All posts tagged with book-of-the-week

In 1805, the “Father of North American mycology”, Lewis David von Schweinitz (1780-1834), published an account of the fungi in Niesky, Germany with his friend and mentor, Johannes Baptista von Albertini (1769-1831). Documenting over 1,000 species, including 100 published as new-to-science, Conspectus fungorum in Lusatiae Superioris agro Niskiensi crescentium, e methodo Persooniana is still referenced to this day as a classic mycological text and ecological record.

The Conspectus is illustrated with 12 hand-colored plates based on drawings by Schweinitz, each featuring 6-10 figures of new species described. Whenever possible, Schweinitz based his drawings on fresh specimens, but when this was not an option, he referred to fungarium specimens or to a collection of earlier watercolors he’d created of representative specimens.

Today, these watercolor volumes are dispersed between several American institutions and offer a wealth of insight into the history and development of the Conspectus. The earliest volume of original watercolors related to the Conspectus is the Icones Fungorum Niskiensium, created (ca.) 1798-1802 and held in the archives of the Farlow Reference Library of Cryptogamic Botany at Harvard University. This volume served Schweinitz as a sketchbook of sorts, which he used to inform the final paintings in the Conspectus itself.

Natural history illustrations often aim to show life-like flora and fauna. Depictions of birds poised to take flight, fish swimming upstream, and mammals mid-stride are common in 18th and 19th century zoology and botany publications. What is lost in these often lavish illustrations is a certain truth about the way many naturalists interacted with their objects of study: many species of plant or animal were first encountered not in the wild, but in the display case, in the form of carefully prepared specimens.

One British naturalist, Captain Thomas Brown (1785-1862), made the practical observation that mounted animal specimens allowed naturalists to “contemplate, without dread, the most destructive and furious quadrupeds, and the most noxious reptiles.”

At first glance one notices the unusual oblong-shaped book at 9” x 7” x 3” in a deep brown leather binding.

Peeking inside, there are pages and pages of botanical woodcuts – more than 1,020 – each with at least two woodcuts per leaf. For our purposes, a woodcut is an illustration engraved into a block of wood.

What is this copiously-illustrated work?

Eicones plantarum seu stirpium, arborum nempe, fructicum, herbarum, fructuum, lignorum, radicum, omnis generis : tam inquilinorum, quàm exoticorum : quæ partim Germania sponte producit, partim ab exteris regionibus allata in Germania plantantur : in gratiam medicinæ reiâque herbariæ studiosorum, in tres partes digestæ : adiecto indice gemino locupletissimo [Francofurti ad Moenum: Nicolao Bassaeo, 1590], by Iacobus  Theodorus (1522 or 1525 – 1590).

Or, using an abridged, summarized, and modernized translated title, “Pictures of plants, trees, herbs, fruits, and roots that are native to Germany and foreign countries, which are used for medicinal purposes, for apothecary students, and divided into three parts with the addition of a double index”.

One of the most interesting titles which the MBLWHOI Library has scanned into the Biodiversity Heritage Library is Résultats des campagnes scientifiques accomplies sur son yacht par Albert Ier, prince souverain de Monaco = Results of the scientific campaigns carried out on his yacht by Albert I, sovereign prince of Monaco.

This important book series is part of the MBLWHOI Library Special Collection of the great voyages of scientific exploration. Resultats… brings together the science and data collected by the research expeditions led by Prince Albert I of Monaco (1848-1922) at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Centuries, and the title consists of 110 volumes published from 1889-1950.

The volumes were included as part of a small exhibition prepared by MBLWHOI Library staff for the current head of state of Monaco and great-grandson of Prince Albert I, HSH Prince Albert II. During the visit, MBLWHOI librarians Jen Walton and Matt Person shared past and present connections between Monaco and the MBL and between this important series and current MBL environmental and biological research.

The North American Sylva is a beautiful scientifically and historically-significant work. Authored by François-André Michaux, it is the first American silva – a descriptive flora of forest trees. Published originally in French in 1810, the first English version appeared in 1817, and it was further enhanced with supplementary volumes by Thomas Nuttall in the 1840s.

“Do your reading!” and “Don’t write in your books!” are two oft-echoed directions from schoolteachers. A 1491 edition of Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia, housed in the Smithsonian Libraries’ Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History and recently digitized for the Biodiversity Heritage Library, challenges both of those commands: not only did Pliny write it in such a way that doesn’t necessitate reading it cover to cover, but readers in centuries past have added notes, reactions, and even corrections to every page of the book!

The Acclimatisation Society of Victoria played a fascinating, yet devastating, role in Australia’s ecological history. Founded in 1861 and existing as an independent entity until 1872, the Society recorded its objectives and activities in annual reports. These reports have been digitized by Museums Victoria and are now available on the Biodiversity Heritage Library.