Original units and Facsimiles of Cartographic Thematic
Ample section within the bibliographical collection of Luis Giménez Lorente that will allow the simultaneous reference consultation: geographic, historical and graphical of the maps, portulan charts and navigation charts of the collection. The variety of authors, editions and the selection in the grouping subjects, implies to be able to appreciate the knowledge, the concepts, policies, techniques, factories and times of impression of maps from the old ones, to the present space photogrammetry
Old maps of the world/h3>
In this section are displayed some of the consultation texts that go together with the collection of maps, charts and portulan charts and with facsimile works of old Atlases, with their own commentaries, already exposed in the previous section of this web page. Their covers, frontispieces or title blocks are symbolic explanations of the geographic-artistic concept, a kind of informative showcase that predominated in every era the map was printed
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus is born in Genoa in 1451 and passes away in Valladolid on May the 20th 1506. In 1447 he moved to Portugal and in 1483 he knows Toscanelli which makes him contributor of his idea of arriving at the Indians starting off from East to the West. He goes to King Juan II of Portugal, who does not second his desire and later to the Catholic Kings of Spain, protégé and introduced by Fr. Juan Perez. He left Palos de Moguer in Julio of 1492 and on October the 12th he arrives at the Caribbean without knowledge that he had discovered a new continent.
Text selection on the discoverers of the New Continent
Antonio Pigafetta or de Pigafetta
(Vicenza, 1491-1534) he was a sailor and Italian chronicler, who accompanied Fernando de Magallanes in the first trip around the world. His chronicle is the main source of information on the trip, and the first document available in Europe about the Philippine language. Pigafetta was one of the 18 men, among 260 of the initial crew, who survived the trip of Magallanes. He belonged to a rich family of Vicenza and from his youth he studied astronomy, geography and cartography. He served on board of the galleys of the Order of Rhodes or San Juan of Jerusalem, (at the moment Order of Malta). He embarked in Seville as passenger in the expedition of Magallanes. During the trip he collected numerous data of geography, climate, flora, fauna and the customs and languages of the inhabitants from the places at which they arrived. His story was a document of great value for his notes of cartography, navigation and linguistic. He accompanied Juan Sebastián Elcano, after dying Magallanes, in the ship Victory that return to Spain three years after its departure. They disembarked in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cadiz) in September 1522. He returned to Italy and he did not embark anymore. He died in his native city in 1534. The "Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo", written in Italian, was published in Venice in 1536.
Enrique the Navigator
The Prince Dom Henrique O Navegador, son of Juan I, of Portugal, set up in the first half of the fifteenth century the School of Navigators and geographic studies in Sagres, (the Algarve), the south-most western city of Europe and establishes his court, in 1443, in Lagos. The Algarve is in the Cabo of San Vicente, a cliff of seventy-five meters, where the old school can be seen located within the castle, today half-destroyed by the 1755 earthquake.
Alexander Malaspina
Italian Marquess at the service of the Spanish government, with the corvettes Atrevida and Descubierta, he left from San Sebastián to Buen Suceso bay, the island of the States and the Falklands, following towards the North, throughout the coasts of Chile and Peru and arriving to Alaska. He returned to Spain, to Cadiz, on September the 21st 1794, having taken the trip around the world. His ship's log was published a century later.
James Cook
This famous Englishman of the eighteenth century took several trips around the world. The objective of the first trip was scientist, paid by the Real Society of London, to observe the passage of the Venus planet on the disc of the sun and thus to obtain the exact distance from this planet to the Earth. The phenomenon could only be observed from one of the islands of the Sea of the South. He sailed around the Cape of Horn and he sailed the Pacific. He returned to Dover on June 11th 1771. He took the second travel between 1772-75, with the aim of discovering the austral continent. He travelled with the ships Résolution and Adventure. Two naturalists and two astronomers went with him. They left Plymouth in July 1772. He discovered the Georgia's Islands and the Orkneys. He explored the Land of Fire and Staten Island. He returned to Portsmouth on July the 30th 1775. He did not return from the third trip.
Francisco Coello of Portugal y Quesada
(1822-1898) Military man and cartographer. He was born in a numerous family of Jaén in 1822. He joined the army at the age of eleven, but soon he asked for license to dedicate himself to geography. In 1841 his collaboration with Madoz in the project of the Atlas of Spain and of his overseas possessions began. And in a geographic Dictionary. The equipment formed by Madoz, Coello y Caballero impelled the creation of the Practical Theoretical School of Assistants, called Special School of Cadastral Topography that Coello himself directed. The School evolved to Special School of Geographic Operations and later to Special School of Cadastre, until being closed finally in 1869 for a lack of means. He enrolled in the Academy of History in December 1874. His last intervention was in the 5th Congress of Geography, in Bern, in 1891 to which he attended in representation of the Geographic Society of Madrid. After his death in 1898, he obtained the recognition of the foreign geographers and his collaborators of the Geographic Society.
Universal atlases
The "atlases" are compilations of geographic maps in the form of book, that try to give a global vision of the world, a continent or of some country, and at this moment of the space, in a work as arduous as the one of the mythological giant Atlas, who maintained the celestial vault on their shoulders. For that reason his name has been applied to this type of texts. Within the collection of Dr. Luis G. Lorente we can consult and contemplate diverse units of great beauty, by the artistic quality of their illustrations and by their original ways of symbolic or didactic representation. Some of them, true altarpieces following the traditional way in the art, with their streets, attics, scenes, frontispieces or columns. The handwritings title blocks and own ornamental details of the time of their stamping, are a delight for the curiosity of the travelling spirits of outstanding artistic sensitivity.
