Abordagens Interdisciplinares
aos Colóquios dos simples e drogas da Índia
de Garcia de Orta
Goa, 1563 — Lisboa, 2013
Figuring out Exotic Nature in Sixteenth-Century Europe:
Garcia de Orta and Clusius
FLORIKE EGMO ND
The Flemish naturalist Carolus Clusius (1526-1609) left the Southern Netherlands in March 1564 for a lengthy trip to the Iberian península, not because he
wanted to go there, but because his patron had changed his mind. That same year,
in Portugal, Clusius first came across Garcia de Orta’s Coloquios. Clusius’ Latin
edition of the Coloquios (1567) guaranteed its widespread reception among naturalists in Europe during the second half of the 16th century. But Clusius’ involvement
with Orta’s work did not stop with this edition. The first part of this paper investigates Clusius’ continued editorial engagement with Orta’s work during forty years
(1565-1605), his drastic interventions, the new information incorporated by Clusius in the various editions, but especially his introduction of images. These topics
will be discussed against the background of Clusius’ work as editor, his critical evaluation of new evidence, and his fascination with exotic nature. The second part
of the paper focuses on the images themselves. The phase of major editing and
the first introduction of images by Clusius into Orta’s edited and translated text
all took place during a short period (1565-67) when Clusius was living in Flanders. Where did these images come from, how did Clusius obtain them, and how
should we imagine the visual construction of exotic nature in Flanders?
F LORI KE EGM OND is a Dutch cultural historian living in Rome. She has taught history and social
sciences at several Dutch universities and has worked for several years at the National Archive in
The Hague. She specializes in early modern natural history. In recent years she has worked for Leiden University, as researcher in NWO-funded research projects on the sixteenth-century naturalist
Carolus Clusius, and on the visual culture of natural history (Re-Reading the Book of Nature, 201014). She is the author of The World of Carolus Clusius. Natural History in the Making, 1550-1610
(London: Pickering & Chatto, 2010) and the co-editor of Florike Egmond, Paul Hoftizer, Robert Visser, R. (eds.), Carolus Clusius, Towards a Cultural History of a Renaissance Naturalist (Amsterdam:
Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie van Wetenschappen, 2007). She is now preparing the book Eye
for Detail. The visual study of nature between art and science, 1540-1640.