Etienne Pierre Ventenat , born with Limoges on March 1st 1757 and died in Paris the August 13rd 1808, is a Botaniste French.

Biography

He enters the orders initially and becomes the director of the ecclesiastical library of the Holy-Genevieve. It is at the time of a voyage in Great Britain that he discovers the English gardens and that he decides to devote himself to science. He leaves the orders with the Revolution and collaborates with Charles Louis the Heir to Brutelle (1746-1800). He publishes in 1792, a Dissertation on the parts of Foams who were looked like male flowers and female flowers and a Mémoire on the best means of distinguishing the chalice from the corolla .

In 1794, it makes appear the Principes of botany, explained to the republican College by Ventenat (Sallior, Paris, year III), the plants being drawn and being engraved by Sophie Dupuis. But Ventenat finds the work very poor and tries to repurchase all the specimens of them to destroy them. He is elected member resident of first class at the National institute of sciences and arts (today Academy of Science) the 22 frimaire year IV (December 13rd 1795) in the section of botany and vegetable physics.

Its Tableau of the vegetable kingdom according to the method of Jussieu (printing works of J. Drisonnier, Paris, four volumes, year VII), which appears in 1798, is not in fact that translation of the work of Genera plantarum Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1836), but which it supplements by indications on the uses and the history of the plants.

What establishes its fame is the publication of two works, magnificiently illustrated, Description of the new and little known plants, cultivated in the garden of J. - M. Concealments (printing works of Crapelet, Paris, year VIII - 1799) and the Jardin of Malmaison (printing works of Crapelet, Paris, year XI - 1803). Are the illustrations carried out by Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840) and are engraved by François No5el Sellier (1737-?), this last being assisted by other engravers for the second work. The Jardin of Malmaison answers the wish of Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763-1814) which wanted immortaliser the rare plants, sometimes unknown of the botanists, coming from all the areas of the world, that it had made plant in the gardens and the greenhouses of the Château of Malmaison. It engages the best illustrator of the time, Redouté, and entrusts to Ventenat the botanical part. The work will count twenty deliveries.

It finishes the Histoire of mushrooms of France, or Treated elementary, containing in a methodical order descriptions and the figures of the mushrooms which grow naturally, in France (Leblanc, Paris, three volumes 1812) started with Pierre Bulliard (1742-1793). It leaves unfinished a Flore of the Paris region .

His/her brother, Louis Ventenat (1765-1794), takes part as chaplain and naturalist in the forwarding of Antoine Bruny d' Entrecasteaux (1737-1793) in the search of Jean-François of Perugia (1741-1788).

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