Tomás López
Tomás Lopez de Vargas y Machuca joined the Academy of History in 1776, and later his son Juan, contributing to the increase of the studies of the cartographic collection. The majority of the maps of these two geographers that today conserves the Academy, of History were given by them.
The Cartography
From second half of the eighteenth century until the end of the nineteenth century there was a very important period for the European cartographic works. France realized its first National Topographic map, with the support of a triangulation network: the "Carte Geometrique de Cassini", on scale 1/86,400, where the technical change of the surveying in the European cartography was reflected. It happened to be a mere military instrument to being considered a national necessity, for the promotion of the communications and the commerce. Scientific maps began to be realized with methods and apparatuses and the contribution of sufficient economic resources. Its accomplishment was possible thanks to the improvement in the use of instruments like the sextant, the theodolite with bronze limbs, the astronomical eyeglasses, the chronometer and the barometer that allowed to measure angles, to determine longitudes and latitudes and to establish altitudes with high accuracy. As well as at the moment the computer science means to allow many possibilities; and the systems of technical representation the access to it. In Spain, in 1875, it was published by the Spanish Geographic and Statistical Institute , created in 1870, a National Topographic map, on 1/50,000 scale, Many years before it had been realized the first chart-map detailing the Spanish coasts: the Marine Atlas of Spain, by Vicente Tofiño (1789) and the Geographic Dictionary of Spain by Tomas Lopez (1804). expositions of the modern cartography made possible its use as instrument in the archaeological investigations; often offering topographic, site names and geographic data of great interest for the exactitude and situation of the archaeological sites and, very especially, of the studies on the means of communication in the Antiquity. The absence in the old libraries of bibliographical units on this subject, (if we exclude those of Madrid and Barcelona), because of the lack of collections that are dedicated to the acquisition of apparatuses and to the international relations and interchanges is being corrected; but this forces the particular collections to have the greater possible diffusion.
Cartography of Spain in the National Library
The Cartography of the National Library has its origin in the collections of the Real Library, founded by Felipe V and those of the old Library of the Kings of the House of Austria besides those of the Geographic Cabinet of 1ª Secretariat of State and the Universal Office, donated in 1795 by order of Minister Manuel Godoy. The purpose of the formation of the Geographic Cabinet was to reunite the most extensive collection of maps that at that moment were being published in Europe. This book illustrates each technical data with its corresponding map. Finalizing with the cartographic documentary inventory of the National Library.
America de Bry
1590-1634. Prolog by J.H. Elliott. Images of the American continent through "Americae" of Théordore de Bry (1528-1598), work to which the heirs of the author gave to continuity, especially his son Johann Théodore (1561-1623). Protestant refugee native of Liege, De Bry settled down himself in Frankfurt as publisher and engraver and soon he perceived the commercial possibilities that the increasing European interest by the trips of discoveries and colonization of the overseas territories had for the publishing industry. True best-seller of the time and publishing monument of the protestant vision of the world of that one time, whose influence will find iconographic successors until the nineteenth century. The basic model of fight of the protestant world against the catholic powers of Spain and Portugal was the one that among others determined the vision of this printed work, in which the Black Legend found its graphical and propagandistic foundation. De Bry brings to Europe a recreated image of America, fruit of the news and chronicles of trips, those of Jean de Léry, Hans Staden, Antonio de Herrera, Sebald de Weert, Jerónimo Benzoni and fray Bartolomé de las Casas. He dealt with the accomplishment of "America" (1590-1634) (Siruela, 1992), volume dedicated to the Western Indians, whereas his two children, Juan Teodoro and Juan Israel, carried out the series dedicated to the Eastern Indians: "Asia and Africa" (1597-1628). In 1597, still alive De Bry, because of the success of the first series or of the success of the Dutch edition of the story of trips of Juan Linschoten, published in 1596, the De Brys began a second series, whose first volume reproduces the story of Pigafetta on the trip of Odoardo Lopez to the Congo. The edition presented here, that includes an introduction of John H. Elliott, reproduces with its texts the totality of the copper engravings of the America series. It is the first time that such edition appears in Spanish, because never, not even in the seventeenth century, was there a Spanish version of the text. "America" by Teodoro de Bry, first part of this series, received the First Prize of the Ministry of Culture to the best published book of the year in 1992. (Commentary by Anita Bal).
Military maps for cartographic consultation
Atlas and portulan charts
The portulan charts, or portulanos, are maps that made possible the use of the compass. They appear in the thirteenth century and they continued being realized during centuries, although they are typical of the fourteenth and fifteenth century mainly. In the fourteenth century the Majorcan school, according to some it was founded by Raimon Llull, was the best one of the world, and the works of this school that have arrived to the present time are considered jewels of the medieval art. In the following century, the Portuguese school created by Enrique the Navigator in the south of Portugal, was the one that produced the best maps. In the sixteenth century the school of Seville published the map of Americo Vespucci, which gave name to the New Continent. Whereas until then atlases had tried to detail in them all the well-known things on land, sea and coast, the portulan charts solely detail the coastal cities and the lines of winds that serve to sail.
Travellers, itineraries and postal carrier routes of Valencia
Alexandre Louis Joseph
Marquess of Laborde, (n. Paris 1773 - 1842) He was a traveller, politician and art lover. Archaeologist of profession. He traveled through England, Holland, Italy and Spain. He served in the embassy of France in Madrid about 1800. During his diplomatic mission he knew the variety and beauty the country. He travelled with a team of artists to whom he directed in their notes and studies. After the Treaty of Aranjuez he returned to France and he published the works that were compiled during his trips through the peninsula, in collaboration with literary authors like Chateaubriand. In 1809 he published "L'Itinéraire descriptif de l'Espagne" and in 1818 "Voyage pittoresque et historique en Espagne". ". In 1808 the Emperor took him to Madrid, like good connoisseur of Spain; his wife was also chosen lady of honour of the Empress. He was appointed Count of the Empire in January 1810, because of his exceptional information and diplomatic work.
