Andrea Cesalpino

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Andrea Cesalpino

Andrea Cesalpino (also Andreas Caesalpin ) (born June 6, 1519 in Arezzo in Tuscany; † February 23, 1603 in Rome ; Latinized Caesalpinus ) was an Italian doctor , philosopher , botanist and physiologist . Its official botanical author's abbreviation is " Cesalpino ".

Live and act

Cesalpino studied philosophy , medicine and natural history at the University of Pisa , where he obtained his doctorate in 1551. In 1555 he became a professor of medicine. He taught medicinal herbs and was director of the Botanical Garden at the University of Pisa from 1555 to 1592 . Later he was from 1592 personal physician to Pope Clement VIII and professor at the University of La Sapienza in Rome, where he worked until his death.

Cesalpino advocated Aristotelian principles and methods in philosophical and medical writings and tried to push back the influence of Galen . He influenced the Italian philosopher Lucilio Vanini . His most important studies in the medical field dealt primarily with the blood circulation and the physiology of blood movement. Through his studies, he realized that the heart is the center of the bloodstream. Among other things, he described the anatomy of the heart and, in 1583, the small blood circulation (in Quaestionum medicarum libri II 1598, 1604).

Philosophy was the basis for his scientific investigations . Consequently, in his botanical research he went beyond the individual description of plants and sought the general out of the individual, to find the important out of the sensual. He strove to classify plants based on natural conditions and, through Aristotelian-philosophical deductions, came to the conclusion that only the fructification organs are suitable for the construction of a most natural system. This brought him to highly unnatural groups. But he was the first scientist to set up a self-ordered system of plants, which he divided into 5 classifications: 1. the group of arbores (trees); 2. the group of frutices (shrubs); 3. the group of suffrutices (shrub herbs); 4. The group of Tlerhae (herbs) and 5. The group of seedless plants, to which he u. a. Mushrooms, ferns, mosses and algae counted. Accordingly, in his 16 volumes De plantis libri XVI, he also described the plants in this order. Volume 16. was then reserved for the "seedless" plants.

His most important philosophical work was Quaestionum peripateticarum libri V (Florence, 1569). Cesalpino shows himself here as an independent Aristotelian. Influences of the Averroes can also be seen . The Protestant Aristotle critic Nicolaus Taurellus turned against Cesalpino in several writings, for example in the work Alpes caesae (Frankfurt, 1597). Around 70 years later, Cesalpino's positions were again criticized when the Anglican clergyman Samuel Parker published his book Disputationes de Deo et providentia divina (London, 1678).

Andrea Casalpino died on February 23, 1603 in Rome.

Honors

Charles Plumier named the genus Caesalpinia of the Caesalpiniaceae plant family in his honor . Carl von Linné later took over this name.

Fonts (selection)

  • Quaestionum Peripateticarum Libri V . Venice, 1571
  • Daemonum investigatio peripatetica in qua explicatur locus Hippocratis in Progn. Si quid divinum in morbis habetur . Florence, 1580
  • De plantis libri XVI . Florence, Rome, 1st volume 1583, the following 1580–1603 [1]
  • Quaestionum medicorum libri II . Venice, 1593
  • De metallicis libri III . Rome, 1596
  • Artis Medicae . Rome, 1601
  • Appendix ad libros de plantis et quaestiones peripateticas . Rome, 1603
  • Praxis universae artis medicae , Tarviso, 1606

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Charles Plumier: Nova Plantarum Americanarum Genera . Leiden 1703, p. 28.
  2. ^ Carl von Linné: Critica Botanica . Leiden 1737, p. 92
  3. ↑ Carl von Linné: Genera Plantarum . Leiden 1742, p. 522

Web links

Commons : Andrea Cesalpino  - Collection of images, videos and audio files


personal data
SURNAME Cesalpino, Andrea
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Caesalpinus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian philosopher, botanist and physiologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1519
PLACE OF BIRTH Arezzo
DATE OF DEATH February 23, 1603
Place of death Rome