Caspar Bauhin's contribution to a historical herbarium stored in Bologna

Abstract

Abstract Cristofolini, G. (2023). Caspar Bauhin's contribution to a historical herbarium stored in Bologna. Candollea 78: 33–51. In English, English abstract. A historical herbarium stored in the herbarium of the Bologna University [BOLO], putatively ascribed to the Swiss botanist Caspar Bauhin (1560–1624), was examined with a focus on the information contained in the annotations to the specimens, in particular to the bibliographic references, in order to assess the time of collection of each specimen and to identify its origin. The analysis revealed that the herbarium includes specimens collected between the middle of the 16th century and the first decades of the 17th century, from more than one collector, including at least one learned scholar, and one or more inexperienced botanists. The identification of the authors, however, is hindered by the fact that their original inscriptions were destroyed after having been copied by a scribe. Nevertheless, among a great deal of poorly annotated material, four specimens could be confidently ascribed to Caspar Bauhin, while a further 15 might plausibly come from the same source. The hypothesis that his brother Johann also contributed some specimens, as suggested by previous studies, although not excluded, seems insufficiently supported. There is convincing evidence that the specimens ascribed to Bauhin were collected after 1596, and sent to Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605) in Bologna before 1605. The whole herbarium, however, was not assembled in its present form before 1623. Most likely, it was Bartolomeo Ambrosini (1588–1657), lecturer in botany in Bologna at that time, who gathered a number of exsiccata collected or received during Aldrovandi's lifetime, and then arranged for them to be glued on paper sheets and labelled by a scribe. In doing so, the original labels were lost, and with them the possibility of identifying the authors with certainty. Submitted on October 10, 2022. Accepted on February 2, 2023. First published online on March 28, 2023.