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Home , Conrad Gessner, Jan Swammerdam, Marcello Malpighi, Maria Sibylla Merian, Martin Lister

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Nature’s Bible: in Seventeenth-Century European Art and Science

Brian W. Ogilvie History Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst [email protected]

Abstract Keywords: Artists and naturalists in seventeenth-century Europe avidly pursued the study of insects. , Since had not yet become a distinct discipline, these studies were pursued art, within the framework of natural history, miniature painting, , and . In science, the late sixteenth century the 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 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 transformations, which he saw as evidence of God’s wondrous works. His work was critiqued and systematized by the and , 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 ; 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 to Swammerdam;

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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 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 , 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 , quadrupeds, recognition by its practitioners that some- , and , 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, , 1936). By using the anachronistic term Antony van , , entomology, they distract the historian’s , and Swammerdam. The newly attention from the processes that led to the invented 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 . My focus will be on the be familiar parts of Netherlandish still life different contexts in which insects were

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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 (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 (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 ’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 , interrogating peas- (Bodenheimer 1928:vol. 1:247-276). And a cabinet. Source: Ulisse , 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- , 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

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(including ) involved eleven full-page ence signified not only present beauty but woodcuts, each containing several different also, with the next generation of caterpil- . 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 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 , 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, though he followed in not- that was much more precise than words ing that butterflies tend to have the same alone. In a rather naive fashion, Aldrovandi color as the from which they conceived of the artist’s task as imitating develop (267). nature, a conception that, as Giuseppe Aldrovandi divided imagines from lar- Olmi has underscored, made the artist a vae for several . His classification manual laborer who needed a naturalist’s divided insects into aquatic and terrestrial, direction (1992:24-27). the latter into those without feet and those To understand how Aldrovandi organ- with feet, the latter into those with wings ized the knowledge he generated in pictures and those without. Among winged, footed, and notes, let us take the example of but- terrestrial insects, we find the butterfly. terflies. The woodcuts in the chapter on Among wingless, footed, terrestrial insects, butterflies (book 2, chapter 1) included we find the caterpillar (Aldrovandi only the imagines (adult forms) of the 1602:sig. †4r). In the body of the book, the insects. Aldrovandi discussed the larval two are separated by vast gulfs of form (the caterpillar) three chapters later. Aldrovandian prose. Butterflies get the Again, he provided several pages of wood- place of honor after and their relatives, cuts, each illustrating several different in book 2, “Other four-winged insects kinds of caterpillar, along with short mor- without wing-cases.” Caterpillars are in the phological descriptions in the accompany- same book, but three chapters later. The ing text. The nymphal forms, in turn, fact that Aldrovandi placed caterpillars in received their own chapter, “De chrysalide the book of four-winged insects without sive aurelia,” with only one woodcut show- elytrae, rather than among the footed, ing a handful of chrysalises. wingless insects (where the table said they In brief, Aldrovandi’s woodcuts and should be), shows that he considered them verbal descriptions aimed to show what a to be related. But his emphasis on syn- perceptive observer would see when con- chronic, descriptive morphology led him to fronted with the individual specimen. play down what he had carefully learned What they would not convey, systematical- (or in some cases, he admitted, carelessly ly, was how specimens were related: what observed) of their generation and growth. would come out of the chrysalis that the Contemporary theories of generation caterpillar would weave, or where that but- encouraged this division. In a tradition terfly had come from and whether its pres- going back to Aristotle, larvae, lumped

