Andrea Cesalpino (1519 - 1603)
Back to Author Index
Biography
Sources
Selected publications
Biography
Studies medicine and botany with Luco Ghini at Pisa
1551 earns medical degree
succeeds Ghini as professor of medicine and director of the botanical garden at Pisa
becomes physician to the pope and professor at Sapienza
Cesalpino (also known as Caesalpinus) is often considered the first modern botanist. That is, he seems to be the first person ever to study plants for their own sake, rather than for medical, decorative or magical reasons. His De Plantis Libri XVI was the first work to consider issues like taxonomy, development, terminology and nutrition in their own right (that is, not as incidental discussion while describing a specific plant). By using multiple characteristics in delineating his taxa, he managed to group the phanerogams into families very similar to the modern ones (e.g. mints, composites, grasses, and umbellifers) with a high degree of precision.
And in one of the sixteen books of De Plantis Libri XVI, he described more fleshy fungi than anyone before him.
Back to top
Sources
Duane Isley (1994) One Hundred and One Botanists
Back to top
Selected Publications
Andrea Cesalpino (1689) De Plantis Libri XVI (Book of Plants, in sixteen parts (books))Covers about 1500 species. One of the books is devoted to fungi.
Back to top