Vicente Boix y Ricarte
(Játiva 1813-Valencia 1880), writer, journalist and historian. He dedicated to education and later on to politics, occupying diverse positions in the General State Administration. Editor of El Huracán (1840-1843), Madrid. University professor of Latin and official chronicler of Valencia from 1848. President of the Real Academy of San Carlos and Honorary Member of the Real Economic Society of the Country of Valencia. He contributed to create in this city the Jocs Florals. As a poet he published "Poetic Works" in 1851, divided in historical and chivalrous. His most important work, still a must, is his monumental History of the city and kingdom of Valencia (1845-1847), in three volumes. He gathered part of his production in Selected Literary Works (1880).
Gustavo Doré
He was born in Strasbourg in 1832. Son of a Road, Canal and Port Engineer, at the age of thirteen he began to draw his first lithographies and at the age of fourteen he published his first album: "Les Travaux d' Hercules". At the age of fifteen Doré was hired as caricaturist in the "Journal pour rire" of Philipon. In 1854 the publisher Joseph Bry published an edition of the "Oeuvres" of Rabelais, illustrated with more than one hundred engravings of Doré.
Books of the collection Giménez Lorente on farmacopeas, medicine, botany and similar subjects
Pharmacopeia
Pharmacopeia is the set of books that compiles prescriptions with products of medicinal character in which it is included their composition and preparation. They were published from the Renaissance and later they would be of necessary use in the pharmacies. The Greek term pharmacopeia means "how to make medicines". The Pharmacy, (in Greek φάρμακον, "medicine"), is the practical science of the drug knowledge. It is also the place where the medicinal products are prepared and the place where they are dispensed, called formerly "pharmacy office". It can be considered as an area of the Medical Matter and it shares with the botany, chemistry, physics and anatomy the responsibility to use natural elements like therapeutic value, the knowledge on pharmaceutical products and the biological and chemical properties of the body where they will act.
Brief notes on its History
In the old Mesopotamia it was found a glass of Gudea, of the end of the 3er millenium BC , in which they are shown two serpents coil round a twig are represented (symbol that is even used nowadays in Pharmacy). A Sumerian doctor, from the end of this millennium, reunited written medical prescriptions on a small clay board of 16 cm. in length by 9.5 cm in width. It is the oldest known "Medicine Manual" and it was found buried among the ruins of Nippur. Some prescriptions went accompanied with detailed instructions. All the discovered set reveals the existence of advanced knowledge in chemical and organic properties. In the Code of Hammurabi, the honoraria (Conteneau) and responsibilities of the doctors are mentioned, as well as the existence of "veterinarians". Also the diseases are mentioned by which the purchase of slaves was annulled. The first work written in paper, of pharmaceutical interest that explains a series of vegetal elements and which parts of that vegetable to use, by its medicinal properties and the use for which it is possible to be applied, is in the treatise "De re medica" of Dioscórides. The "medieval pharmacy" inherited the remedies of the Antiquity through writings like those of Galen or those of Plinius Secundus among others. The writings reveal the ample knowledge that on the vegetal world the medieval clergymen had. Also the treatises of Arab doctors of the Middle Ages, like those of Rasis and Mesue, can be considered precursors of the pharmacopoeias; they are known as Akrabaddin. But the first pharmacopeia of the world is the "Florentine Recipe Book" of 1498. Shortly after the Fueros de las Medicinas of the union of Druggists of Valencia, (first Aragonese Agreement Book), would give rise to the first hand-written pharmacopeia. The Officina Medicamentorum printed volume initiate in 1601 by Valencian pharmacists of the Col.legi dels Apothecaris de la Ciutat y Regne de Valencia, (the oldest Pharmaceutical Association of the world), was finished in 1603. A year later it would be distributed through Spanish and foreign territories, pertaining then to the Crown of Aragon. In 1698 the second edition was realized. The Officina Medicamentorum was authorized by the king Felipe III and is considered like the First Spanish Pharmacopeia. The work is the code of specifications that are to satisfy medicines and their raw materials. It is therefore an official text of maximum importance, because it serves to guarantee the medicine manufacture and to assure the quality and protection of the health of the consumers. The First Real Spanish Pharmacopeia commemorated the appearance of the work Officina Medicamentorum, whose cover reproduced in a seal. Later each kingdom or city would produce its own pharmacopoeias. In the eighteenth century under the reign of the Bourbons it was unified like common pharmacopeia to all the Kingdom of Spain the diverse recipe books or local antidote books of the peninsular geography. First with the name of Pharmacopea Matritensis in 1739 and 1762. Later as the Real Pharmacopea Hispania, published from 1794 to 1954 with nine editions, until it has been unified to the European pharmacopeia in 1987. We exhibit some units of the collection on Pharmacopoeias that the Doctor Giménez Lorente has deposited in the Foundation.
Hippocrates
He lives in Greece from the 460 to the 370. BC. He is considered "father of the Medicine" because although at his time there were other famous doctors, even in their family, it is of him from whom his writings are conserved, entitled: "Hábeas hippocraticum" forming a total of 60 writings. His treatise on surgery contains in addition the well-known ethical norms like "Hippocratic Oath" that even nowadays the medicine students and professionals value.