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together as “worms,” were generally consid- identifying the and imago of the first ered to be imperfect animals that were gen- caterpillar and identifying the caterpillar erated spontaneously. At their death, they and pup formed an egg – the pupa – that then gave But if Aldrovandi intended a systemat- birth to a completely new creature, the ic study of insect life cycles, as vol. 7, 2, fol. adult insect (Cobb 2006). Aldrovandi 16 implies – a conclusion that Janice Neri rejected part of this story: his observations has also reached, independently (2003: 53) had convinced him that butterflies laid eggs – he did not carry it out. Other pages in his that became, in turn, caterpillars, though notebooks include occasional notes on the he left the final determination to the read- relationship between different phases of an er (1602:253-256). Nonetheless, he treated insect’s life-cycle, but nothing so systemat- caterpillar, chrysalis, and imago as distinct ic (Aldrovandi 2005). And they rarely con- creatures that happened to produce one tain much if any information about where another. Aldrovandi had practical objec- an insect would be found or what it ate; tions too: Not every caterpillar becomes a though Aldrovandi occasionally noted such butterfly: some die, wrote Aldrovandi, associations in his published text, they were while others form a chrysalis that produces not a systematic concern of his. not a winged insect but several worms. And The meaning of insects, on the other not every butterfly comes from a caterpil- hand, occupied an important place in lar; some come from worms (254-255). Aldrovandi’s history. His chapter on bees Nonetheless, one page in Aldrovandi’s included their mystical, hieroglyphical, paper collection suggests that he had a nas- moral, symbolic, and emblematic meanings cent interest in studying diachronic devel- – among other antiquarian lore opment (Aldrovandi 2005:Tavole vol. 007 (Aldrovandi 1602:90-105). Like Conrad Animali, fol. 16). This is no simple page Gessner and other Renaissance zoological from a field notebook. The second row encyclopedists, Aldrovandi considered such shows a caterpillar, a cluster of eggs, a small lore to pertain to the history of insects; larval form, two views of a pupal case, and while Gessner implied that “philology” was an adult insect. This page may have been an optional part of natural history, originally intended as part of a systematic Aldrovandi made no such distinction study of insect life-cycles: its original layout (Harms 1989; Ashworth 1990; cf. Ogilvie may have been as follows: 2005). However, he did not insist on any one meaning of insects; rather, he collected caterpillar them just as he collected descriptions. In caterpillar and eggs pupa imago () his preface to the reader Aldrovandi under- caterpillar imago (moth) scored that insects might exhort us to hard imago (moth) work and prudent action, but he did not imago (moth) systematically develop the moral or ethical implications of insects (Aldrovandi If this is the case, the small in the cen- 1602:sig. †3r). ter and the on the lower left were added later to fill up empty space. Aldrovandi might have intended to fill in the blanks by systematic study: that is,

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Artists and insects from Joris Hoefnagel to needed to be carefully supervised. By Johannes Goedaert studying insects’ external form carefully, The northern artistic tradition of trompe- Hoefnagel learned, as it were, their vocabu- l’oeil miniatures of naturalia is another lary and grammar: that is, the detailed moment in the history of insect study. This structure of their individual parts and the tradition appears to have close connections to way those parts were combined to make a pilgrimage books and manuscript illumina- complete insect. He could then recombine tion; its origins have nothing to do with nat- parts, thereby creating new forms that had ural history, itself a new discipline in the six- never existed – except, perhaps, in the teenth century (Kaufmann and Kaufmann mind of God. In Ignis, he associated insects 1993). Insects were a common feature of such with fire; with rational animals (i.e., man), illustrations, often associated with plants – a and with God, the invisible creator of the colorful combination (Ruestow 1996:48-52). visible world (Hendrix 1995:376-377). In But those associations were not necessarily both Ignis and the engravings that his son ecological: that is, specific insects were not Jacob prepared from his drawings in 1592, associated with the plants on which their lar- Hoefnagel drew creatively upon the vae or imagines lived and fed. Renaissance emblematic tradition that Janice Neri has shown that late six- Aldrovandi had simply summarized teenth-century miniaturists were led to (Vignau-Wilberg 1994; see Cambefort insects in large part by Dürer’s example. In 2006). the context of the “Dürer revival” of the To contemporaries, the Hoefnagels’ late sixteenth century, the Stag was work would not have looked like natural both a model and a challenge to Hoefnagel history. Unlike Aldrovandi, who employed and others. In his manuscript collection artists as part of a project to catalogue and Ignis (c. 1575-82), Hoefnagel copied describe nature, its practitioners were not Dürer’s drawing and then improved it, naturalists and saw representation of the adding connections between the parts, cor- individual, real or fantastic, as an end in recting details, even improving the shadow. itself, a means for producing beauty and He probably used a specimen along with displaying the artist’s skill. Naturalists Dürer’s drawing. “For Hoefnagel and other would have seen their work as useful – artists of the Dürer Renaissance, the moti- though they would have severely criticized vation for studying nature stemmed in part Joris for depicting chimerical insects that from the desire to produce flawless imita- did not really exist. However, artists and tions of Dürer’s images. In this context, the naturalists were working closely together in artist’s knowledge and mastery of nature the late sixteenth and early seventeenth progressed in tandem with his knowledge century. Current research on Giuseppe and mastery of image-making practices” Arcimboldo, court painter to Emperor (Neri 2003:24-30) In the Mira calligraphi- Rudolf II, has uncovered increasing evi- ae monumenta, on the other hand, dence that Arcimboldo corresponded regu- Hoefnagel depicted some real insects, but larly with Aldrovandi and other naturalists most were imaginary constructs (Bocksay and saw himself as engaged, like them, in and Hoefnagel 1992; Neri 2003:34-35). the project of cataloguing and describing Hoefnagel’s approach to insects sug- nature (Kaufmann 2007). Moreover, Joris gests why Aldrovandi thought his artists Hoefnagel’s son Jacob studied the life cycle

