Natural History

Exploring the Early Americas The Jay I. Kislak Collection

Pre-Contact America | Explorations and Encounters | Aftermath of the Encounter

Languages and Religion | Competition for Empire | Documenting New Knowledge

Among the most beautiful and richly illustrated items in the Kislak Collection are books detailing the natural history of the New World. These volumes describe and illustrate the diverse flora and fauna of Mesoamerica and include indigenous names for the plants and animals. Books such as Historia naturae (1635) by Juan Eusebio Nieremberg (1595–1658) also provide extensive information on the customs and rites of native cultures.

Juan Eusebio Nieremberg (1595–1658).
Historiae naturae, maxime peregrinae [Natural history, most especially the foreign].
Antwerp: Plantiniana Balthasaris Moreti, 1635.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (157)

Flora and Fauna of North and South America

Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, an early seventeenth-century Spanish Jesuit exegist, philosopher, and scholar, was a prolific writer in several fields. Nieremberg based his book of natural history largely on the earlier work of Francisco Hernandez, physician to Philip II, who, in the 1570s was sent by the king to study medicinal plants, animals, and minerals in New Spain. Nierembergs book contains about 160 descriptions of plants, animals, and minerals. Note that many of the Nahuatl (Aztec) names for animals and plants are used in this book.

Arnoldus Montanus, 1625?–1683.
De nieuwe en onbekende weereld…[The new and strange world…].
Amsterdam: Jacob Maers, 1671.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (159)

New World Creatures

The persistence of romantic and dramatic images of New World creatures is evident even as late as 1671, as exemplified by the images in this book. The book is lavishly illustrated with 125 copper engravings including 32 folded views, 70 plates, 16 maps and 7 portraits of famous explorers, each surrounded by baroque framed borders. This elaborate book illustrates the battles, festivals, religious rites (including cannibalism), habitations, and customs of the Indians of America. The meticulously drawn scenes include Dutch New Amsterdam in eastern North America, Caribbean ports and islands, and numerous ports and cities on both the east and west coasts of South America.

Mark Catesby (1683–1749).
The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands.
London: W. Innys and R. Manby, 1731–1743.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (160)

Eighteenth-Century Naturalist

Mark Catesby was an early eighteenth-century naturalist who visited Virginia, the Carolinas, Florida, and the West Indies. His second voyage in the 1720s was financed, in part, by Sir Hans Sloane, also a naturalist. Catesby sent back copious quantities of biological materials to his friends and supporters in London. His two-volume Natural History contains 220 large-scale, detailed, plates of plants and animals that were drawn, etched, and hand colored by Catesby. This plate includes an exquisitely colored hummingbird and trumpet flower.

John Gould (1804–1881).
A Monograph of the Trogonidae, or Family of Trogons.
London: Taylor and Francis, 1875.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (160.1)

Gould’s Birds of South America

John Gould, regarded by many as the greatest bird artist and publisher in Britain, produced fifteen folio sets during his career. The book on view is dedicated to a tropical bird called the “trogon.” In his preface to the book, Gould wrote: “If not strictly elegant in form, the Trogons in the brilliancy of their plumage are surpassed only by the Trochilidae [toucans]: their splendour amply compensates for every other defect.” The illustrations for this work are some of the most magnificent that the ornithologist produced.

Bartram, William (1739–1823).
Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida…
Philadelphia: James and Johnson, 1791.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (161)

Bartram’s Botanical Expedition through Southeast North America

In 1765–1766, William Bartram, a British colonial botanist and ornithologist, accompanied his father on an expedition to the Carolinas, Georgia, and East Florida. In 1773, he made a five-year trip to the same area, collecting plants and seeds and making drawings of insects, birds, plants, and reptiles. This publication covers the results of his work during those trips.

Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859).
Vues des Cordillres et Monuments des peuples indigènes de l’Amérique. [Views of the Cordilleras and monuments of indigenous peoples of America].
Paris: R. Schoell, 1810.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (162)

Von Humboldt’s Scientific Excursion to South and Central America

The explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt and the botanist Aimé Bonland, made a scientific excursion to South and Central America from 1799 to 1804 to collect numerous plant specimens and study flora, fauna, and geology. Humboldt’s multi-volume work captured and conveyed the essence of the pre-Columbian world and influenced greatly the European and North American vision of Latin America. In this image, von Humboldt includes figures of native peoples and examples of animals and vegetation to add local color to the dignity of the Chimborazo mountains.

Nikolaus Joseph Jacquin (1727–1817).
Selectarum Stirpium Americanarum historia…[History of selected American plants…]
Vienna: 1780. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (163)

Caribbean Plant Specimens

Nikolaus Jacquin was an important eighteenth-century botanist whose work helped to spread the ideas of Carl von Linn (Linnaeus). Linnaeus had developed a coherent classification system for plants based on the structure of the reproductive organs of flowers. Jacquin was sent by the Emperor of Austria to the Caribbean to collect plant specimens. During a four-year period (1755–1759), he sent back seven shipments of plants and animals to Vienna. The 1780 edition of this work contains 264 sumptuous hand-painted engravings and a title page drawn by Franz and Ferdinand Bauer.

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717).
Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensiam… [Transformation of the insects of Suriname…].
Amsterdam: G. Valck, 1705.
Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (164)

The Insects of Suriname

Maria Sibylla Merian, a German artist and naturalist, was born into a prominent Frankfurt family of artists and publishers. From an early age she was interested in the study of insects, especially the silkworm. After moving to the Netherlands, Merian became acquainted with various artists and scientists. From 1699 to 1701, Merian visited the Dutch colony of Suriname in South America. Her drawings were the basis for engravings such as this one, part of a work containing sixty large-scale, delicate, hand-colored engravings of plants and insects.

Nicholas Monarde (ca. 1512–1588).
Delle cose che vengono portate dall’Indie Occidentali [Of the things that have been brought from the West Indies].
Venice: Giordano Ziletti, 1575.
Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (165)

Medicinal Virtues of Tobacco

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europeans were obsessed with tobacco as a commodity and, especially, as a panacea. Nicholas Monardes, a physician from Seville, published a popular medical history in 1574 that included a lengthy description extolling the virtues of tobacco. Quickly translated into English in 1577, Joyfull Newes out of the Newfound World claimed that tobacco was an ideal “hearbe” long familiar to American Indians, who taught its virtues to Spanish explorers. Monardes enumerated the properties of the plant: to “heale griefes of the head” to “cureth the headake” and even to relieve weariness and provide sustenance when food and water were lacking.

Effigy vessel in the form of a rabbit. Central Mexico. Tlatilco, 1150–550 BC. Ceramic with cream-colored slip highlighted with black resist design. Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (166)

Tlatilco Vessel in Form of a Rabbit

One of the earliest advanced cultures, the Tlatilco flourished in the Valley of Mexico. The culture is characterized in part by the creation of pottery in the form of humans and indigenous animals, by elaborate burials, and stylized Olmec-inspired design. The rabbit-shaped vessel on display not only pictures an indigenous animal but also reveals information on the customs and rites of native cultures. Similar vessels have been found in quantity at burial sites.

Top