plant to the author, affirms that when excited it violently agitates its long, tentacle-like stems, the edges of which, rasping upon each other, produce a hissing noise which resembles the Spanish expression, ya-te-veo, the literal translation of which is “I see you.”  The plant is therefore known, in South America, by the name Yataveo” (Buel, 1887, pp. 475-477).

The Man-Eating Tree (see image here)

Click here to read the book, and more of its frightful tales!  Here are some wickedly monstrous illustrations to lure you to this special collection of Page Frights!

Sea Serpent (see image here)

Imagined battle between early man and Plesiosaurus (see image here)

Pterodactyl and sea dinosaurs (see image here)

What is your favorite image or story from today’s #PageFrights book?

On Heirloom Plants

When you think of an “heirloom plant”, you may be imagining a plant that has changed little in over a hundred years—something our great- great-grandparents would have farmed and eaten.  However, the definition of an heirloom plant is a bit more fluid than that, and not only includes edibles but also plants such as flowers, herbs, bulbs, and shrubs.  In fact, there is no singular consensus on how many years a plant has to have remained unchanged to be considered an heirloom.  Some groups use cut-off dates—meaning dates after which the plant has not changed.  For instance, 1940 is the cut-off date used by the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in Virigina.  The Heirloom Garden at the National Museum of American History uses a cut-off date of 1950.  Plants can be considered heirloom if they have not changed in 50, 75, and 100 years; there is not a single date used by a single, overriding authority.

Interestingly, the genetic make-up of an heirloom plant is also not necessarily unchanged over time, as one might assume.  While heirloom plants are plants that breed true to seed by open-pollinated, natural means, i.e., wind, water, insects, animals, etc., a certain amount of genetic crossing can take place naturally and the plant will still be considered an heirloom.  In technical terms, an open pollinated heirloom plant will seem extremely similar to its parent plant in looks and genetic composition, but will not necessarily have the exact same genetic make-up as the parent.  Sometimes flowering plants, mainly food crops, need to be isolated to prevent cross-breeding with neighboring plant species.  However, sometimes hybrid plants containing crossed characteristics from two different parent plants can be considered heirlooms if they are open pollinated and become stabilized over a long enough period of time (at least eighty years). Learn more about hybrids in our previous post.

Seed Catalog: Glass’ Water Cleaned Seeds Grown on Lakeview Seed Farm, by Heman Glass, Published 1894.  Courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Library.  View full catalog here.

Image of Available Vegetable Seeds from Glass’ Water Cleaned Seeds Grown on Lakeview Seed Farm, by Heman Glass, Published 1894.  Courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Library.  View full catalog here.

Heirloom vegetables have been passed down over generations, often being 50, 75 or 100 years in cultivation.  Heirloom gardeners use seed saving techniques or buy seeds from heirloom seed companies.  You can explore various antique seed catalogs in the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s collection here to see the types of seeds our ancestors used, some of which are now heirloom varieties if they have been carefully preserved over time to maintain the same genetic traits (as explained above).  Aside from vegetables, people have also preserved flowers over time, creating heirloom varieties.  The Heirloom Garden at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History contains shrubs, perennials, annuals, bulbs and tropicals grown in American gardens prior to 1950.

Prior to, and during, WWII, many people grew their own vegetables in backyard gardens.  When many hybrid plants were produced after the War, creating plants with desirable traits and increased yields, a large number of people wanted to preserve their own seed because they missed old varieties of plants.  This led to the beginning of the heirloom gardening movement.  The first use of the term “heirloom” in relation to plants appears to be in describing edible crops, most likely bean seeds, in the 1940s: Professor J. R. Hepler at the University of New Hampshire told John Withee, prominent bean seed collector, about some beans given to him by friends and described them as “heirloom”.  Widespread use of the term was cemented in 1981 when Kent Whealy, co-founder of Seed Savers Exchange, gave a speech in Tucson using the term after obtaining permission to use it from John Withee.

