Paolo Boccone
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
botanist from Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, whose interest in plants had been sparked at a young age. Born in a rich family, he was able to dedicate most of his life to the study of botany.
Life
Born in PalermoPalermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, he often visited the botanical garden
Botanical garden
A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...
(l'Orto Botanico) founded in Messina by the Roman
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
doctor Pietro Castelli
Pietro Castelli
Pietro Castelli was an Italian physician and botanist.Born at Rome, he was graduated in 1617 and studied under the botanist Andrea Cesalpino . He was professor at Rome from 1597 until 1634, when he went to Messina...
, who became his instructor. He traveled across Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, to Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and took a doctor's degree in Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
. He published Recherches et observations naturelles (Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, 1671; illustrated and greatly enlarged edition Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, 1674), which concerned itself with various theories of nature, and supplied important contributions to the fields of palaeontology, medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
and toxicology
Toxicology
Toxicology is a branch of biology, chemistry, and medicine concerned with the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms...
.
He was employed as court botanist to Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Ferdinando II de' Medici was grand duke of Tuscany from 1621 to 1670. He was the eldest child of Cosimo II de' Medici and Maria Maddalena of Austria. His 49 year rule was punctuated by the terminations of the remaining operations of the Medici Bank, and the beginning of Tuscany's long economic...
as well as to Ferdinando's son, Cosimo III.
In the work Museo di piante rare della Sicilia, Malta, Corsica, Italia, Piemonte, e Germania (1697), Boccone described many rare plants of Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
, and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. A fungus
Fungus
A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds , as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...
scientifically named Pisolithus tinctorius
Pisolithus tinctorius
Known in Australia as the horse dung fungus and in Europe as the Bohemian truffle, Pisolithus tinctorius is a widespread earth-ball like fungus, which may in fact be several closely related species....
was called in the Sicilian dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
catatùnfuli, and Boccone writes that this fungus was employed by the women of Messina in order to dye
Dye
A dye is a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and requires a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
cloth.
In 1682, Boccone entered the order of the Cistercians and took the name Silvio.
Boccone had been widely regarded by the scientific community, and was in contact with many European naturalists. The French botanist Charles Plumier
Charles Plumier
Charles Plumier was a French botanist, after whom the Frangipani genus Plumeria is named. Plumier is considered one of the most important of the botanical explorers of his time...
studied under him at Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
Boccone died in Altofonte
Altofonte
Altofonte is a comune in the Province of Palermo in the Italian region Sicily, located about 9 km southwest of Palermo....
in the monastery of Santa Maria di Altofonte, not far from Palermo.
Plumier
Charles Plumier
Charles Plumier was a French botanist, after whom the Frangipani genus Plumeria is named. Plumier is considered one of the most important of the botanical explorers of his time...
named the genus Bocconia
Bocconia
Bocconia is a genus of flowering plants in the poppy family, Papaveraceae, that contains about 10 species. Carl Linnaeus chose the name to honor the Italian botanist Paolo Boccone .-Selected species:*Bocconia arborea Watson...
, in the family of the Papaveraceae
Papaveraceae
Papaveraceae, informally known as the poppy family, are an economically important family of 44 genera and approximately 770 species of flowering plants in the order Ranunculales. The family is cosmopolitan, occurring in temperate and subtropical climates, but almost unknown in the tropics...
, after him, a name that was later adopted by Linnaeus
Carolus Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus , also known after his ennoblement as , was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology...
.
Works
This list was retrieved from Bibliothèque interuniversitaire Santé, Paris:- Recherches & observations touchant le corail, la pierre étoilée, les pierres de figure de coquilles, etc...., Amsterdam, 1674.
- Recherches et observations naturelles. Amsterdam: Chez Jean Jansson, 1674.
- Icones et descriptiones rariorum plantarum Siciliae, Melitae, Galliae et Italiae... auctore Paulo Boccone,... (Edidit R. Morison.), Oxford, e theatro Sheldoniano, 1674. In-4 ? , XVI-96 p., fig.
- Icones et descriptiones rariorum plantarum Siciliae, Melitae, Galliae et Italiae... auctore Paulo Boccone,...cum praefatione Roberti Mossiockii, Lugduni, apud Robertum Scott, 1674.
- Novitiato ala segreteria del signore Paolo Boccone, gentiluomo di Palermo, lettura grata non meno a principi che a loro segretari, per mostrare con faciltà e brevità l'arte d'un accorto secretario, Genuae, apud haeredes Calenziani, sd. In-12°.
- Osservazioni naturali, ove si contengono materie medico-fisiche, e di botanica, produzioni naturali fossofori diversi, fuochi sotterranei d'Itali e altre curiosità, disposte en trattati familiari, Bononiae, apud Monolessos, 1684. In-12°.
- Lettre de Monsieur Boccone,... écrite à Mr. l'Abbé Bourdelot,... touchant l'embrasement du mont Etna, S. l. n. d. In-12, paginé 67-78, carte.
- Museo di fisica e di esperienze variato e decorato di osservazioni naturali, note medicinali..., Venetia : J. B. Zuccato, 1697. In-4 ? , VIII-319 p., pl. et portr.
- Della pietra Belzuar minerale siciliana lettera familiare, Monteleoni, apud Dominicum Ferrum, 1669.
- Museo di piante rare della Sicilia, Malta, Corsica, italia, Piemonte e Germania con figure 133 in rame, Venetiis, apud Ioannem Baptistam Zuccarum, 1697.
- Epistola botanica
- Recherches et observations naturelles touchant le corail, pierre estoilee, embrasement du mont Etna, Parisiis, apud Baloin ad Palatum, 1672.