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of insects and discussed them with the drew what emerged (imago or parasite). Dutch naturalist Outgaert Cluyt (Ruestow His notes occasionally remarked on the 1996:52-53). The same connection is insect’s form, but they were mostly on its found in the works of Johannes Goedaert. behavior and . A painter and engraver by profession, As with Aldrovandi, illustration was Johannes Goedaert (1617-1668) spent his essential to Goedaert’s work. His publica- whole life in the town of Middelburg, in tions consisted of engraved plates keyed to the . Like many Dutch port short textual notes, a form that allowed cities, Middelburg had a lively community Martin Lister to cut and paste the work of amateurs interested in collecting and dis- together in a completely new order, with playing flowers, shells, and other naturalia re-engraved plates reflecting the new organ- (Goldgar 2007:22-23). Goedaert was liter- ization. (On Lister’s collaboration with ate in Dutch but probably knew no artists, see Unwin 1995). Unlike the Dutch (Van der Pas 1970). His passion was raising miniaturist tradition, Goedaert’s plates rep- insects from larvae caught in the field, resented the insect itself in its different which he fed and observed as they under- phases. In a complete history this involved went their “strange transformations” three stages: the larva, the pupa, and what (Goedaert 1662-69:vol. 1:sig. a8v). His emerged from the pupa. Occasionally book Metamorphosis naturalis (3 parts, Goedaert depicted the leaf on which the 1662-1669), written in Dutch, had the adult laid its eggs or which the caterpillar good fortune to be published when natu- ate. With his naive eye and “excellent pen- ralists not only said that they wanted first- cill” (the phrase is Lister’s: Goedaert hand observations stripped of citations and 1682:37), Goedaert depicted form without quotations from authoritative predecessors, but had begun to mean it. Goedaert’s care- ful observations ensured him a pan- European reception: the work was translat- ed into Latin (1662-1669), English (1682, from the Latin edition), and French (1700) (Van der Pas 1970:440). Figure 2. Goedaert’s method was simple. He Read from top to bottom, caught larvae (“worms”) and brought them this engraving by Johannes home, where he placed them in glass con- Goedaert shows the successive tainers. As his interests became known, his stages that Goedaert neighbors would bring him caterpillars; as observed: caterpillar, pupa, his reputation grew, he received material and three small eggs that from farther afield, even as far as Paris. He produced , the result of fed them, sometimes on the plant where he parasitism. Source: Johannes had found them, sometimes by offering Goedaert, Metamorphosis them different kinds of leaves until he naturalis, part 1 (1662), found one they liked. He drew them as lar- courtesy of the Entomology, vae, noted when they changed, drew their Fisheries & Wildlife Library, pupae, noted how long they remained in University of Minnesota; pupal form and when they emerged, and photo by the author.

