The Emergence of a Science of Vegetation in Early Modern Natural Philosophy and the Sciences of Life: From Cesalpino to Malpighi

This three-year research project aims to explore the emergence of a philosophy and science of plants in the century that goes from Cesalpino’s De plantis (1583) to Malpighi’s Anatome plantarum (1679), which influenced the development of a new science of life.

Although understudied, a new approach to the study of plants and vegetation surfaces in this period, bridging the gulf between natural historical efforts to classify plants and natural philosophical investigations of vegetal bodies.

By means of overlooked sources, the main objective of this project is to reconstruct these philosophical examinations through 4 sub-objectives: (1) the appropriation and reinterpretation of Aristotelian biology in botany; (2) the development of alchemical and mechanical frameworks to understand vegetal life; (3) the definition of plants as a crucial subject to reinterpret the physiology of living bodies; (4) the collecting attraction to plants diversity, and monstrosity, which preludes to the philosophical perception of interconnected systems of life, forestalling biodiversity.

While new scholarly attention has been recently devoted to the philosophical study of plants in the early modern period, the result of this research project will be a broad investigation into the concept of vegetation and vegetal life that paved the way to eighteenth century morphologies and systems of nature.

This project will result into several articles and a scholarly book for historians of knowledge.Dr Baldassarri has international experience in Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, and Israel, and has focused on the Cartesian understanding of plants and the mechanization of the vegetative soul.

The development of this project will profoundly impact his career: training provided by Ca’ Foscari University in Venice and Bloomington Indiana University will help Baldassarri acquire new academic skills and boost his knowledge in connecting early modern science to contemporary biology and vegetal philosophy.