Pedacio Dioscoride Anazarbeo
Medicinal matter. Dioscórides was born in Anazarbo (Cilicia) in unknown date. The little data that about him we have come from the chart that precedes to his treatise as preface and by the dedication to his friend Ario, doctor in Tarso. The mentions to their contemporaries and the fact that Galeno (2nd century A.D.) used his work, allow deducing that he lived under the mandate of Nero (between 54 and 68 d. C.). He was doctor in the Roman Navy in the days of Claudius and Nero and contemporary of Pliny the Elder. There are many doubts on which works are really his, the certain thing is that his Medicinal Matter is perhaps the medical work more times reedited and translated of history. Still today it continues being object of interest by numerous students.
Doctor Andres de Laguna, 1499-1559
Andres de Laguna was born in Segovia, son of a doctor, converted Jew. In the University of Salamanca he made the bachelor in Arts and in the one of Paris he studied Greek, medicine and botany. He was university professor of the University of Alcala and the University of Bologna appointed him doctor. He stood out like doctor of Emperor Carlos V and the Pope Julio III, among others. He took numerous trips distinguishing himself by his scientific, literary and political contributions in the Europe of the Renaissance. He made numerous translations and commentaries like: "Las cuatro elegantísimas y gravísimas oraciones de Cicerón contra Catilina", the "Treatise of Pedacio Dioscorides Anazarbeo", (that appears in the collection), "Diálogos de Luciano, De Mundo y De las Virtudes", work of Aristotle, "Philosophical History" of Galen, besides his original work, among which they appear the titled ones: "Discurso breve sobre la cura y preservación de la peste", the "Método de Anatomía", on the life of Galen, "Tratado de pesos y medidas medicinales", "Abecedario de los Dogmas o sentencias de Galeno sobre Hipócrates". Altogether more than thirty works. His death had to happen toward the end of 1559 or principle of the 1560. His mortal remains rested in the pantheon of Illustrious People of the State, and at the moment they are deposited in the Church of San Miguel de Segovia.
Arnaldus de Villa Nova or Arnau de Vilanova
He was born in Valencia in 1235-1240. In his native city he learned the Arab, for the Muslim writing study like those of the Avicena Teacher. Of the scholar of oriental studies Ramon Martí he learned the Hebrew, which extended the possibilities of studying Biblical, rabbinical and Talmudic texts. He studied Medicine in Montpellier, Paris and Naples. He was Medicine professor in the University of Montpellier, where he wrote his most famous works: The Parabolas. Doctor of Valencian origin, alchemist, astrologer and physicist. His relevance as a doctor was so great that he is known like the most famous of his time, counting among his patients and friendships the Kings of Aragon, Sicily, France and Naples and Popes Boniface VIII, Benedict XI and Clemente V. Monarchs like Pedro III el Grande, Alfonso el Liberal and Jaime II of Aragon, Federico II of Sicily, Robert of Naples and Philip the Fair of France required him, not only as a doctor but also as political and personal adviser. His theological disputes with the Dominican constituted a great scandal and he was saved from the Inquisition thanks to his relations with the monarchs and Pontiffs of the time, who gave their protection and friendship to him. He knew Raimundo Lulio, of whom he was tutor in Alchemy. Around the year 1313 he was invited to the court of Avignon by Pope Clemente V, but during the trip he became ill and died. Among his works they are conserved more than sixty that are catalogued like medical and chemical works, disregarding the theological ones. He was the inventor of the natural sweet wine.
Pharmacopoeias
Concordias (Agreement Books)
The Concordia was the compilation in the agreements among the public institutions, the doctors and the druggists. It was deposited in the trade union school and one periodically reviewed the utility and composition of products, updating the valuations or tariffs
Librettos with the official Legislations (Tarifas or Fueros of Medicines)
The first "Fueros of Medicines" (Medicine prices) are those of the druggists of Valencia, written already in Valencian language in 1449 and in agreement with the existing Agreement Books (Concordias). For the science of the childbirths two authors were recommended: the French Andres Levret, who published in Paris "L'art des acoouchements", and the Spanish José Ventura Pastor, authority in the subject according to his book "general Rules on the operations of the childbirths", 1789.
Rodrigo Pertegás related on legislation, customs and crafts of the Kingdom of Valencia, things so singular and strange for whom are not expert on the subject, that I include this text (elaborated by several authors), on the practice of the surgery in Valencia from the Reconquest in the thirteenth century , by its peculiar and ancient development. "The surgery had a long process for its recognition and consolidation. The formation included the theoretical knowledge acquisition, working during five years like assistants of an already recognized surgeon. However, different decrees conformed, throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the most specific regulation of their preparation, while they contributed to the consolidation of his profession. Together with the barbers, the Valencian surgeons tried to create and to strengthen their social prestige and their craft by means of a "corporation of craft", whose origin and evolution followed the following steps:
1283: we find for the first time the barbers like recognized craft.
1311: Jaime II approves the constitution of the brotherhood of barbers and surgeons of Valencia.
1392: Juan I approves the chapters of the "almoina dels barbers".
1433: Juan of Navarre, lieutenant of Alfonso V, approves the constitution of the barbers and surgeons association.
1458: the governor of Valencia ratifies the authorization so that they can meet freely in the Church of the Merced.
1462: an official reading of surgery maintained by the municipality is founded.
1478: Juan II grants a privilege by which the barber-surgeon craft is recognize as "art" and allows them to dissect corpses.
1481: Fernando II grants new privileges, elevating the social rank and estatus of the craft, to the one of the other craftsmen of the city.