- Museum experimentale-physicum, complectens observationes eruditis et curiosis, Francofurti, apuc Michaelem Rohrbach, 1697. In-12°.
Named after Boccone
- The genusGenusIn biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
BocconiaBocconiaBocconia is a genus of flowering plants in the poppy family, Papaveraceae, that contains about 10 species. Carl Linnaeus chose the name to honor the Italian botanist Paolo Boccone .-Selected species:*Bocconia arborea Watson...
L.Carolus LinnaeusCarl Linnaeus , also known after his ennoblement as , was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology...
Among others, the following species:
- Achillea bocconii W.D.J.Koch (AchilleaAchilleaAchillea is a genus of about 85 flowering plants, in the family Asteraceae, commonly referred to as yarrow. They occur in Europe and temperate areas of Asia. A few grow in North America. These plants typically have frilly, hairy, aromatic leaves....
, AsteraceaeAsteraceaeThe Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...
) - Alsine bocconi Scheele (= Spergularia bocconiSpergularia bocconiSpergularia bocconi is a species of the Spergularia genus, in the Caryophyllaceae family. It is named after the Sicilian botanist Paolo Boccone. Scheele first published it as Alsine bocconi in 1843. It was transferred to the genus Spergularia by Graebner in 1919...
(Scheele) Graebn.) (Alsine, CaryophyllaceaeCaryophyllaceaeThe Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Caryophyllales in the APG III system, alongside 33 other families, including Amaranthaceae, Cactaceae and Polygonaceae...
) - Chiliadenus bocconei Brullo (= Jasonia bocconei (Brullo) M.Pardo & R.Morales) (ChiliadenusChiliadenusChiliadenus is a genus of flowering plants in the daisy family....
, JasoniaJasoniaJasonia is a genus of flowering plants in the daisy family....
, AsteraceaeAsteraceaeThe Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...
) - Eryngium bocconi Lam.Jean-Baptiste LamarckJean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de la Marck , often known simply as Lamarck, was a French naturalist...
(EryngiumEryngiumEryngium is a genus in the family Apiaceae of about 230 species of annuals and perennials with hairless and usually spiny leaves, and dome-shaped umbels of flowers resembling those of thistles. The genus has a cosmopolitan distribution, with the centre of diversity in South America. Some species...
, ApiaceaeApiaceaeThe Apiaceae , commonly known as carrot or parsley family, is a group of mostly aromatic plants with hollow stems. The family is large, with more than 3,700 species spread across 434 genera, it is the sixteenth largest family of flowering plants...
) - Euphrasia bocconi Guss. (= Odontites bocconei (Guss.) Walp.Wilhelm Gerhard WalpersWilhelm Gerhard Walpers was a German botanist. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation Walp. when citing a botanical name.-Works:*Repertorium botanices systematicæ...
) (EuphrasiaEuphrasiaEuphrasia is a genus of about 450 species of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Orobanchaceae , with a cosmopolitan distribution. They are semi-parasitic on grasses and other plants...
, OdontitesOdontitesOdontites is a genus of flowering plants in the family Orobanchaceae. One of its species, the Odontites granatensis, endemic to the Sierra Nevada in Spain, was so threatened that in 1993 only 1,500 plants survived in two locations; due to conservation efforts the plant has made a comeback,...
, ScrophulariaceaeScrophulariaceaeScrophulariaceae, the figwort family, are a family of flowering plants. The plants are annual or perennial herbs with flowers with bilateral or rarely radial symmetry. Members of the Scrophulariaceae have a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority found in temperate areas, including...
) - Heliotropium bocconi Guss. (HeliotropiumHeliotropiumHeliotropium is a genus of flowering plants in the borage family, Boraginaceae. There are 250 to 300 species in this genus, which are commonly known as heliotropes ....
, BoraginaceaeBoraginaceaeBoraginaceae, the Borage or Forget-me-not family, include a variety of shrubs, trees, and herbs, totaling about 2,000 species in 146 genera found worldwide.A number of familiar plants belong to this family....
) - Helleborus bocconei Ten.Michele TenoreMichele Tenore was an Italian botanist active in Naples, Italy.Tenore studied at the University of Naples, receiving his medical degree in 1800...
(Helleborus, RanunculaceaeRanunculaceaeRanunculaceae are a family of about 1700 species of flowering plants in about 60 genera, distributed worldwide....
) - Jurinea bocconi Guss. (Jurinea, AsteraceaeAsteraceaeThe Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...
) - Seseli bocconi Guss. (SeseliSeseliSeseli is a genus of herbaceous perennial plants. They are sometimes woody at base with a conic taproot. Leaf blades are 1–3-pinnate or pinnately decompound. Umbels are compound, with bracts few or absent...
, ApiaceaeApiaceaeThe Apiaceae , commonly known as carrot or parsley family, is a group of mostly aromatic plants with hollow stems. The family is large, with more than 3,700 species spread across 434 genera, it is the sixteenth largest family of flowering plants...
) - Tanacetum bocconii Sch.Bip. (TanacetumTanacetumTanacetum is a genus of about 160 species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to many regions of the Northern Hemisphere.Common names include Tansy , Costmary , and Feverfew ; several other species are also known as tansies.Tanacetum species...
, AsteraceaeAsteraceaeThe Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...
)
External links
L'herbier de Paolo Boccone- ((Italian)) http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/no_cache/dms/load/img/?IDDOC=274375 Museo di fisica e di esperienze variato e decorato di osservazioni naturali, note medicinali..