Nature's Bible

Nature’s Bible: Insects in Seventeenth-Century European Art and Science Brian W. Ogilvie History Department , University of Massachusetts [email protected] Abstract Keywords: Artists and naturalists in seventeenth-century Europe avidly pursued the study of insects. Natural history, Since entomology had not yet become a distinct discipline, these studies were pursued art, within the framework of natural history, miniature painting, medicine, and anatomy. In Science, the late sixteenth century the Renaissance naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi collected and insects, described individual insects and their lore but showed little sustained interest in their tem - entomology poral transmutations; meanwhile, the court artist Joris Hoefnagel studied the structure of insects in order to paint real and imaginary insects while giving them an emblematic inter - pretation. By the middle of the seventeenth century the painter Johannes Goedaert was assiduously studying insect transformations, which he saw as evidence of God’s wondrous works. His work was critiqued and systematized by the physicians Martin Lister and Jan Swammerdam, who insisted that orderly transformation was the best sign of God’s hand - iwork. These examples show how verbal descriptions and illustrations of insects easily crossed disciplinary boundaries; knowledge generated in one particular context moved into others where it was critiqued but also employed in new investigations. The Bible of Nature; or, The History of Insects appropriate for the study of insects in the Brought into Certain Classes , is the strange seventeenth century. Characterized by title that Jan Swammerdam (d. 1680) gave scholarly erudition, painstaking observa - to his posthumously published magnum tion, and artistic flair, the study of insects opus (Swammerdam 1737-38). The reveals, in miniature, many cultural and strangeness lies in the contrast between the intellectual interests of the century and subtitle’s sober promise of order and the how knowledge circulated between distinct expansive, if not temerarious, claims of the yet permeable contexts. As we shall see, it title. But Swammerdam’s title is strangely also made eminent sense to Swammerdam; Tidsskrift for kulturforskning. Volum 7, nr. 3 • 2008, s. 5-21 5 it expressed his sense of the relationship and vanity paintings (Vignau-Wilberg between rational order and divine creation. 1994; Albus 2000). In the second half of Like natural history in general, the the century, the artists Johannes Goedaert study of insects was avidly pursued in the and Maria Sibylla Merian consciously set late Renaissance and after. The first out to use their artistic and observational European natural history of insects, Ulisse talents to serve “investigators of nature,” Aldrovandi’s 1602 De animalibus insectis , denying any fundamental distinction was the fruit of a lifetime of collecting between naturalists and artists. insects and insect-lore. Other sixteenth- It would be misleading to call these century naturalists had collected material studies “entomology.” That word was on insects – for instance, Edward Wotton, coined in 1745 by Charles Bonnet – who Conrad Gessner, and Thomas Penny, rejected it, as too cacophonous – in his whose notes were organized for publication Traité d’insectologie (his preferred term). It by Thomas Moffett and finally published entered English in 1766 (TLF; OED). A by Theodore de Mayerne (Moffett 1634). discipline may exist before it is named, but But compared with the flood of the act of naming is often a mark of self- Renaissance works on plants, quadrupeds, recognition by its practitioners that some - birds, and fishes, insects were little studied thing new has come into being (see Kelley (Pinon 1995; Ogilvie 2006). Over the 1997). Histories of entomology have been course of the seventeenth century, more written that start in ancient Mesopotamia, and more scholars turned to the study of but they should really be considered histo - insects. Though their numbers remained ries of the study of insects – that is, of a sci - small when compared with eighteenth-cen - entific object – rather than histories of a tury entomologists, they included major discipline (e.g. Bodenheimer 1928, Essig figures: for example, Marcello Malpighi, 1936). By using the anachronistic term Antony van Leeuwenhoek, Robert Hooke, entomology, they distract the historian’s John Ray, and Swammerdam. The newly attention from the processes that led to the invented microscope offered enhanced pos - formation of a new discipline (cf. Rossi sibilities of observation, and insects could 1984:vii). (Of course, “science” is itself a cast new light on problems in anatomy and problematic term, especially before 1800: generation (Bodenheimer 1928:vol. 1:325- see Pickstone 2007.) 