1486: the chapters of the barbers and surgeons association are satisfied definitively, being approved by the the City Council.
1499: the medicine and surgery studies are incorporated to "studio General".
The surgery in the kingdom of Valencia
The exercise of the medicine and the surgery were put under controls established by the own city, according to the stipulated in the Fueros, or, in few cases, in the Real Courts. When they were exerted by the municipality, those that wished to exert the provided medicine and arrived at the city provided by their title sent by a General Study, they had to pass the examination and they were put under the examiners of the new municipality (whose existence we know as of 1336). The test consisted of diverse questions of theory and practice, whose specific content, as Garcia Ballester indicates, has not been able to reconstruct with exactitude. Once approved the aspiring surgeon, the act was sent by the examiners to the Civil Justice of the city that sent the opportune license to allow the free professional exercise.
Treatises of Botany
Study of the Flora and Vegetable Species Francesc Eiximenis
He was born in Gerona in 1327. He began to study in the Franciscan schools. He obtained the title of Theology in the University of Tolosa. He travelled to Oxford and Paris to complete his academic formation. When returning to Catalonia, he was dedicated to education, preaching and to carry out political managements ordered by the City council of Barcelona or Valencia, this last city was where he lived between 1383 and 1408 and where he wrote most of his work. Also he was adviser of the kings. He was a critically acclaimed man that even received on the part of Pope Benedict XIII the honorary title of "Patriarch of Jerusalem" and he - the Pope - entrusted the bishopric of Elna to him (at present French Catalonia). His extensive work, of religious and moralistic character, is written in Latin and Catalan. His most important work of the written ones in Catalan is "crestià" that in principle had to consist of thirteen volumes and to summarily contain "all the foundation of the Christianity". Nevertheless, four volumes are only known. Other later works are: Llibre dels àngels (1392), his most read and translated work. The Llibre de les dones (1396); Vita Christi (1403); Scala Dei or Tractat de Contemplació (1406). He dies in Perpignan in 1409..
Antonio José Cavanilles y Palop (Valencia, 1745 - Madrid, 1804)
Spanish botanist and naturalist. He studied at the University of Valencia, where he obtained the titles of teacher in Philosophy and doctor in Theology and became ordained in Oviedo in 1772. He was one of the first Spanish scientists in using the new taxonomic procedures of Linnaeus and one of the most important figures of the learned science in Spain. He crossed part of Spain classifying and inventorying the native flora, and during such investigations he discovered new species and he made a treatise in six volumes "Icones et descriptiones plantarum quae aut sponte in Hispaniae crescunt, aut in hortis hospitantu". Also he investigated the South American flora and he composed a "Glossary of botany in four languages". He founded the scientific magazine "Annals of Natural History", (or Annals of natural Sciences). And he published his "Observations on natural history, geography, agriculture, population and fruits of the kingdom of Valencia". He was partner of the Real Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Valencia that guards some of his original works and papers in its library and file. In 1801 he was appointed director of the Real Botanical Garden of Madrid, position that performed until his death.
Dr. Juan Teixidor y Cos
Iberian Pharmaceutical Flora. This work is considered a catalogue and complete index on pharmacology; with the determination of aspects and characteristics of the native and exotic products that provide pharmaceutical material.
Carlos Linnaeus: System of vegetables. Sweden 1707-Uppsala 1778
Naturalist who established the bases of the taxonomy. He studied medicine at the University of Lund and the University of Uppsala. The studies included drug elaboration and botany. He coincided with scientists like Celsius, Artedi, Roberg and Rudbek. At the age of 24 years, he created a new classification of the plants, by their reproductive organs, and he exposed it in his "Hortus uplandicus"..
Literature Bibliographical Collection
Thesaurus puerilis-barcinone 1580. The unit of 1580, the oldest of the collection of Dr. D. Luis Giménez Lorente, is indeed a Thesaurus Puérilis, of precarious binding in parchment and small format. The "Thesaurus puerilis" are a set of simple vocabularies that Onofhrio Povio, from Gerona, "Philosophiae candidate" at the University of Valencia, he published, paying for it himself, to complete the trilingual vocabulary Valencian-Catalan-Latin. The prince edition was realized in Valencia in 1575. In this Barcelonan edition of 1580 the text was hardly modified, with the important permanence of Valencian and the use of exclusive terms of this language. Onofre was a good Latinist and emphasized in his writings the etymological legitimacy of the derivatives of the Latin language in all meanings. (Ricardo Garcia Moya, taken from an article of November 1993).