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context: not surprisingly, for he observed “worm,” or several of them. When his captives in their glass cells, occasionally Goedaert did not know what to feed the lamenting their untimely death by starva- adult, or when it refused nourishment, it tion when he could not figure out what to ultimately starved, though sometimes he feed them. This approach doubtless con- released the adults before they reached that tributed to the sympathetic reception he point. Only rarely did he illustrate an adult found among naturalists like Lister, for his form by itself: for instance, one particular- depictions combined his acute observation, ly magnificent butterfly captured in the the finesse of copperplate engraving, and – Parisian Jardin du Roy and sent to him via for the first time – studies of insects that the Dutch ambassador to Versailles emphasized their metamorphosis rather (Goedaert 1682:37-38). Even in this case, than relegating it to the second rank. There though, Goedaert had hoped to find the are a few precursors to Goedaert’s approach “origin” of the butterfly in its caterpillar; in some of Aldrovandi’s and Moffett’s the illustration was intended to be part of a woodcuts, and as we have seen in series, just as the blank spaces in Aldrovandi’s manuscript illustrations, but Aldrovandi’s manuscript page were intend- none who so single-mindedly, for a period ed to be filled in. Indeed, Godaert was sent of several decades, observed, drew, and the butterfly in hopes that he would find noted the life-cycle of insects. the origin: that, and the translations of his Goedaert’s illustrations, unlike those of work into Latin that followed quickly on its Aldrovandi, Moffett, or the miniature tra- publication in Dutch, suggest the degree of dition, have an irreducible diachronic ele- interest in insect metamorphosis in the late ment. Each engraving has a sequence, usu- seventeenth century. Leibniz even thought ally from larva at the bottom to imago at that Goedaert’s and Jan Swammerdam’s the top. The figures appear to be drawn at insects should be part of a public curiosity the same scale, so that the relative size of cabinet (Wiener 1940:237). larva, pupa, and imago can be identified, It also suggests the continuing perme- though the text is silent about scale. ability of the natural history community, at Because the figures appear alone, against a least in matters related to insects, and its neutral background, their diachronic rela- interest in circulating knowledge regardless tionship is implicit, not explicit. From a of its origins. Goedaert had no training in descriptive standpoint, the engravings natural history, and he probably did not merely denote that the insects depicted read Latin. His work is innocent of the belong together; the reader must turn to long literary tradition that lies behind the notes to figure out the exact nature of Aldrovandi’s and Moffett’s tomes; though their relationship. his publisher insisted on adding annota- Goedaert insisted on this diachronic tions by the Middelburg Joannes element because his illustrations were de Mey, Goedaert insisted that his own text means of capturing his experience as an reported only what he himself had observer. He drew a caterpillar and waited. observed (Goedaert 1662-69:vol. 1:sig. He drew its pupa and waited. Then he c1r-c2v). It is also innocent of any theory drew the animal that emerged from it. of insect reproduction (or generation, in Sometimes it was a butterfly. Sometimes it contemporary terms). Goedaert drew what was a fly. Sometimes it was another happened. Like Aldrovandi and Moffett, he

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was unaware that caterpillars were para- improved in his observing. His observa- sitized by ichneumons and blowflies tions are “every where very just, and true,” (Aldrovandi 1602:206,218; Moffett but cursory and sometimes unintelligible. 1634:45-46). He only noted down and drew the changes Like Hoefnagel, Goedaert thought that he saw himself, insects revealed God’s wonders – but only to the careful observer who could uncover so he committed little or nothing to them and, like Goedaert, bring them to Writing or Designe, but what succeeded light “for the honor of God and the delight with him, and (as he understood it) had of all nature-investigators” (Goedaert its right Change: Which is more, than 1662-69:vol. 1:sig. a8v-b1r). In the preface any man ever did before him; So that we to his second volume, Goedaert expanded need not admire, that so long, and perti- on this praise – and defense – of natural natious an Industry produced so few history, citing Solomon, Cicero, and other Historys: For he Designed not all, that eminent predecessors to justify the years he came to hand, but such only, as it was his had spent tracing the transformations of good fortune to Feed, and bring up to insects. But unlike Hoefnagel, Goedaert Change. And yet in these few Historys, did not identify emblematic wisdom in you will have something of all the sever- nature. He studied insects not because they all ’s of Insects, that are in Nature could tell man how to act but because, as (Lister in Goedart 1682:sig. A3r-v). his contemporary Robert Hooke also argued, they revealed God’s hidden work- Lister had Goedaert’s plates re-engraved on manship (Hooke 1665; cf. Ogilvie 2005). copper; since booksellers would not under- write illustrations, Lister made only 150 copies at his expense. “And upon this occa- Martin Lister and Jan Swammerdam: nat- sion I must needs say, that Naturall History ural order is much injured, through the little incour- Martin Lister was sympathetic to agement, which is given to the Artist, Goedaert’s methods but critical of his whose Noble performances can never be naiveté and lack of order. During the enough rewarded; being not only necessary, 1670s, in , Lister was studying spiders but the very beauty, and life of this kind of in the same way that Goedaert studied learning” (Lister in Goedaert 1682:sig. caterpillars and their transformations: A4r). through careful observation over time of Lister’s criticisms are fourfold. First, specimens that he had caught or received Goedaert discussed relatively few species, from friends (Unwin 1995:220). He though more than his predecessors. He was acquired the Latin translation of Goedaert too sparing with his words – despite Lister’s and rendered it in English, reorganizing it praise for art, he was convinced that it according to his own notions of systemat- made sense only when explained in words. ics. In his introduction, Lister blows hot And Goedaert did not arrange his material and cold: Goedaert made beautiful draw- in any methodological order. To remedy ings but wrote little and left his work in a this defect, Lister reorganized it and had mess. He spent forty years observing Goedaert’s engravings redrawn following insects, but scarcely seems to have his own order (he included cross-references

