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 Tos ...

, 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 na ...

, 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 (calle ...

, 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

, son of a notary, 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 pr ...

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 contin ...

. 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 ci ...

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 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' ...

. 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 alphabetica ...

(his successor as the director of the botanical garden) and Pietro Andrea Mattioli, 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-vo ...

. A ''Placiti'' revealing Ghini's methods was published posthumously.

References

Bibliography

* * * 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