Valencian Literature
The Valencian literary works were incorporated to those of the rest of Europe after the conquest of the Kingdom by Jaime I of Aragon, first third of the thirteenth century. The Romance languages (the vulgar language), were replacing the use of the Latin in documents and even in official writs. The first narrator in prose was the king D. Jaime himself, with his Crónica or Llibre de Feits; followed by his son D. Pedro (El Grande), like first poet in vernacular language. The first religious theatre manifestations in the kingdom of Valencia are contemporary to these kings: "The song of the Sibil-la", simple popular composition, and the "Consueta del Misteri de Elx", of 1265, when the king takes the city of Elche. But the period of maximum splendour took place during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, coinciding with the priority of Valencia like port of the Mediterranean. The Literature of the time is very abundant in authors of prestige like: Arnau de Vilanova, the Marchs, Gilabert de Pròixita, or Francesc Eiximens and Vicente Ferrer, these last ones recognized in the European scope. The introduction in the city of the first press in 1474 increased the possibilities of diffusion of literary works. Writers like Ausias March, Jordi de Sant Jordi or Joanot Martorell, author of the Tirant Lo Blanc; along with many others Valencians: Corellá, Sister Isabel de Villena or Jaume Roig, initiator of the satirical school so typical of these our people, that set the trent and literary tradition that would last through the following centuries. In the sixteenth and part of the seventeenth century the Literature contains texts of very varied thematic, published to a large extent in the printing presses of the city or by Valencian printers, which entailed the creation of typesetter factories that reached reputation. The facsimiles or commentaries to old chronicle books and memories, or the philosophical and humanist treatises became fashionable once more. In this way the Decades, the Antiques and the transcriptions of previous Chronicles arrive to us, realized by the great authors of every literary moment: Gaspar Escolano, Ortí, Beuter, Luis Vives, Palmireno or also the reprintings of poets and students of past centuries, like Jaume Roig or Vinyoles or peculiar anonymous which, again, with the quick and trustworthy means of reproduction of the present technique, allows us to enjoy facsimiles of great quality, in their beautiful editions and their exceptional contents
The Valencian Humanism. Valencia fifteenth to sixteenth century
After the reign of Alfonso V the Magnanimous that culminated with the conquest of Naples in 1441, the prosperity arrived at the city of Valencia. The last half of the fifteenth century had a great economic, social and cultural development. The mystical and religious interest had influenced in all Europe, before the fear to the death during the times of plague that were past, nevertheless, in Valencia, with the blossoming of its commerce and its artistic splendour of its Late Gothic artistic university that was just founded, (1499), these discussions were not considered, as it happened in France and Germany. The works of Joanot Martorell, Joan Roig de Corella and Sor Isabel de Villena among others were testimony of their time and of values that were disappearing. Only a century after the publication of the Tirant Lo Blanc, Cervantes, in the Quixote will mention it like one of books of chivalry that escaped the carnage, like something despicable. The discovery of America nevertheless, was the end of the time of prosperity of the city when turning aside the commerce towards the new Atlantic routes. The importance of this commerce announced the arrival of a new world marked by the development of navigation and the search of new ports and routes to reach the great markets of the Indians. The Mediterranean remained small, its states isolated, its ports in decay. Valencia was outside the commercial routes of the Atlantic that was Castilian monopoly. Its institutional category, in the new frame of the imperial monarchy, was displaced by Castile and Portugal. The intellectuality of the city concentrated in the development of the jurisprudence and the study of the classics, forming a new generation of freethought authors that with time would give rise to the Valencian Humanism. The society understood the vision of the Humanism and the change of the manifestations of the Renaissance thanks to works and the authors outside Spain and to the own displacements of Valencian towards Italy and the Netherlands, mainly, emphasizing the figure of Luis Vives, Lorenzo Palmireno, Guillermo Estii or the studies of Vicente Ferrer. Other Valencian authors, almost unknown, have been appearing in foreign libraries and collections, since the work interchange was habitual, and because they presented the humanist Valencian thought to the rest of Europe and vice versa. The implantation of the first printing press, the artistic tradition and the improvement of the impression techniques, did not last in creating the last scientific tendencies: the cartography, the maps, the routes…. until forming workshops and schools in the Kingdom. Many of them, original or facsimiles, comprise this collection, accompanied by texts of the thinkers of the time… all a comfort for the consultation and confrontation
Juan Luis Vives
He was born in Valencia in 1492, year of the conquest of Granada and discovery of America. The family of Vives were rich Jewish retailers. At the age of fifteen Juan Luis Vives began to study in the just founded University of Valencia. In 1509 his father, worried about the look that took the process against his family, he decided to send his son to study at the University of the Sorbonne in Paris to extend his knowledge. He finished his studies with the doctor degree and moved to Belgium where some families of Valencian merchants lived, among them the one of his future woman, Margarida Valldaura. In the academic life of Louvain he knew Erasmus of Rotterdam, next to this one and others took place the most exciting discussions of the European humanists. In 1523 Wosley cardinal of London chose him as reader of the School of Corpus Christi, position that involved to be appointed chancellor of the King of England, Enrique VIII and his Spanish wife queen Catherine of Aragon. In the Court he met Thomas More. In 1526 one moved to Bruges, where he found out the sentence to death of his friend Thomas More for being against to the divorce of the king. Vives did in Bruges his work, "Treatise of the aid of the poor men", where he systematized the organization of aid to the poor men and how it should be done. He was the first person in Europe in taking to the practice an "organized service of social attendance" and therefore the precursor of the future organization of the social services in Europe, and one of the precursors of the intervention of the State in the attendance towards the needed ones. In the last years of his life he became a reformer of the European education and a moralistic philosopher of universal stature. He replaced medieval texts by other new ones, with a vocabulary adapted to the time. On May 6th 1540 he died in his house of Bruges. He was buried in the church of Sint Donaas.
Juan Lorenzo Palmireno
He was born in Alcañiz, Teruel, in 1524 and died in Valencia in 1579; his true last name is Roca. He was a humanist trained in the Studia Humanitatis of Alcañiz, he continued his studies in Saragossa and the General Study of Valencia, where he obtained the Poetry chair in 1550 and where his first publications of educational character were realized. He was an excellent dramatist, Hellenist and Latinist, and wrote humanistic comedies with didactic purpose. His main works are: "Dialogus" and a fable titled "Fabella Aenaria" (Valencia, 1574). Five comedies: Sigonia, Thalassina, Octavia, Lobenia and Trebiana, of which we only have left fragments. Comedies are written using several mixed languages: Latin, Greek, Castilian, Valencian, Italian and even Portuguese. Palmireno published one hundred fifty works. He studied and he admired the work of Erasmus of Rotterdam and Luis Vives. It is necessary to emphasize the "Vocabulary of measures and currencies" (1563) and the "Vocabulary of the humanist" of 1569. He wrote a "Rhetórica", in two parts, published between 1546 and 1565. Although the work of greatest literary interest is "the student in the village", an autobiographical story.