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Figure 3. Martin Lister systematized Goedaert’s observations, and he had the individual fig- ures re-engraved. Source: Johannes Goedaert, Godartius of Insects, edited and translated by Martin Lister (1682), courtesy of the Entomology, Fisheries & Wildlife Library, University of Minnesota; photo by the author.

to the Latin edition on which he based his “genuine” transformations of the insect text). Another fault was more grave, (Goedaert 1682:72). As a result, his illus- though: Lister knew about the ichneumon, trations and descriptions were not as and he repeatedly taxed Goedaert with fail- instructive as they might be: at least, not ing to distinguish between “by-births” and unless they were annotated and corrected

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by a naturalist like Lister. Goedaert’s eye order in nature as the sign of God’s handi- saw very well the changes that occurred in work and dismayed by the work required to his individual specimens, but because he observe it. lacked a clear idea of natural order and its subversion, the changes he portrayed were Now it is certain that God’s works are equivocal. Though Goedaert often based on constant and uniform rules, observed the same kind of caterpillar mul- and that we do not know at all the true tiple times, his illustrations convey, at least causes of the effects that we see. And in their diachronic element, some of the since we know only the shadow of his individualism that characterizes the trompe- marvels, we believe firmly that the true l’oeil tradition. They persuaded Lister that knowledge of philosophers consists only Goedaert was an accurate observer but that in the distinct idea that they can have of he all too often did not understand what he the effects that strike their eyes. For that observed. , to understand those effects, to Another of Goedaert’s critics, the tor- form certain rules, and to draw the cor- mented genius Jan Swammerdam, was sim- rect consequences, we must employ ilarly critical of Goedaert’s naive eye. (On every imaginable care and diligence Swammerdam’s turbulent life, see (Swammerdam 1685:163). Schierbeek 1947 or 1967.) Like Lister, Swammerdam recognized the value of Observation was thus the only key to true Goedaert’s work but criticized it vehement- philosophy, and it was philosophical ly, though he surmised that some of knowledge of insects to which Swammer- Goedaert’s faults were introducd by his dam aspired, knowledge that would ulti- publisher (Swammerdam 1685:44-46, mately be part of a . 111). Swammerdam’s principal objection Hence, unlike his compatriot Goedaert, to Goedaert is that he did not really under- Swammerdam elaborated a theory of obser- stand the insect life-cycle; like Lister, vation and its relation to reason. He drew Swammerdam thought that Goedaert’s from Descartes the notion of clear and dis- ignorance vitiated much of his accomplish- tinct ideas, though he derived them from ment. Swammerdam was fascinated by the . He cited Harvey (another of his insect metamorphosis. His illustrations whipping-boys) approvingly on the dangers portrayed not only the different stages of of relying on authorities, which leads one the insect’s life but also, unlike Goedaert, to accept as true what is merely plausible. the moment of transformation itself And he drew on Boyle’s justification of (Swammerdam 1685:186ff., plate 10). In observing and experimenting. He conclud- his first entomological publication, the ed, “I admit freely that one must be Historia generalis insectorum (written in extremely puffed up with pride to maintain Dutch; I have used the French translation), that our reasoning can lead us to every Swammerdam used metamorphoses as the truth in the world. On the contrary, we see basis for an audacious new classification of that it is by using our senses properly that insects. we can, through knowledge of visible The distinction between normal and things, understand the truth of things we abortive transmutations was thus essential cannot see” (Swammerdam 1685:169). for Swammerdam, who was obsessed with In the 1669 history of insects,

