Luca Ghini (
Casalfiumanese
Casalfiumanese ( rgn, Casêl Fiumanés) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Bologna in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about southeast of Bologna.
Casalfiumanese borders the following municipalities: Borgo Tossi ...
, 1490 –
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
, 4 May 1556) was an Italian
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
and
botanist
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 wo ...
, notable as the creator of the first recorded
herbarium
A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study.
The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...
, as well as the first
botanical 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 ...
in Europe.
Biography
Ghini was born in
Casalfiumanese
Casalfiumanese ( rgn, Casêl Fiumanés) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Bologna in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about southeast of Bologna.
Casalfiumanese borders the following municipalities: Borgo Tossi ...
, son of a
notary
A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems.
A notary, while a legal professional, is disti ...
, and studied
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
at the
University of Bologna
The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...
. By 1527 he was lecturing there on medicinal plants, and eventually became a professor.
He moved to
Pisa
Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...
in 1544, while maintaining his home in Bologna. He created the first herbarium (''hortus siccus'') in that year, drying plants while pressing them between pieces of paper, then gluing them to cardboard. None of his herbaria survive although the one by his student
Gherardo Cibo
Gherardo Cibo also known by the alias of Ulisse Severini da Cingoli (1512 − 30 January 1600) was an artist and a herbalist from Italy. The herbarium that he began in 1532 is the oldest surviving example of the method invented in Italy by his con ...
made around 1532 survives. 1544 also saw the establishment of a garden for live plants, which became known as the
Orto botanico di Pisa
The Orto botanico di Pisa, also known as the Orto Botanico dell'Università di Pisa, is a botanical garden operated by the University of Pisa, and located at via Luca Ghini 5, Pisa, Italy.
The garden was established in 1544 under Cosimo I de' M ...
.
Ghini published no significant botanical work of his own, but was noted as a teacher many of whose students went on to significant careers, including
Cesalpino
Andrea Cesalpino ( Latinized as Andreas Cæsalpinus) (6 June 1524 – 23 February 1603) was a Florentine physician, philosopher and botanist.
In his works he classified plants according to their fruits and seeds, rather than alphabetically ...
(his successor as the director of the botanical garden) and
Pietro Andrea Mattioli
Pietro Andrea Gregorio Mattioli (; 12 March 1501 – ) was a doctor and naturalist born in Siena.
Biography
He received his MD at the University of Padua in 1523, and subsequently practiced the profession in Siena, Rome, Trento and Gorizia ...
, the latter of which he helped by travelling around the Mediterranean and Near East in search for plants that matched the mystifying descriptions of
Dioscorides
Pedanius Dioscorides ( grc-gre, Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης, ; 40–90 AD), “the father of pharmacognosy”, was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of ''De materia medica'' (, On Medical Material) —a 5-vol ...
. A ''Placiti'' revealing Ghini's methods was published posthumously.
References
Bibliography
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1490 births
1556 deaths
People from the Province of Bologna
Botanists with author abbreviations
16th-century Italian botanists
Pre-Linnaean botanists
16th-century Italian physicians
University of Pisa faculty
{{Italy-botanist-stub