Lives of Eminent Zoologists, from Aristotle to Linnæus: with Introductory remarks on the Study of Natural HistoryMacGillivray, William
Philosophy
Lives of Eminent Zoologists, from Aristotle to Linnæus: with Introductory remarks on the Study of Natural History
MacGillivray, William
Zoologists
The works of Aldrovandi form thirteen folio volumes. Of these, four only
were published by himself; namely, three on birds and one on insects.
Immediately after his death, in 1606, his widow put forth a volume on
the other white-blooded animals, including testacea and crabs. Cornelius
Uterverius, a native of Delft, and his successor in the institute of
Bologna, revised the work on fishes and whales, which appeared in 1613,
as well as that on the quadrupeds with solid hoofs, published in 1616.
In 1621, the History of the Quadrupeds with split Hoofs was edited by
Thomas Dempster, a Scottish gentleman, who was also a professor at
Bologna. The other treatises, on the viviparous and oviparous digitate
quadrupeds, on serpents, monsters, and minerals, were prepared for the
press by Bartholomew Ambrosinus, another of his successors, and that on
trees by Ovid Montalbanus. These works underwent a second impression at
Bologna, and some of them were subsequently printed at Frankfort. It is
difficult to procure a uniform edition, and some of the tracts are much
rarer than others.
Aldrovandi was certainly one of the most zealous naturalists of his
time; but, although he added considerably to the stock of information,
he can only be considered as a laborious collector of materials. Cuvier
pronounces his works "an enormous compilation without taste or genius,"
and agrees with Buffon in thinking, that were the useless parts
removed, they would be reduced to a tenth of their bulk. Moreover, the
plan and matter are to a great extent borrowed from Gesner; but in all
ages writers on natural history have been so much addicted to the
practice of borrowing, that Aldrovandi is hardly to be censured on this
account.
Some portions of his museum have successfully struggled with the
destructive energies of time, and are still to be seen in the collection
of the Institute of Bologna. His manuscripts, of which there is an
immense mass, are preserved in the public library of the same city; and
the drawings from which the engravings for his work were taken were
carried, at the time of the Revolution, to the Museum of Natural History
at Paris.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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