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Ulisse Aldrovandi and Antonio Vallisneri: the Italian Contribution to Knowledge of Neuropterous Insects Between the 16Th and the Early 18Th Centuries*

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Ulisse Aldrovandi and Antonio Vallisneri: the Italian Contribution to Knowledge of Neuropterous Insects Between the 16Th and the Early 18Th Centuries* Ann. Mus. civ. St. nat. Ferrara Vol. 8 2005 [2007] pp. 9-26 ISSN 1127-4476 Ulisse Aldrovandi and Antonio Vallisneri: the Italian contribution to knowledge of Neuropterous Insects between the 16th and the early 18th centuries* Rinaldo Nicoli Aldini 1· 2 1) lstituto di Entomologia e Patologia vegetale, Facolta di Agraria, Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Via E­ milia Parmense 84, 1-29100 Piacenza (Italy); 2) Scienze degli Alimenti, Polo Scientifico-Didattico di Cesena del­ la Facolta di Agraria, Alma Mater Studiorum, Universita degli Studi di Bologna, Piazza Goidanich 60, 1-47023 Cesena (Italy), e-mail: [email protected] The oldest evidence of neuropterous insects in Italian scientific literature dates back at least to the 15th-16th centuries and regards antlions. Documents concerning antlions and green lacewings are present in the outstanding corpus of watercolour illustrations of insects built up in the 16th cen­ tury by the great naturalist from Bologna, Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605), and then reproduced in his work De animalibus insectis (1602). His illustrations of some adult antlions and a green lace­ wing are among the earliest to be found in printed works. Between the 16th and the early 18th cen­ turies, other Italian authors mention or deal with lacewings, mainly the outstanding scientist from Reggio, Antonio Vallisneri (1661-1730), who published bionomical and behavioural observations on antlions and green lacewings; he was the first to publish the life cycle of an antlion and to describe and illustrate the stalked eggs of green lacewings. Key words - entomology, neuropterology, history, Italy, antlions, green lacewings, early authors. Neuropterans in early literature titude on "antlions" in the present meaning and Italian scholars who dealt of the word seems to have been the Ger­ man Albrecht von BollsUidt, Dominican, with them before Linne bishop of Ratisbon, Saint Albert the Great (ca 1193-1280) (Saitta, 1929); theologian, It is well known that the earliest written philosopher, naturalist, 'the universal tea­ references to neuropterous insects con­ cher' of the thirteenth century. He spoke of cern the most well known since time im­ flattened insects, similar to ticks, digging memorial, antlions. The term "antlion", or pits in the sand for hunting ants (Aidro­ its equivalents and variants in different vandus, 1602, p. 523; 1623, p. 207; languages, occurs in the texts of ancient Wheeler, 1930, p. 6; Kevan, 1992). Patron civilizations even some centuries before saint of naturalists, for this reason we can Christ; but which animal or animals it re­ also consider him the specific patron of ferred to, we don't know with any cer­ neuropterolog ists! tainty. The first author who wrote with cer- Antlions, animals which prey upon ants, and existing somewhere between * This contribution is dedicated to Prof. Maria Matilde reality and myth in ancient times, were the Principi, Professor Emeritus in the Alma Mater Stu­ subject of early knowledge and beliefs diorum - Universita degli Studi di Bologna, on the perhaps partly referring to myrmeleontids; occasion of her 90th birthday (May 4th, 2005), as a sign of deep gratitude for her encouragement and this idea survived in European culture o­ help to the author at the beginning of his investiga­ ver the Middle Ages, gradually freeing it­ tions on Neuropterida. self from uncertainty and legend and fi- 9 Proceedings of the IX International Symposium on Neuropterology nally referring to well-defined insects. ledge; the love of and wish to document Traces of these early vague ideas are the fascinating diversity of living beings, to be found in Italian authors at least as particularly insects with their metamor­ early as the 15th century. Later, an impor­ phoses; a practical and applied interest in tant representative of 16th-century scien­ nature in relation to man's activities, and tific humanism, Ulisse Aldrovandi, inclu­ possible advantages for him; the specu­ des some neuropterous insects, not only lative desire to classify nature, to reach a antlions, in his work on insects, and illu­ systematic knowledge of the physical strates them (Aidrovandus, 1602). About a world; the goal of investigating and un­ century later, another great Italian scien­ derstanding structures, functions, beha­ tist, Antonio Vallisneri, studied the life and viours, relations. behaviour of insects and gave an example of his observations describing the life cy­ Late Middle Ages and height of cle of an antlion (Vallisneri, 1700a) and the stalked eggs of a green lacewing (Val­ the Renaissance: Decembrio and lisneri, 1717). Besides these two protago­ Carda no nists of the history of biological science and entomology, a few other Italian stu­ In the works of at least two Italians be­ dents working in other branches of scien­ fore Aldrovandi, there is evidence of an ce left more marginal evidence of an inte­ interest in antlions: towards the