A Re-examination of Cesalpino’s Classification

In all works dealing with the history of botany a more or less important place is allocated to Cesalpino’s “De Plantis Libri XVI”, (1583). This is easily comprehensible for even a cursory inspection of this book can not fail to impress us with the author’s originality and his unusual gifts for analysis and exposition. The most important part of the work, viz. the books II-XVI, is devoted to a survey of the plants that were known at that time, and contains an attempt to arrive in a truly scientific way at a classification of the latter, and if the reader is acquainted with the earlier works in which a survey of the plant world is given, he will realize that Cesalpino was the first to make such an attempt. It is, however, not only the novelty of the enterprise that excites our admiration, but also the acumen with which it is carried into effect. Unfortunately, but few botanists seem to have read the book, and even the majority of the authors on the history of botany apparently did not deem this necessary. At least, most of them based their conclusions on the abstract given by Linne in his “Classes Plantarum”, and this abstract is, as I will show hereafter, very incomplete and in some respects even incorrect. A laudable exception to this rule is found in the essay on Morxson and Ray that Vines contributed to Oliver’s “Makers of British Botany”; Vines’ survey of Cesalpino’s system differs but in minor points from the one given below. In Sachs’ “Geschichte der Botanik”, of which an English edition appeared under the title “History of Botany”, an analysis of Cesalpino’s work is found that deserves our special attention. It is true that Sachs’ conclusions with regard to Cesalpino’s classification are based on the abstract given by Linne and are therefore untrustworthy, but his exposition differs from that of all earlier authors in the thoroughness with which he discusses the contents of the last three chapters of Book I, in which Cesalpino expounds the principles on which his classification is based, and in which he tries to justify their choice. It appears that Sachs was fully aware of the truly scientific spirit with which these chapters are imbued, and by which they tower high above all that ever before had been written on this subject. In fact, Cesalpino was in this respect so far ahead of his time that for the next hundred years nobody seems to have understood him. Sachs certainly displayed a great admiration for Cesalpino’s genius, but he was nevertheless not sufficiently impartial to do him full justice. The reason for this somewhat contradictory attitude is to be sought in his aversion for Cesalpino’s philosophical standpoint.