Seed Catalogs and Heirloom Gardening

Early Seed Catalogue: Catalogue of Kitchen Garden, Herb, Tree, Field and Flower Seeds, Bulbous Flower Roots, Agricultural Books, Fruit Trees, Shrubs, and Grape Vines, by Joseph R. Newell, Published 1828.  Courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Library.  View full catalog here.

Many heirloom plants are available through seed catalogs.  A majority of these catalogs are currently held in different collections, and by looking at images and reading descriptions of plants in these catalogs, one can determine when certain heirloom varieties which still exist today were first introduced.  You can search the Biodiversity Heritage Library for heirloom plants by scientific name (the genus and specific epithet) and find old catalogs, magazines and publications containing that name. For instance, search for Nicotiana sylvestris in the Biodiversity Heritage Library catalog and you will find the beautifully-illustrated Maule’s Seed Catalogue from 1900.  Below is an image of the Maule’s page featuring Nicotiana sylvestris (click here to view that page in the catalog online).  Nicotiana sylvestris is a night scented tobacco plant, also called “Woodland Tobacco”, that grows up to five feet tall with three-to-four inch hanging trumpet-shaped white blossoms that open in the evening to release a sweet scent–and you can learn more and still purchase this heirloom plant today at places like Seed Saver’s Exchange!

Seed Catalog: Maule’s Seed Catalogue, by Maule, Published 1900. This page features a listing of Nicotiana sylvestris seeds for sale (an heirloom still available today). Courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Library.  View full catalog here.

Seed Catalog: Seed Annual for 1890, by John Gardiner and Co., Published 1890.  Courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Library.  View full catalog here.

Older seed catalogs are especially helpful to the modern heirloom gardener—peruse the catalogs to discover the plants you might like to have in your garden, and then search for heirloom seed varieties of those plants at modern companies such as Seed Savers Exchange and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.  Check out the beautiful seed catalogs available at the Biodiversity Heritage Library here.

Happy seed catalog viewing and heirloom gardening!

Garden Stories: A Week Long Event for Garden Lovers

All this week, we’ll be exploring the fascinating world of gardening, including garden history topics such as the development of hybrids, heirloom gardening, women in the seed industry, revolutions in garden marketing through art, and the vital role the Shakers played in the American seed industry. We’ll also be sharing great gardening tips and plant factoids with help from our BHL members and affiliates. And we’ll be using the over 14,000 seed and nursery catalogs in BHL to help tell these stories. Join in all the gardening fun by:

• Follow our blog and #BHLinbloom on Twitter and Facebook (or go directly to BHL’s Twitter and Facebook) this week as we explore the fascinating world of gardening, from its history to plant factoids and practical gardening tips.
• Browse over 14,000 seed and nursery catalogs in our collection.
• Browse over 2,500 seed and nursery catalog images in our Flickr collection.
• Explore select seed catalog art, and stunning bookmarks and postcards developed by Cornell Library, on Pinterest.
• See historic gardening come to life on the Smithsonian Libraries’ Tumblr.
• Purchase your very own Garden Stories T-Shirt through T-Fund. All proceeds will go to help us digitize more pages for BHL. Our goal is to sell enough shirts to digitized 5,000 pages. Can you help us get there?
• Help us improve access to seed and nursery catalogs by transcribing some today as part of our the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)-funded Purposeful Gaming project!
• Find great online gardening resources, tips, and help on the BHL Gardening Resources Page.

Special thanks to Joseph Brunetti and Erin Clark at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History HeirloomGarden for their significant contributions.

References:

• Adams, Denise Wiles.  Restoring American Gardens: An Encyclopedia of Heirloom Ornamental Plants, 1640-1940.  Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2004.
• Weaver, William Woys.  Heirloom Vegetable Gardening: A Master Gardener’s Guide to Planting, Seed Saving, and Cultural History.  New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1997.