Naturaleza y grafía. El corpus documental de las colecciones animales en el Real Gabinete de Madrid, 1752-1790

Abstract

In 1776, a strategy to acquire and increase the number of specimens in the collections of the Royal Cabinet of Natural History in Madrid was implemented by its director, Pedro Franco Davila. The plan that involved correspondents, expeditionaries, savants and amateurs in America and Europe, asked for the sending of consignments of natural products usually associated to a series of indexes and inventories that documented the shipments, and allowed the control of their transit to Madrid. This article explores the documentary corpus generated around the collections of natural history sent to the Royal Cabinet of Natural History of Madrid, and searches for the analysis of its instrumental dimension as indispensable tools for the registration and stabilization of information about the diverse processes, practices and actors implied in nature’s collecting and knowledge production.