407; Wilson 1995; Ruestow 1996; In this essay I offer a series of observa - Freedberg 2002; Cobb 2006). tions on how and why insects were studied Artists, and miniaturists in particular, before entomology, from the late sixteenth had long included insects among decora - to the late seventeenth century. I offer an tive motifs. But toward the end of the six - essay, not a systematic overview of insect teenth century, the so-called Dürer Revival studies; as a result, I must omit a discussion generated new interest in a meticulous of many artists and scholars who would be depiction of plants, animals, insects, and considered in a longer study – for instance, other natural objects (Koreny 1988; Neri the Melissographia and other works of the 2003:23). Georg Hoefnagel stunned the Accademia dei Lincei or the later seven - court of Rudolf II with his delicate insect teenth-century works of Marcello Malpighi replicas and fantasies, and insects came to or Francesco Redi. My focus will be on the be familiar parts of Netherlandish still life different contexts in which insects were 6 Brian Ogilvie studied and how knowledge changed as it moved from one context to another. In its attention to the role of insect illustrations, this essay is in part a contribution to what Monika Dommann, following W.J.T. Mitchell, has called a “pictorial turn” in the history of science (Dommann 2004). At the same time, I explores the shifting rela - tionship between natural knowledge of insects, moral lessons to be drawn from them, and secular theology (on secular the - ology see Funkenstein 1986). In joining these themes, insects are for the historian truly wondrous. Ulisse Aldrovandi: the encyclopedic observer The hallmark of Renaissance natural histo - ry was the careful description of the natural world. Ulisse Aldrovandi’s De animalibus insectis libri VII , one of the handful of works that Aldrovandi actually published toward the end of his long life as a natural - ist and collector, reveals the descriptive impulse at work. At the same time, it reveals how, for Aldrovandi, description was only part of the naturalist’s work; the history of insects embraced their meaning, not simply their objective nature. collection and Aldrovandi’s indefatigable Figure 1. Insects were a particular problem for reading provided the basis for De insectis In his woodcut illustrations, naturalists because they were small and (on Aldrovandi’s collection see Findlen Ulisse Aldrovandi presented practically innumerable. But Aldrovandi 1994:30). each major phase of the butter - was not daunted. Accompanied by an Despite the weight of erudition in his fly’s life cycle synchronically, as amanuensis and a painter, he prowled the work, Aldrovandi was an acute observer if he had laid out specimens in “suburbs” of Bologna, interrogating peas - (Bodenheimer 1928:vol. 1:247-276). And a cabinet. Source: Ulisse ants, having them bring him insects, flying he had a lot of description to do: his Aldrovandi, De animalibus creatures, and reptiles, and studying them. ancient and medieval predecessors had insectis (1602), courtesy of the The painter illustrated anything worthy of largely neglected to describe insects. For Entomology, Fisheries & being painted, while the amanuensis noted instance, “although there are many kinds of Wildlife Library, University of down what Aldrovandi considered impor - butterflies, I have found none described by Minnesota; photo by the tant; in this way “I was able to assemble a the ancients” (Aldrovandi 1602:236). To author. diverse collection ( variam supellectilem ) of remedy this lack, Aldrovandi used words insects” (Aldrovandi 1602:sig. †3r). This and pictures. His chapters on butterflies Nature’s Bible: Insects in Seventeenth-Century European Art and Science 7 (including moths) involved eleven full-page ence signified not only present beauty but woodcuts, each containing several different also, with the next generation of caterpil - species. They were accompanied by mor - lars, future devastation. Aldrovandi occa - phological descriptions and occasionally by sionally noted which butterflies develop notes on their generation or behavior, from which insects: for instance, “When I though most of that information came later had nourished the first caterpillar of the under more general headings like generatio first table for some time in my house, it did and mores . Aldrovandi placed great value not weave a web or sack, but rather formed on illustrations as a source of knowledge. a chrysalis which gave birth to a darkish Illustrations showed naturalists distant yellow butterfly, namely the third in the species; they allowed for communication first table.” But he did not do so systemat - with contemporaries and posterity in a way ically,

Load more