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Domenico Cirillo’s Collections
A Recently Rediscovered 18th-Century Neapolitan Herbarium
In: NunciusThe herbarium of the 19th-century Neapolitan botanists Vincenzo and Francesco Briganti was acquired by Orazio Comes in 1892 for the Royal Higher School of Agriculture in Naples. Based on a study of the handwriting on their labels, Comes concluded that some of the dried specimens were the sole remains of the herbarium of Domenico Cirillo, the distinguished 18th-century Neapolitan botanist, entomologist and physician. The current arrangement of the specimens not uniform and it is clear that they underwent extensive handling and rearrangement. Some of the exsiccata are preserved in two packets, fixed on sheets bearing a printed label that reads “Herbarium D. Cyrilli”. In an additional label Gaetano Nicodemi’s handwriting and not Cirillo’s as stated by Comes was identified. Other specimens, many of them mounted in a different manner from those in the first group, are arranged in another three packets.
Certain characteristics of the herbarium may be explained by the vicissitudes of its history, including a hasty salvage operation. A study of the collection was conducted, including an analysis of the handwritten labels and notes, leading to conclusions that shed light on the significance of the Cirillo collection within the historical and scientific context of 18th-century Naples.
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4
See Valeria Mezzetti Bambacioni, “L’Istituto e l’Orto Botanico di Portici a un quarantennio dalla morte di Orazio Comes,” Annali della Facoltà di Agraria dell’Università di Napoli in Portici, 1959, Ser. 3, XXIV:231–252, p. 243.
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5
Sabrina Pignattelli, Stefano Mazzoleni, “Il Museo Botanico Orazio Comes. Storia e descrizione,” in I Musei delle Scienze Agrarie. L’evoluzione delle Wunderkammern, edited by Sabrina Pignattelli, Stefano Mazzoleni (Napoli: Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 2007), p. 36.
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6
Orazio Comes, “Sopra alcuni erbari di botanici italiani del secolo scorso,” Atti del Congresso Botanico Internazionale (Genova: Tipografia del R. Istituto Sordo-Muti, 1893), pp. 124–126.
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8
Vincenzo Cesati, De’ vantaggi che lo studio della botanica può ritrarre da una collezione di autografi aggiunto di un cenno storico sovra il Cirillo (Napoli: Stamperia della Regia Università, 1869).
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10
See Orazio Comes, “Cattedra di Botanica,” in La R. Scuola Superiore di Agricoltura in Portici nel passato e nel presente 1872 -1906 (Portici: Dalla Torre, 1906), pp. 59–65, p. 59.
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11
Loreto Grande, “Note di Floristica napoletana,” Bollettino della Società Botanica Italiana, 1911, 5:84–94, p. 93.
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12
Giuseppe Lo Priore, “Cattedra di Botanica,” in Il R. Istituto Superiore Agrario in Portici 1872 -1928 (Spoleto: Arti Grafiche Passetto e Petrelli, 1928), pp. 61–64, p. 62.
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16
See Riccardo Motti, “Domenico Cirillo Botanico Napoletano alla fine del ’700 ed il suo erbario in Portici,” Informatore Botanico Italiano, 2003, 35(1):255–258.
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17
Antonino De Natale, “Herbarium Porticense,” in I Musei delle Scienze Agrarie. L’evoluzione delle Wunderkammern, edited by Stefano Mazzoleni, Sabrina Pignattelli (Napoli: Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 2007), pp. 57–59.
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20
See Pellegrino Fimiani, “Domenico Cirillo e l’Entomologia nel settecento,” in Domenico Cirillo scienziato e martire della Repubblica Napoletana, edited by Bruno D’Errico (Frattamaggiore: Tip. Cav. Mattia Cirillo, 2001), pp. 10–32; Umberto Pappalardo, Antonella Ferraro, “Traduzione dal tedesco dell’articolo ‘Domenico Cirillo. La sua biografia, 1739–1799’ di Johann Ulrich Marbach,” Delpinoa n.s. 2004, 46:95–105; Domenico Cirillo, Plantarum Rariorum Regni Neapolitani, edited by Paolo De Luca (Napoli: Tip. Pironti, 2005); Domenico Cirillo, Entomologiae Neapolitanae Specimen Primum, edited by Lorenzo Varano (Napoli: Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 2008); Arturo Armone Caruso, “Su alcune lettere di Domenico Cirillo a Linneo,” Scrinia, 2008, V(1–3):5–20; Stefania Paoli (ed.), Domenico Cirillo a Carlo Linneo, Lettere (Napoli: Giannini, 2011); Domenico Cirillo, Discorsi Accademici, edited by Antonio Borrelli (Napoli: Denaro Libri, 2013).
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21
Domenico Cirillo, Entomologiae Neapolitanae Specimen Primum (Praefatio) (Neapoli: G.V. Scheel, 1787).
