Page 52 - La Naturaleza como inspiración

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botanical work printed in colour by the Regensburg chemist J.W. Weinmann; and the 16th-century wood- cut prints from Dioscorides’s De Materia Medica. The woodcuts from the Cruydeboeck by R. Dodoens (1517–1585) are of Belgian origin. France is represent- ed by the 53 plates from Nouveau Recueil des Fruits & des Fleurs, & Plantes Utiles, aux dessinateurs.
The most important piece in the collection, both from a scientific perspective and because of its age, is the album of drawings and prints entitled P. Her- manni Paradisus Batavus continens plus quam cen- tum plantas ad vivum delineatas & inde affabré are incisas. Paulus Hermann (Halle, 1640–Leiden, 1695), a German naturalist with a doctorate in Med- icine who travelled to Ceylon as a physician for the Dutch East Indies Company, was devoted to study- ing natural history. He designed a classification sys- tem, but it was not adopted as it was based on a study of fruits. Descriptions of significant numbers of previously unknown plants are attributed to him. His works are noteworthy both for their scientific value and the beauty of the engravings. He returned to Holland in 1680 and his work Paradisus Batavus, continens plus centum plantas affabre aere incisas & Descriptionibus illustratas qui accessit catalogus plantarum, quas pro tomis nondum editis delineandas cuaraverat was published posthumously.
Van Berkhey cut up a copy of this work so that the prints could be glued beside the related draw- ings to form this album. The collection also has a copy of the printed book, which includes only the text and is bound in the same way as the album. The album, in folio size, features 113 drawings and 111 prints, 108 of which correspond to the drawings. The album contains five drawings whose engraving is not included in the published work. There are other original drawings for this work by Hermann (with handwritten notes) in the Natural History Museum in London11 It is noteworthy that the study conducted by Dr C. Jarvis, curator of the Museum’s
herbarium, showed that Linnaeus used his copy of the Paradisus Batavus, which is preserved (with an- notations) in the Linnaean Society, to identify the plants represented. Thirteen of these plants became lectotypes of the species.12
DRAWINGS BY VAN BERKHEY IN THE BIBLIOTECA NACIONAL DE ESPAÑA
An interesting part of the Van Berkhey Collection can be found in the Biblioteca Nacional (National Li- brary): at least 30 drawings of people in the national dress of Holland and various countries, described in his Natural History of Holland and drawn from life.13
THE VAN BERKHEY HOLDINGS IN THE MUSEO NACIONAL DE CIENCIAS NATURALES
The Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (mncn), the institution that succeeded the Royal Cabinet of Natural History, holds most of the Van Berkhey Col- lection. It houses all the illustrations of the animal world, six of the 31 portraits that featured in the auc- tion catalogue – two drawings and four engravings – 48 drawings of the fossil kingdom, a few ethnograph- ic prints, seven printed works, two manuscript works and 178 natural specimens mounted by Berkhey him- self (snake and fish skins). The Museum also pre- serves all the records of the process of acquisition by Spain and the inventory drawn up by Franco Dávila when the collection arrived at the Royal Cabinet.
The collection is comprised chiefly of the 5,840 zoological illustrations assembled by van Berkhey to represent all the known animal species and to iden- tify and determine them. He arranged them into folders in accordance with the Linnaean system and came to own examples of nearly all Linnaeus’s class- es and orders. Berkhey wished his collection to be scientific in nature and purpose, to contribute to the advancement of natural history, to be useful to other collectors and also to serve an educational function. He described his collection as unique in