end of the rest in these insects in the same period. Middle Ages we find mention of them in Thus, when we write of the Italian au­ the "Codex animalium", a handwritten be­ thors before Linne who studied the insects stiary by the learned humanist from Pavia, we now call neuropterans, we are refer­ Pier Candido Decembrio (Petrus Candi­ ring to a period which lasted over two cen­ dus Decembrius) (1392-1477). This cour­ turies, during which there was radical evo­ tier and diplomat translated classical au­ lution in scientific thought and substantial thors and wrote epigrams and tracts in changes in the way the study of nature prose (Viti, 1987). In the fourth volume of ~was approached: from the inheritance of his richly illustrated work, dating back to the Middle Ages, dogmatic and pervaded approximately 1460 (the date of the dra­ by myth, by way of the encyclopaedism of wings is uncertain), there is an illustration the late Renaissance, aimed at the com­ of a possible antlion larva, which the au­ plete recovery of classical knowledge and thor refers to as the so-called "Formicae still subject to the authority principle, to the Indicae" (Decembrius, ca 1460). This illu­ rise of the early scientific academies and stration may be the first true image of an the achievement of a new critical spirit and antlion larva, referred to with an early La­ the experimental method, the basis of mo­ tin name used for denoting the mythical dern science and a prelude to the season "gold-digging" ants. This picture has un­ of cataloguing and classifications of the doubtedly something of the chimerical and Enlightenment. fanciful: on the whole it resembles the te­ This development of methods and trapod larva of an antlion, but the head concepts forms the background to the il­ with palps between the mandibles, and lustrations and writings I am going to pre­ the four legs with strong claws, also recall sent. These documents are evidence of the morphology of a male stag-beetle. In centuries of interest in these insects in the codex, to one side of this image there Italy, and they reflect at least some of the is an illustration representing another mea­ principal driving forces that historically ning of "ant lion" in ancient times: a bigger have promoted the development of ento­ ant which has another much smaller ant in mology itself: the simple desire to preser­ its mouth (Bodenheimer, 1928-1929; Ke­ ve and hand down forerunners' know- van, 1992). 10 R. Nicoli Aldini- Aldrovandi and Vallisneri: the Italian contribution to knowledge of Neuropterous Insects At the height of the Renaissance, the antlion larva is quoted in the work of ano­ ther student from Pavia, Gerolamo Car­ dana (Hieronymus Cardanus) (1501-1576) (Fig. 1 ), one among the more notable, ec­ centric and eclectic talents of the 16th century: he was physician, mathematician, physicist, astronomer, musician and phi­ losopher. There are short entomological references mostly in his work De subtili­ tate libri XXI, published in Paris in 1551. In another work, the seventh book ("De ani­ malium") of his De rerum varietate (1557), he also refers to antlions, following the description by Albert the Great, as being small animals, enemies of ants, like small grubs. They dig round pits in the sand, li­ ving in small holes at the bottom, where they catch ants for eating (Cardanus, 1557; see also Aldrovandus, 1602, p. 523; Fig. 1 -Portrait of Gerolamo Cardano (1501-1576), 1623, p. 207; Wheeler, 1930, p. 6). Car­ in the frontispiece of the first edition (Basel 1557) of dana seems therefore to give a relatively his De rerum varietate. accurate description of antlions, but he added nothing to what Albert the Great had already said three centuries before, as pointed out by Kevan ( 1992). When we read certain ancient ac­ counts of undefined insects digging pits in the sand we must remember, however, that they may refer to the larvae of ver­ mileonid dipterans. Scientific Humanism in the late Renaissance: Ulisse Aldrovandi But it was due mainly to Ulisse Aldro­ vandi (alias Aldrovando; Ulysses Aldro­ vandus in his works in Latin) (Fig. 2), who died four hundred years ago, in 1605, that neuropterous insects were introduced into the scientific literature of the Renaissance. This encyclopaedic talent and very re­ nowned naturalist, perhaps the greatest zoologist of the 16th century, was born in 1522 from a ruling family in Bologna - at that time in the Papal States - where he also died. His life was long and adventu­ rous, ruled by his boundless passion for Fig. 2 - Portrait of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) (B.U.B., Bologna). natural history. He studied law, philosophy 11 Proceedings of the IX International Symposium on Neuropterology and medicine and he graduated in philo­ sophy and medicine at Bologna in 1553. He was professor for many years - tea­ ching pharmaceutical botany, logic, philo­ sophy, natural history - at Bologna Uni­ versity, and only late in life, when he was seventy-seven years old, he started the publication in Latin of his enormous work, the fruit of a life devoted to the collection of materials gathered together in a natural history museum - one of the first in the world - and to filing the great mass of na­ turalistic notions found in all his predeces­ sors' works, from ancient times onwards.
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