Francesco Cupani ( 21 January 1657,

Mirto Mirto may refer to: People * Alexander Mirto Frangipani, Roman Catholic prelate * Fabio Mirto Frangipani (died 1587), Roman Catholic prelate * Mirto Davoine (1933-1999), Uruguayan football player * Mirto Picchi (1915-1980), Italian dramatic tenor ...

– 19 January 1710,

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

naturalist mainly interested in

botany Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...

. In 1692 he became the first Director of the

botanic garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

Misilmeri Misilmeri ( scn, Musulumeli) is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Palermo, Sicily. It is approximately from Palermo and its name means "the resting place or the messuage of the Emir", and dates from the Muslim emirate of Sicily. ...

. Here the plants were classified a system taxonomy of

binomial nomenclature 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 ...

later made standard by

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 ...

. This work put him in contact with many botanists, for instance

Joseph Pitton de Tournefort Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (5 June 165628 December 1708) was a French botanist, notable as the first to make a clear definition of the concept of genus for plants. Botanist Charles Plumier was his pupil and accompanied him on his voyages. Lif ...

Caspar Commelin Caspar Commelijn or Caspar Commelin (14 October 1668 Amsterdam – 25 December 1731 Amsterdam), was a Dutch botanist. Life and work He was the son of the bookseller, historian and publisher, Casparus Commelijn and his first wife, Margrieta Heyd ...

William Sherard William Sherard (27 February 1659 – 11 August 1728) was an English botanist. Next to John Ray, he was considered to be one of the outstanding English botanists of his day. Life He is still a little-known figure of that era coming as he did from ...

James Petiver James Petiver (c. 1665 – c. 2 April 1718) was a London apothecary, a fellow of the Royal Society as well as London's informal Temple Coffee House Botany Club, famous for his specimen collections in which he traded and study of botany and entomo ...

, Johann Georg Volckamer, Felice Viali (1638–1722) and Giovanni Battista Triumfetti. He is credited with cultivating wild sweetpeas and introducing them to the world. A sweetpea variety is named for him.

Works

* ''Catalogus plantarum sicularum Noviter adinventarum'' Palermo, 1692. * ''Syllabus plantarum Siciliae Nuper detectarum'' Palermo, 1694. * ''Hortus Catholicus'' Napoli, 1696. * ''Pamphyton siculum'', a natural history (fauna as well as flora) of Sicily published posthumously in 1713 and the result of 25 years work.

References

External links

Herbarium (Cupani Hortus Siccus)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cupani, Francesco 1657 births 1710 deaths People from the Province of Messina 17th-century Italian botanists Italian naturalists Scientists from Sicily 18th-century Italian botanists