ALDROVANDI, Ulisse

This animal picture can be found in Ulisse Aldrovandi, “Quadrupedum omnium bisulcorum Historia”, Bologna 1621, 756.

This animal picture can be found in Ulisse Aldrovandi, “De quadrupedibus digitatis viviparis”, Bologna 1637, 267.

This animal picture can be found in Ulisse Aldrovandi “Quadrupedum omnium bisulcorum Historia”, Bologna 1621, 369.

These animal pictures can be found in the “Tavola di animali” vol. ⁵⁄₁, fol. 20.

These animal pictures can be found in the “Tavola di animali” vol. ⁶⁄₂, fol. 87.

This animal picture can be found in Ulisse Aldrovandi “Monstrorum historia cum paralipomenis historiae omnium animalium”, Bologna 1642, 127.

One of the more prominent members of the university faculty in Bologna was Ulisse Aldrovandi who, although a doctor, received the chair of natural sciences at the university in 1561. Under Aldrovandi’s leadership the University of Bologna became the centre for study of plant and animal life around the world. Eighteen volumes containing over 2.900 of Aldrovandi’s watercolours show both how wide-ranging his interest was and how precise his observations were in cataloguing the specimens that were kept in his natural history “museum” and in the University’s botanical garden, founded in 1587. His drawings are instructive as a measure of the perceived possibility that one could, indeed, catalogue nature completely, one specimen at a time piling up in endless sheaves of drawings.

The picture shows a page from a volume of drawings.