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Journalism of Courage
Pressed flowers have a way of taking a person back in time. For a team of researchers confronting a 500-year-old herbarium or systematic collection of pressed flowers, leaves and other plant parts, it was an opportunity to delve into the history of Italy, especially Bologna in the north.
What they found were indications of human disturbance, habitat loss and transformation, climate change and alien species invasion across half a millennium. The collection comprises 5,000 specimens, carefully pressed and preserved by Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi between 1551 and 1586.
The paper, titled ‘Botanical memory: five centuries of floristic changes revealed by a Renaissance herbarium (Ulisse Aldrovandi, 1551–1586)’ was published by the Royal Society on November 8. It sheds light on how events such as the discovery of America affected the floristic patterns in lowland temperate Europe. It points out demographic trends in Europe (the European part of the former USSR not included) and indicates species — native and alien — that are extinct or unknown today.
“The botanical memory preserved in his herbarium allowed us to track floristic changes in connection with human disturbance, habitat loss and transformation, climate change and alien species invasion across 500 years,” write researcher Fabrizio Buldrini and his team.
As fascinating as the herbarium is the person who created it. According to the University of Bologna, Ulisse Aldrovandi was an exceptionally exuberant young man who was hungry for knowledge. Born in Bologna in 1522 to a noble family, Aldrovandi had lost his father at a young age and began to travel early in search of adventure and knowledge.
In 1549, he was accused of heresy and forced to publicly recant in the basilica of San Petronio. He was called to Rome to stand trial again but was saved when an acquaintance, Julius III, rose to the papal throne.
The same year Aldrovandi met Luca Ghini, who had created the first medicinal herb garden in the city of Pisa in 1543. It was life-altering, as it turned Aldrovandi towards the natural world, which he studied with deep devotion. In 1568, he created Bologna’s first and Italy’s fifth botanical garden, which he personally tended until his death.
His herbarium contains the oldest specimens of several species that were introduced to the region from the New World (the Americas), such as Mirabilis jalapa, and from Africa and central and eastern Asia, such as Aloe vera.
“All the American species currently invading Europe, imported for their ornamental or economic interest were not present in Europe at Aldrovandi’s time and were naturalised only in very few sites by the end of the 19th century In this perspective, Aldrovandi’s herbarium preserves the memory of the first signs of a radical transformation of the European flora and habitats,” says the paper.