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Swammerdam instantiated this commit- Conclusion ment to seeing with reason. His goal in the In the end, we see that Swammerdam work was to overturn what he saw as the would not have considered The Bible of common belief that insects underwent a Nature to be a strange title. The natural radical metamorphosis from one kind of order that he had identified in insect trans- creature to another. Swammerdam wished formations was the sublime expression of to depict what was in fact “the slow and God’s rational order. Martin Lister agreed, almost imperceptible manner in which as would other proponents of natural the- their limbs grow” (Swammerdam ology in the late seventeenth century 1685:t.p., 1). To do this, he had to demon- (Gillespie 1987). Swammerdam and Lister strate that the apparently swift, radical agreed with Goedaert that insects were transformations of some insects from larva wondrous, but their experience of wonder to pupa and pupa to imago disguised a drove them to seek an underlying order (cf. slower process of change that lay beneath Daston and Park 1998). It was quite dis- the surface. tinct from the wonder of Goedaert in the This task would ultimately lead transformations themselves, or in Swammerdam to the detailed micro- Aldrovandi’s and Hoefnagel’s wonder at the which he conducted in the intricate anatomy of each individual insect. 1670s and that were published posthu- In 1613, the Jesuit theologian Leonard mously in the Bybel der Natuure Lessius had remarked that the organs of (Swammerdam 1737-38; Cobb 2002). In insects were so finely wrought as to be the 1669 book, though, Swammerdam “incomprehensible to mans wit”; they limited himself to what could be seen if an “procure an astonishing admiration in insect were examined closely on the sur- whom behold them attentively,” revealing face. The plates of the Historia generalis “the art of divyne Providence” in their fab- insectorum display the results. Swammer- rication (Lessius 1631:102-103,109). dam seems to have used a lens or low-pow- Swammerdam felt the same wonder, but it ered microscope to examine insects, and he spurred him to find ways to comprehend removed the pupal case to demonstrate even the minutest organs. underneath the slowly forming limbs of the But of course, earlier students of insects adult insect. The plates reflect long hours had also sought order. Aldrovandi’s order of observation and careful delineation on was that of the collector, organizing speci- Swammerdam’s part. They are also part of mens synchronically into rational and Swammerdam’s deliberate attempt to per- beautiful patterns, and presenting them suade his readers of two things. First, the with their accumulated lore. Hoefnagel’s limbs of insects do develop slowly; the order was that of insect syntax – the shape metamorphosis is not a complete transfor- and organization of its parts – and insect mation. Second, there are four main ways semantics – the emblematic meanings that in which insects transform, and those insects vouchsafed humanity. Goedaert’s transformations can serve as the basis of a order was the temporal order of transfor- classification. The pictures serve as evi- mation. Like Goedaert, Swammerdam’s dence for the first claim: they show what contemporary Maria Sibylla Merian stud- Swammerdam, with his patience and skill, ied transformations, but she added an eco- was able to accomplish. logical order, going to to study

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Figure 4. This engraving by Jan Swammerdam details the successive stages of a butter- fly’s life. Swammerdam clas- sified insects according to the nature of their transforma- tions. Swammerdam pre- pared the image in the 1670s but it was not pub- lished until over half a cen- tury after his death. Source: Jan Swammerdam, Bybel der natuure (1738), courtesy of the Entomology, Fisheries & Wildlife Library, University of Minnesota; photo by the author.

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Figure 5. not only insects themselves but the plants and published; in over half a century Maria Sibylla Merian depicted on which they lived (Schneider 1991; Swammerdam’s work had not been larvae, , and adult insects Davis 1995). equaled, let alone surpassed. That would next to the plant hosts on which Many of these orders would coalesce, swiftly change, with the work of René- the adults laid eggs and the lar- toward the middle of the eighteenth centu- Antoine Ferchauld de Réaumur and vae ate. Source: Maria Sibylla ry in the new discipline of entomology. Charles Bonnet, and entomology would Merian, Erucarum hortus Morphological description, anatomical quickly develop into a distinctive disci- (1717), courtesy of the Ento- investigation, and classification – based on pline. mology, Fisheries & Wildlife Swammerdam’s studies of metamorphosis – Before entomology, though, orders of Library, University of Minne- all would have their place. When in the insects were pursued by several different sota; photo by the author. 1730s Hermann Boerhaave acquired the investigators of nature. We can situate each manuscript of The Bible of Nature, he swift- in particular contexts: Aldrovandi the ly arranged for it to be translated into Latin Renaissance collector and encyclopedist; Hoefnagel the miniaturist and court artist; Goedaert the landscape painter, miniaturist, and amateur; Swammerdam and Lister the physicians and anatomists. (One could add Outgaert Cluyt, Jacopo Ligozzi, Marcello Malpighi, Francesco Redi, John Ray, and others whom I have not been able to discuss.) What is striking about the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though, is that knowl- edge about insects, in words and pictures, circulated freely between these contexts. Aldrovandi collected illustrations as well as insects. Goedaert’s publisher added notes from Aldrovandi to Goedaert’s own observations. Swammerdam and Lister cri- tiqued Goedaert severely but admitted the immense value of his work. Merian was inspired by Goedaert as well as by her expe- riences in curiosity cabinets (Neri 2003:175ff.). In Renaissance, Baroque, and early Enlightenment Europe, insects flew, hopped, or crawled across disciplinary boundaries, bringing knowledge and wonder in their train.

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