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24
See Federico Delpino, “Domenico Cirillo e le sue opere botaniche,” Bullettino dell’Orto Botanico Regia Università di Napoli, 1902, 1(3):292–310, p. 304; Giovanni Battista De Toni, “Appunti dal carteggio inedito di Domenico Cirillo,” Rivista delle Scienze Mediche e Naturali, 1922, VII:193–195; For more recent bibliographic information on this subject, see Alessandro Ottaviani, “Domenico Cirillo botanico,” in Giornata di studio: Gli scienziati e la Rivoluzione napoletana del 1799 (Napoli: Arti Grafiche Italo Cernia, 2000), pp. 61–72; Roberto Mazzola, “Scienza e filosofia della natura nella Napoli del tardo settecento. Note sul Plantarum Rariorum Regni Neapolitani di Domenico Cirillo,” Bollettino del Centro di Studi Vichiani, 2007, a. XXXVII:159–174, p. 160.
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25
Domenico Cirillo, Plantarum Rariorum Regni Neapolitani Fasciculus Primus cum Tabulis Aeneis (Neapoli: G.V. Scheel, 1788); Id., Plantarum Rariorum Regni Neapolitani Fasciculus Secundus cum Tabulis Aeneis (Neapoli: G.V. Scheel, 1792).
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36
See Italo Giglioli, Domenico Cirillo and the Chemical Action of Light in Connection with Vegetable Irritability (Portici: Stabilimento Tipografico Vesuviano, 1901), reprint from Nature, 1900, 63; Balsamo, “Botanici e Botanofili” (cit. note 7), pp. 45–46; Pappalardo and Ferraro, “Traduzione dal tedesco,” (cit. note 20), pp. 96–97.
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37
See Antonio Borrelli, “Istituzioni e attrezzature scientifiche a Napoli nell’età dei Lumi,” Archivio Storico delle Province Napoletane, 1996, CXIV:131–183, p. 159.
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43
See Agostino Ronconi, Osservazioni del Dottor Agostino Ronconi su la Flora Napolitana. Lettera prima (Napoli: Stamperia Flautina, 1811), pp. 5–6, p. 9.
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45
Michele Tenore, “Saggio sullo stato della botanica in Italia al cadere dell’anno 1831,” Il Progresso delle Scienze, delle Lettere e delle Arti, 1832, 1:29–69, pp. 60–62.
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46
Ibid., pp. 61–62; see also Vincenzo De Ritis, “Il Reale Orto Botanico. Articolo Secondo,” Annali Civili del Regno delle Due Sicilie, 1836, XI:153–165, p. 155; Fontanarosa, “Domenico Cirillo” (cit. note 2), p. 61. Tenore dedicated to Gaetano Nicodemi the genus Nicodemia Ten., recalling that the existence of most of the “immortal works of Cirillo” was due to him. Michele Tenore, “Della Nicodemia. Nuovo genere di piante fondato nella tetrandria monogynia, e tipo di una nuova famiglia naturale,” Il Progresso delle Scienze, delle Lettere e delle Arti, 1833, 4(1):36–43, p. 41.
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52
See Nello Ronga, “Domenico Cirillo e i filosofi naturalisti in due lettere inedite,” in Domenico Cirillo scienziato e martire della Repubblica Napoletana, edited by Bruno D’Errico (Frattamaggiore: Tip. Cav. Mattia Cirillo, 2001), pp. 81–95.
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55
Carolus Linnaeus, Genera Plantarum, Editio sexta (Stockholm: Laurentius Salvius, 1764).
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59
Michele Tenore, Sylloge Plantarium Vascularium Florae Neapolitanae hucusque detectarum (Napoli: Tipografia del Fibreno, 1831).
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
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Domenico Cirillo’s Collections
A Recently Rediscovered 18th-Century Neapolitan Herbarium
In: NunciusThe herbarium of the 19th-century Neapolitan botanists Vincenzo and Francesco Briganti was acquired by Orazio Comes in 1892 for the Royal Higher School of Agriculture in Naples. Based on a study of the handwriting on their labels, Comes concluded that some of the dried specimens were the sole remains of the herbarium of Domenico Cirillo, the distinguished 18th-century Neapolitan botanist, entomologist and physician. The current arrangement of the specimens not uniform and it is clear that they underwent extensive handling and rearrangement. Some of the exsiccata are preserved in two packets, fixed on sheets bearing a printed label that reads “Herbarium D. Cyrilli”. In an additional label Gaetano Nicodemi’s handwriting and not Cirillo’s as stated by Comes was identified. Other specimens, many of them mounted in a different manner from those in the first group, are arranged in another three packets.
Certain characteristics of the herbarium may be explained by the vicissitudes of its history, including a hasty salvage operation. A study of the collection was conducted, including an analysis of the handwritten labels and notes, leading to conclusions that shed light on the significance of the Cirillo collection within the historical and scientific context of 18th-century Naples.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 451 | 43 | 3 |
| Full Text Views | 219 | 1 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 19 | 2 | 1 |