Vincent Ferrer
He was born in Valencia, in 1350; the city has just undergone along with the rest of Europe the "Black Plague". He belonged to a rich family since his father was a notary; their godfathers of Baptism made possible that as of 1357 he enjoyed the benefit of Santa Ana in the Parish of Saint Thomas and that he initiated studies of Latin in the existing Schools in the city. In February of 1367 he took the habit in the Real Convent of Preachers of Dominican parents, resigning to the indicated ecclesiastical benefit of Santa Ana. By his great intellectual qualities, they sent him to study to Barcelona and in 1368 he was professor of Logic in Lerida. He prolonged his studies of specialization in Toulouse (France). His love to the Bible and the knowledge of Hebrew and studies on Saint Thomas Aquinas stood out. The philosophical formation is reflected in his two Treatises, written at the age of 22. In 1377 the return of the Popes to Rome took place, who were in Avignon since 1309. But it was not going to be decisive. When dying Gregorio XI in 1378, the Archbishop of Bari, with the name of Urban I was chosen in the conclave. The flight of the French cardinals, the absence of one of the voters and the cause of the Spanish cardinal Pedro de Luna, made that a group of voters proclaimed null the selection and Clemente VII would be chosen. The Christendom was divided in two. Vicente Ferrer left a Treatise on the Modern Schism in 1380, in which with theological reasons and of Canonical Right he tried to convince that the legitimate Pope was the one of the avignonense line. Once Pedro de Luna was chosen Pope, (Benedict XIII), in 1394, he called him to his side in Peníscola and he appointed him as his confessor. Cardinalities dignities and bishoprics were offered to him that always he rejected; suffering as much by the division of the Church that he was absented of the papal palace to lodge in the Convent of Dominican of the city. To the inner suffering the disease was added. During his illness in 1398, a supernatural vision changed his life: he would be dedicated since then to the travelling preaching, crossing great zones of Western Europe. San Vicente Ferrer is patron saint of the Valencian Community (Spain). Pedro Ranzano was the first biographer of Saint Vincent from whom we have taken these notes.
Memories and Chronicles of Valencia in the sixteenth century
Topics in Language
In the library Giménez Lorente we found a book group, varied at time, edition and approach on the Valencian language, its historical and etymological origins, and first typesetter impressions of thesaurus, dictionaries or treatises on the language. It is evident his preoccupation and interest by the oral expression of his land, its repercussion beyond the borders of the Kingdom, in the centuries of splendour and expansion of the Habsburg Spain, like of the contemporary consequences. Also it is necessary to emphasize small treatises or compilations of proverbs, sayings, songs or curiosities of the Valencian town and some volumes of periodic publications, (some of exceptional typesetter and documentary value), that pick up subjects of the moment and that are, if not of scientific interest, of human and social information of our ancestors. With great quality chalcography and artistic perfection of the drawing.
Periodic publications of the nineteenth century
The periodic publications of which there are several units in the collection G. Lorente, keep, as a chronological file, events, fashions, thoughts, concepts, representations and art in their immediate social context, that makes them extremely interesting and with a freshness of exhibition hardly equalable. Between his printed leaves, of great beauty according to the publication, it stays alive the language, history, the controversy, the art like daily human effort. Some of their pages have been chosen like anecdotal curiosity, by the graphically represented motif or the text or the people who realize it. In this page of the publication it is peculiar to read the collaborator names, famous people nowadays by their literary or historical works, like Benito Traver, Teodoro Llorente, Almela y Vives, Carreres Zacarés, Sarthou Carreres, Nicolas Primitiu, Lluis Guarner… etc.
Complete collection of the Work of Fr. Jeronimo Feijoo : "Universal Critical Theatre" 1786.
Fray Benito Jerónimo Feijoo y Montenegro Orense, 1676 - Oviedo, 1764)
Since very young he belonged to the Benedictine Order of San Benito of Nursia. He became ordained Priest in the monastery of San Juan de Samos, Lugo. He studied in Salamanca and he obtained the chair of Theology in the University of Oviedo where he resided until his death. Feijoo is considered the first essay writer of Spanish Literature and the representative of the pre-illustrated Spanish or novatores or and came to represent for Spain, what the Encyclopaedia represented for France. His work, is collections of "controversial opuscules" that he called speeches (of complete Collection of the Work of Fr. Jerónimo Feijoo : "Universal Critical Theatre" 1786. to reason, that is to say, to discourse freely), true essays if the freedom of his thought had been absolute. It consists of 8 volumes (118 speeches) of his "Universal Critical Theatre", published between 1724 and 1739, (the title "theatre" has to be understood with the meaning of "panorama" or whole general vision), and another one, of 5 volumes of "erudite and peculiar letters", (166 essays), published between 1724 and 1760. To these works it is necessary to add also a volume of "Additions", published in 1783 and his abundant private correspondence, unpublished until today. As a peculiar thing in the 4th volume of his Erudite and Peculiar Letters, the 20th, deals with the Treatise of Augustin Calmet on vampires.
