From ‘pure botany’ to ‘economic botany’ – changing ideas by exchanging plants

Spain and Italy in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century

Bibliographic Data

ID11345920
AuthorsMartino Lorenzo Fagnani (0000-0003-0604-0479, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Pavia, Italy, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume48
Issue4
Pages402-420
Publication date2022-05-19
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of European Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01916599.2021.1921007
OpenAlexW3157675287
LanguageEN
References cited22

At the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the 19th, Spain and the Italian States contributed to the development of European agricultural science and the improvement of manufacturing. They collaborated with each other and reworked the most advanced models of France, Central Europe and Great Britain. Despite their somewhat less prosperous economic status, they demonstrated great originality in research and experimentation. In this process, botanical knowledge served as a starting point for a new epistemological path. Through three case studies – the botanists Antonio José Cavanilles and Domenico Nocca, and the agriculturist Filippo Re – my article analyses how Spanish and Italian naturalists and learned individuals contributed to forming the concept of ‘economic botany’ through the exchange of seeds, plant specimens, books, journals, and – more in general – opinions, becoming germinal forces in a large transnational network

Ancient history · Biology · Botany · Economic botany · Geography · Plant ecology · Classics · Historical and Literary Studies · History · History of Science and Natural History

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