Observations on Portuguese natural history by Leonhard Thurneysser zum Thurn (1531–1596), including the dyes derived from Kermes vermilio and Dracaena draco

Abstract

In 1555, Leonhard Thurneysser zum Thurn (1531–1596), a young apothecary, alchemist, astrologer and healer from Basle in Switzerland, travelled to Portugal and stayed in Lisbon with Damião de Góis (1502–1574), the Portuguese humanist and diplomat. The principal purpose of Thurneysser’s visit was the study of natural history and the observations and information that he collected then and during a second trip about 1562. These observations were recorded in a manuscript that remained unnoticed until the twenty first century. Thurneysser’s manuscript, now held in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, contains descriptions of animals, plants and of two economically important dyestuffs, kermes and dragon’s blood, the first obtained from the scale insect, Kermes vermilio (associated with Quercus coccifera, kermes oak), and the second from Dracaena draco (dragon tree). Thurneysser’s contributions to knowledge of these two products and their associated plants were innovative and reveal an observer endowed with exceptional insight. His main sources of information, in addition to his personal fieldwork, observation of goods sold in Lisbon markets and conversations with vendors and merchants, were the classics of Antiquity and contemporary works including two of Damião de Góis’s works, Hispania (1542) and Urbis Olisiponis descriptio (1554).