Andrea Cesalpino ( Andreas Caesalpinus in Latin and Andre Césalpin in French), born the Tuscan June 6th 1519 with Arezzo in and dead the February 23rd 1603 with Rome, was a Philosophe, Médecin, Naturaliste and Italian Botaniste .

Biography

Andrea Cesalpino studies with the Université of Pisa. Its professor of Médecine is Realdo Colombo († 1559) and that of Botanique Luca Ghini. After its studies, he teaches a long time, at the same university, the Philosophie, the Médecine and the Botanique.

He makes many herborizings in Italy. Cesalpino succeeds Ghini with the head of the Botanical garden of Pisa in 1554, function which it will occupy until in 1558.

It is destined for Rome to teach medicine and to be the personal doctor of the Pape Clément VIII which appointed it professor of medicine to the college of Sapience.

The writings of Cesalpino are not always easy to include/understand. Like philosopher, it is pointed out by its major knowledge of the writings of Aristote. Its writings carry the influence of Averroès and shows it inclined with the Panthéisme. Its philosophical work most important is Quaestionum peripateticarum libri V (appeared with Florence in 1569) where Cesalpino studies the thought of Aristote.

He kisses the sect of the Averroïstes, representative God, not as the cause, but like the bottom and the substance of all things, which makes it show Panthéisme and even of Athéisme. However, the Catholic Encyclopedia indicates that there had remained catholic all its life.

In Medicine, he suspected one of the first, following his Master Realdo Colombo, the circulation the blood. Like Naturalist, he recognized the sex in the flowers and invented the first method of botany: he based his classification on the shape of the flower, the fruit, and on the number of seeds. Its most important work is certainly Of plantis libri XVI (appeared with Florence in 1583). This book is close to the former herbaria and present a botanical theory, near to that derived from the thought aristotelician. It describes approximately: 1500 species which it tries to classify according to a system allowing an easy later determination. It follows besides the precepts of Théophraste. It makes a broad place with its own observations and experiments. It rejects the systems of classification based on artificial criteria (like the taste, the medicinal uses or the alphabetical order) and tries to find a system natural.

Contrary to the other herbaria, it does not contain any illustration, because Cesalpino estimates that only the text makes it possible to describe precisely all the characteristics contrary to the charts.

Cesalpino approaches in a very innovative way the study of the plants and plant the modern bases of vegetable morphology and physiology. It evokes the nutrition of the plants thus and basing itself on the Euphorbe S which let run a milky juice when a sheet is cut, makes an analogy with the blood circulation in the animals.

Conrad Gessner, he considers that the basic element for classification is the species based on the principle of the reproduction with its similar and grants much importance to the reproductive bodies.

He also studies the Chimie, the Minéralogie and the Géologie. In Of metallicis libri very (published with Rome in 1596), it shows a good comprehension of the Fossile S.

The philosophical doctrines of Cesalpino were fought by Samuel Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, and by Nicolas Taurel, doctor of Montbeliard, which denounced it with the Inquisition.

Its principal works are: Quaestiones peripateticae , Florence, 1569; Daemonum investigatio , 1580: it fights there the magic and the Sorcellerie; Ars medica , Rome, 1601; Of plantis , Florence, the 1583, most important of all; Of metallis , 1596, work which has less of value.

Charles Plumier dedicates a kind of plant to him, the Caesalpinia of the family of the Légumineuse S.

Partial source

Homages

• Its statue, by Pio Fedi, figure in one of the niches devoted to the great men, the Piazzale of the Offices of Florence.