RENAISSANCE 95 



for studying, first jurisprudence in his native town and then philosophy and 

 medicine at Padua and Rome. When he was thirty years old, he took the 

 degree of doctor of medicine and shortly afterwards, in 1560, he was made 

 professor at Bologna, where he worked for forty years, resigning at the age 

 of nearly eighty. He died in 1605. As a professor he lectured chiefly on 

 pharmacology, and to aid him in his teaching he planted a botanical garden. 

 This caused him to fall foul of the apothecaries of Bologna, who alleged 

 that in cultivating medicinal plants he usurped their privileges. The contro- 

 versy grew so fierce that it finally had to be settled by the Pope. Aldrovandi 

 was, on the whole, a man who lived for his science; he spent his fortune on 

 collecting natural objects and had recourse to the leading artists of his time 

 to draw pictures of them. The Government of Bologna doubled his salary 

 in recognition of his great services to science, and in return he bequeathed 

 to the city his collections and library. 



Aldrovandi' s natural history 

 In his energy and capacity for work Aldrovandi resembled Gesner, and as 

 he lived longer and worked under more favourable conditions, he managed 

 to achieve far more. His collected works on natural history consist of four- 

 teen large folio volumes, besides which there are preserved in the University 

 of Bologna quantities of unpublished manuscripts in his own handwriting. 

 He himself published during his lifetime only four volumes, on birds; after 

 his death his friends and pupils published the remainder: those on other 

 animal groups, on plants, and on stones. These latter volumes, however, 

 seem to have been in part radically revised by the editors, wherefore Aldro- 

 vandi should be judged only on what he himself published. His model was 

 chiefly Gesner, whose work he diligently studied and it is from this point of 

 view that his own work must be judged. His relation to Gesner is by no 

 means in every respect that of an improver; he is far less critical, and similarly 

 he has on the whole less stylistic ability; in his descriptions he piles up 

 masses of like and unlike, so that one of his most eminent successors, BufFon, 

 was moved to express the opinion that only one-tenth of the whole of Aldro- 

 vandi's works would be left if one extracted all that was useless and untrue 

 from his writings. On the other hand, his illustrations, as well as his typo- 

 graphical equipment, are better than Gesner' s, while, at least in some re- 

 spects, he is in advance of the latter in regard to classification. Birds are 

 classified according to certain groups: first, birds of prey; then wild and tame 

 fowl (gallinaceous birds) — characterized as " pulveratrices" ; i.e., those that 

 bathe in sand — further, pigeons and sparrows, which bathe in both water 

 and sand; then song-birds, baccivorous and insectivorous; and lastly water- 

 fowl. Moreover, he has paid attention to anatomy, particularly osteology; 

 and, finally, he cites a far greater number of exotic and hitherto unknown 

 forms than Gesner. He too, then, has in his own degree contributed to the 



