Aldrovandi

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Aldrovandi, Ulisse (1522–1605). Bolognese naturalist and collector. Known as the "Bolognese Aristotle," Ulisse Aldrovandi belonged to the generation of Renaissance physicians and apothecaries who rediscovered the importance of empirical study of the natural world. The son of a Bolognese notary, Aldrovandi worked as a notary and studied law before discovering the pleasures of science. He studied philosophy and mathematics at the University of Padua (1548–1549) and, after a narrow escape from the Inquisition, wrote a guidebook to ancient statuary in Rome. He received a medical degree at the University of Bologna in 1553.

By the late 1540s, Aldrovandi had discovered natural history. During his trip to Rome, he met the French naturalist Guillaume Rondelet, then researching ichythology. He subsequently developed a close relationship with the Italian naturalist Luca Ghini, who held the first professorship in "medicinal simples" at both Bologna and Pisa and who founded the Pisan botanical garden in 1543. Ghini encouraged medical students to take the study of the natural world seriously, inviting them on summer botanical expeditions, demonstrating plants in gardens, collecting natural specimens, and illustrating them with the help of artists. Aldrovandi's image of natural history was especially influenced by the practices of his mentor Ghini. He succeeded Ghini as professor of natural history at the University of Bologna in 1556, inaugurating its botanical garden in 1568.

Aldrovandi increased the significance and scope of natural history over the next few decades. He gave natural history some degree of autonomy from medicine by arguing that it was also an important part of natural philosophy. This approach to natural history was evident, for example, in Aldrovandi's choice of subjects for his publications. Rather than writing a new materia medica, in the tradition of the ancient Greek physician Dioscorides, Aldrovandi chose instead to follow Aristotle and contemporaries such as the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner; he wrote about animals because of his intrinsic interest in their anatomy, physiology, and habits rather than their medicinal uses. Similarly, his work on plants and minerals attempted to describe each specimen comprehensively, in keeping with Aldrovandi's vision of natural history as an encyclopedic project.

Aldrovandi published very little of his research in his lifetime. The first volume of his Natural History, the Ornithology (1599–1603), did not appear until shortly before his death. The technical difficulties of creating a comprehensive textual and visual portrait of each natural object demanded not simply the skills of a single naturalist but the collaboration of an entire community of collectors, transcribers, and artists devoted to the project of reconstructing nature. Aldrovandi's reputation as a great naturalist was based more on the materials he accumulated in his study than on what he published. His collection of animals, plants, minerals, curiosities, and antiquities was one of the most famous collections of curiosities in western Europe. Visitors described the museum as the eighth wonder of the world. Aldrovandi conceived of his collection not only as the raw ingredients for the writing of natural history but as an experimental laboratory in which to anatomize and archive nature. Princes, popes, and scholars all vied with each other to contribute interesting specimens to his collection.

In 1603 Aldrovandi wrote a will donating his collection to the senate of Bologna in return for their agreement to appoint a custodian who would teach natural history using the materials in the Studio Aldrovandi and to continue to publish his unfinished Natural History (ten more volumes appeared between 1606 and 1668). In 1742 the collection was disbanded and its ingredients incorporated into the new museum of the Institute for Sciences in Bologna.

Bibliography

Aldrovandi, Ulisse. Aldrovandi on Chickens. The Ornithology of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1600), vol. II, book XIV. Edited and translated by L. R. Lind. Norman, Okla., 1963.

Findlen, Paula. "The Formation of a Scientific Community: Natural History in Sixteenth-Century Italy." In Natural Particulars: Renaissance Natural Philosophy and the Disciplines, edited by Anthony Grafton and Nancy Siraisi, pp. 369–400. Cambridge, Mass., 1999.

——. Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994.

Riedl-Dorn, Christa. Wissenschaft und Fabelwesen: ein kritischer Versuch über Conrad Gessner und Ulisse Aldrovandi. Vienna, 1989.

Olmi, Giuseppe. L'inventario del mondo. Catalogazione della nature e luoghi del sapere nella prima età moderna. Bologna, 1992.

——. Ulisse Aldrovandi. Scienza e natura nel secondo Cinquecento. Trent, Italy, 1976.

Simili, Raffaela, ed. Il teatro della natura di Ulisse Aldrovandi. Bologna, 2001.

Tugnoli Pattaro, Sandra. Metodo e sistema delle scienze nel pensiero di Ulisse Aldrovandi. Bologna, 1981.

—PAULA FINDLEN

Aldrovandi is a family name of the Emilia-Romagna in Italy, and especially from Bologna.

It can refer to:

• Pompeo Aldrovandi (23 September 1668 – 6 January 1752), an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
• Ulisse Aldrovandi (11 September 1522 – 4 May 1605), an Italian naturalist

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