Bibliographical curiosities
Hobbies in accordance with the Medicine
Facsimile reproduction of the work of King Alfonso X the Wise , on known mineral substances and their curative or applied properties, as a function of the season and the and the corresponding zodiacal or astral constellation in the night sky. In some more contemporary units of Chemistry or Geology are found similarities and relations about the subject. Alfonso X, of Castile, called the Wise, son of Fernando III el Santo and Beatriz of Suabia, re-conqueror of Seville and venerated in all Andalusia. Son-in-law of King Jaime I the Conqueror of Valencia. Author of the Cantigas de Santa Maria - Songs to the Virgin Mary - and treatises on different subjects: chess, hunting, dice… he drove the jurisprudence and the understanding between the three cultures in the peninsula: Muslim, Jewish and the language and culture of Castile. His greatest achievement was the School of Translators of Toledo.
Segismundo Malats
The birth of veterinary education in Spain. Veterinary education was born in 1792, and it does under the sponsorship of the Army of the Bourbons. His introduction. He starts with the policy of grants undertaken by Carlos III when sending to Paris Bernardo Rodriguez, veterinary surgeon of the Real Stables, in 1776, to study veterinary medicine. Later, in 1784, Segismundo Malats and Hipólito Estévez were also granted, marshals (military veterinary) of the Regiments of Dragoons of Almansa and Lusitania, respectively. Thanks to Manuel Godoy, Prince of the Peace, and the creation of the first Real School of Veterinary medicine of the Court. His first location was realized in the lands that at the moment occupy the National Library and all this like a preconceived plan to impel science, concentrating all its knowledge throughout the Atocha-Alcala-Calm axis. It is possible to say that the Spanish Veterinary medicine was born in a lucky day since it did it in the denominated "Hill of Sciences". This is a brief narration of the evolution of the profession from 1792 to the present time, without forgetting for that reason other more distant antecedents like the Court the Protoalbeiterato, institution created by Catholic Monarchs in 1500 to regulate the exercise of the animal medicine, long before other European countries made it.
Manuel de Godoy y Alvarez de Faria
He was born in Castuera, Badajoz, 1767. He received a good education, because he belonged to one old Extremaduran family of Badajoz, with family seat in Castuera. Several ancestors of Godoy belonged to Military Orders of Santiago and Calatrava, just as the same as he and two of his brothers (one of them was master of both orders). Like governor, he was a decided supporter of the culture, he suppressed censorships, he let enter encyclopaedist books and was the one who authorized the return of the Jews to Spain. The educative and cultural inheritance of Godoy is far beyond the one of any other period: Creation of the Real Medicine School, the Engineers and Cosmographers Corps, the schools of Veterinary medicine, Deaf and Dumb School, Watchmaking School, the Astronomical observatory, the Botanical Garden, the museums Hydrographic and of Industry. He ordered the first regulation for doctors and pharmacists, supported publications and expeditions of botanical studies, etc.
Mateo Pedro Orfila
He was born in Mahón (Menorca) in 1787 and died in Paris in 1853. Author of the book "Elements of Medical Chemistry with application to the Pharmacy and the Arts", with interesting original drawings. Being in Paris as student during the War of Independence, he got ahead like a doctor and toxicologist, being appointed doctor of Luis XVIII. He was university professor of Legal Medicine in Paris and president of the Association of Doctors of Paris. At the moment the Orfila Museum is the main museum of anatomy of France. Others of his singular works are: "Aids that are to be given to the Poisoned or Asphyxiating ones", "Suitable Means to recognize adulterated poisons and wines, and to distinguish the true death of the apparent one".
Michaud
Historian, born in Albens, Savoy in 1767; he died in Passy 30th September 1839. In 1808 he published the first volume of the "History of the Crusade". In the same year he founded with his brother the "Universal Biography". He was member of the French Academy in 1814, during the Restoration. In May of 1830 he made a trip to the East and Holy Land to study the facets of the Eastern life and thus to add a more realistic colour (romantic) to the narrations of his "History of the Crusade". His work was one of the first productions of the historical school that, inspired by works of Chateaubriand, restored the Middle Ages in a place of honour. He accompanied his work with a "Bibliothèque des Croisades" (Paris, 1829, 4 vols.), containing translations to the French of European and Arab chronicles related to the same. He collaborated with Poujoulat, but he could not complete the final edition.
The Wars of Flanders
Famiano Estrada. 1572-1649. Italian, historian and Jesuit. He is the author of "the Wars of Flanders, from the death of Emperor Carlos V, to the principle of the Government of Alexandro Farnese, third Duke of Parma and Placencia", and 2ª part that appears here. His works were translated in Romance by the father Melchor de Novar, of the same Society of Jesus. It was corrected and amended by Doctor de Bonne-Maison. Colony, 1682. They are 2 volumes in folio. The engraving of frontis is signed by Schoonebeck, and the engravings of scenes of battles by Luyken and in volume III by Decker. Binding is of Spanish wood pulp with nerves and spine-labels. Guillelmo Dondino of the Society of Jesus wrote up the Third War of Flanders in 1749.
Topics in Religious Thought
In the collection of Doctor Luis Giménez Lorente it is necessary to emphasize old and valuable texts of religious subject: theological or pietistic, that goes from the enchantment and naiveté of the Marian subject, to the traditional ones of the liturgy, psalms and the homilies about them. Three books of small format. Their value is based, besides the antiquity, in the difference with the other subjects that predominate in the collection, like the one of "Flower and Fruit of the most sacred rose tree", poetic denomination of the Christian rosary and the indulgences granted to these devotions. Its author is Fray Jose Agramunt, of the order of Preachers or Dominican Parents eighteenth century; or the Life of Our Lady by Father Juan Antonio S.J. or the work of Guillelmi Estii..
