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ALDROVANDI, ULISSI (1522-1605)
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See also:ALDROVANDI, ULISSI (1522-1605) , See also:Italian naturalist, was See also:born of See also:noble parentage at See also:Bologna on the 11th of See also:September 1522. He was apprenticed to a See also:merchant in See also:Brescia, but a commercial career being distasteful to him, he turned'his See also:attention to See also:law and See also:medicine, studying first in his native See also:town and afterwards at See also:Padua. In 1550 he was accused of See also:heresy, but succeeded in clearing himself before the See also:Inquisition. In 1553 he took his See also:doctor's degree in medicine at Bologna, and in' the following See also:year was appointed See also:professor of See also:philosophy and also lecturer on See also:botany at the university. In 156o he was transferred to the See also:chair of natural See also:history. At his instance the See also:senate of Bologna established in 1568 a botanical See also:garden, of which he was appointed the first director. About the same See also:time he became inspector of drugs, and in that capacity published in 1574 a See also:work entitled Antidotarii Bononiensis See also:Epitome, which formed the See also:model for many subsequent pharmacopoeias. He was also instrumental in See also:founding the public museum of Bologna, which contains, especially in the natural history See also:department, a large number of specimens collected by him. The results of his various researches were embodied in a magnum See also:opus, which was designed to include everything that was known about natural history. The first three volumes, comprising his See also:ornithology, were published in 1599, and a See also:fourth, treating of See also:insects, appeared in 16oz_ After his See also:death a number of other volumes were compiled from his See also:manuscript materials, under the editorship of several of his pupils, to whom the task was entrusted by the senate of Bologna. The work was enriched by a large number of illustrations pre-pared at See also:great expense, the author having, it is said, employed several celebrated artists for See also:thirty years. Among these were Lorenzo Benini of See also:Florence and See also:Christopher See also:Coriolanus of See also:Nuremberg. It has been said, indeed, that the cost of the under-taking was so great as to exhaust its author's means, and that he died penniless and See also:blind in the public See also:hospital of Bologna. This, however, is probably incorrect, at least as regards the allegation of poverty. Published records of the senate of Bologna show that it liberally supported Aldrovandi in his undertaking, doubling his See also:salary soon after his See also:appointment as professor, and bestowing on him from time to time sums amounting in all to 40,000 crowns. If, therefore, he died in the public hospital, he probably went there for the better treatment of his disease. His death occurred on the loth of May 16o5. Aldrovandi was chiefly remarkable for laborious and patient See also:research. He seems to have been totally destitute of the See also:critical See also:faculty, and hardly any See also:attempt is made in his great work to classify facts or to distinguish between the true and the fabulous, the important and the trivial. Much is thus included that is of no scientific value, but it also contains much See also:information of very great See also:interest to the naturalist. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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