Albertus Seba
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Albertus or Albert Seba (May 12, 1665, Etzel near
Friedeburg Friedeburg is a municipality in the district of Wittmund, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approximately 14 km southeast of Wittmund, and 20 km west of Wilhelmshaven. About 4 kilometers east of the main village of Friedeburg, ...
– May 2, 1736,
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
) was a Dutch pharmacist, zoologist, and collector. Seba accumulated one of the largest cabinets of curiosities in the Netherlands during his time. He sold one of his cabinets in 1717 to
Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
of
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
. His later collections were auctioned after his death. He published descriptions of his collections in a lavishly illustrated 4 volume . His early work on taxonomy and natural history influenced
Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
.


Career

Born in Etzel, Seba moved to Amsterdam as an
apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...
and, around 1700, opened a
pharmacy Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it links heal ...
near the harbour. Seba asked sailors and ship surgeons to bring exotic plants and animal products he could use for preparing drugs. Seba also started to collect snakes, birds, insects, shells, and lizards in his house. From 1711, he delivered various medicines to the Russian court in
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
and sometimes accepted fresh
ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices ...
as payment. Seba promoted his collection to
Robert Erskine Robert Erskine (1735–1780) was a Scottish inventor and engineer who came to the British colonial Province of New Jersey in 1771 to run the ironworks at Ringwood, New Jersey. He subsequently became sympathetic to the movement for independen ...
(1674–1719), the tsar's head physician, and in early 1716
Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
bought the complete collection. In the following several years, Seba managed to develop another collection of natural specimens, which grew more extensive than the first. Through Seba,
Frederik Ruysch Frederik Ruysch (; March 28, 1638 – February 22, 1731) was a Dutch botanist and anatomist. He is known for developing techniques for preserving anatomical specimens, which he used to create dioramas or scenes incorporating human parts. His ana ...
a well-known Amsterdam physician and anatomistalso sold his collection to the tsar. Both collections so expanded Peter's imperial cabinet of curiosities that they led to the establishment of the
Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...
and the construction of a new building for the Kunstkammer, opened in 1728 as the first Russian
public museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
. In October 1728, Seba had become a
Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...
. In 1734, he had published a
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
"treasury" () of animal specimens with beautiful engravings. Its full title was ("A Careful Description and Exceedingly Artistic Expression in Pictures of the Exceedingly Rich Treasury of Nature Throughout the Entire History of Natural Science"), traditionally shortened and abbreviated in Latin as the ("A Treasury of Nature") or as Seba's . A traditional English version of the name has been ''A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities'', after the early modern cabinets of curiosities. The last two of the four volumes were published after his death (1759 and 1765). Today, an original 446-plate volume is in the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in
The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
,
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
.'Schatryke kabinet der voornaamste seldzaamheden der natuur' van Albertus Seba
website Koninklijke Bibliotheek, retrieved 8 June 2022
Recently, a complete example of the sold for $460,000 at an auction. In 2001,
Taschen Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen. History The company began as Taschen Comics, pu ...
Books published a reprint of the , with a second printing in 2006. In 1735,
Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
visited Seba twice. Linnaeus found Seba's collection to be useful for the classification system which Linnaeus was developing, and Linnaeus used many of Seba's specimens as
holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...
s for original descriptions of
species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Seba", p. 240). Seba's inclusion of fantastic beasts such as the hydra influenced Linnaeus to include the "Paradoxa", species which may exist but which have not been found, in his ''
Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomen ...
''. Seba himself did not use Linnaeus' taxonomy, as it was published only a year before his death. However, he did organize his by physical similarities, leading to some similarities with Linnaeus' larger project. In 1752, several years after Seba's death, his second collection was auctioned in Amsterdam. Several objects were purchased by Russia's Academy of Sciences.


Taxa named in honor of Seba

Seba is commemorated in the
scientific names In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
of two species and one
subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
of snakes: ''
Ninia sebae ''Ninia sebae'', commonly known as the redback coffee snake or the red coffee snake, is a species of small terrestrial snake in the family Colubridae. The species is endemic to Mexico and Central America south to Costa Rica. Although it resem ...
'', ''
Python sebae The Central African rock python (''Python sebae'') is a species of large constrictor snake in the family Pythonidae. The species is native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of 11 living species in the genus ''Python''. Africa's largest snake and ...
'', and '' Oxyrhopus petola sebae''.


Gallery

File:Seba frontispice Thesaurus.png, Frontispiece of Seba's , referencing Frederik Ruysch's earlier 1710 File:Seba herisson.png, Engraving depicting different views of the
hedgehog A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introducti ...
in the File:Albertus Seba - Hydra.jpg, The Hamburg Hydra, from the 1st volume (1734)


References


Further reading

* . (Dutch) * . (Dutch) * .


External links

* Holthuis, L.B. (1969) Albertus Seba's „Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri...." (1734–1765) and the „Planches de Seba" (1827–1831),
Zoologische Mededelingen ''Zoologische Mededelingen'' was a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal publishing papers and monographs on animal systematics. The publisher was the National Museum of Natural History Naturalis in the Netherlands. The first issue appeared ...
, Vol. 43, pp. 239–25
PDF
*''Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri (
All volumes scanned at the Biodiversity Heritage Library
')''
Volume 1
Botanicus The Missouri Botanical Garden is a botanical garden located at 4344 Shaw Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. It is also known informally as Shaw's Garden for founder and philanthropist Henry Shaw. Its herbarium, with more than 6.6 million s ...

Volume 1
Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum The Center for Retrospective Digitization in Göttingen (german: Göttinger DigitalisierungsZentrum, GDZ) is an online system for archiving academic journals maintained by the University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the ...

Volume 2
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

Volume 3
Digital Library at
Gdańsk University of Technology The Gdańsk University of Technology (Gdańsk Tech, former ''GUT''; pl, Politechnika Gdańska) is a technical university in the Wrzeszcz borough of Gdańsk, and one of the oldest universities in Poland. It has eight faculties and with 41 fi ...

Volume 4
Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum
Gallica
Catalogue entry for Seba's Cabinet of Natural Curiosities
Cabinet of curiosities
Web page of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek on the ''Thesaurus'' exhibition
Review of thesauri by Claudia Stein
Medical History
A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities
scanned images from Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri. Botanicus.
Sale and dispersal of the Seba collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seba, Albertus 1665 births 1736 deaths People from East Frisia Dutch pharmacologists Dutch zoologists Fellows of the Royal Society