Nature can be collected in many forms and shapes: live animals have been locked up in cages, displayed in zoos and menageries and their hides and dried body parts have been used as part of installations in galleries and studies. Plants from far-away countries have been cultivated in botanical gardens and in hothouses. Furthermore, the depiction of medicinal plants and of prized animals was regarded as an important part of the decorative schemes, in an attempt to bring nature indoors. Recent research has also shown that artificialia and naturalia were displayed side by side in early modern Europe—sometimes in the company of scientifica—and that the exhibition set-up often included a complex arrangement of stables, kennels, aviaries, art gallery and library. Villas and country houses displayed favourite horses as well as paintings and antiquities. Botanical gardens and gardens of simples at monastic foundations and universities imposed order and intellectual scope to the cultivation of many new species imported to Europe during the age of exploration. Of particular interest to the mission of this working group is the fact that so many collections of naturalia were displayed in close proximity to other collecting categories, according to a similar choreography as well as according to a similar logistical set-up. Thus, the collections, outdoors as well as indoors, resemble one another in terms of labels adopted and discussions conducted on the respective merits of order and categorisation. The essays in the present volume, therefore, connect art, nature and science by tracing objects, as well as the practices of collecting and display from the early kunst- und wunderkammern to the more scientific aspirations and publications of the eighteenth century. Indoor as well as outdoor locations of collecting are considered as well as the dissemination of objects and knowledge in the form of books during a period, which gradually led from an intrinsic, if untidy, connection between art and nature towards a new world of clear, if unhappy, divisions.

In 1500 few Europeans regarded nature as a subject worthy of inquiry. Yet fifty years later the first museums of natural history had appeared in Italy, dedicated to the marvels of nature. Italian patricians, their curiosity fueled by new voyages of exploration and the humanist rediscovery of nature, created vast collections as a means of knowing the world and used this knowledge to their greater glory. Drawing on extensive archives of visitors' books, letters, travel journals, memoirs, and pleas for patronage, Paula Findlen reconstructs the lost social world of Renaissance and Baroque museums. She follows the new study of natural history as it moved out of the universities and into sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scientific societies, religious orders, and princely courts. Findlen argues convincingly that natural history as a discipline blurred the border between the ancients and the moderns, between collecting in order to recover ancient wisdom and the development of new textual and experimental scholarship. Her vivid account reveals how the scientific revolution grew from the constant mediation between the old forms of knowledge and the new.

The phenomenon of collecting as a systematic activity undertaken for symbolic rather than actual needs, is traditionally taken to originate in the middle of the fifteenth century, when the first cabinets of curiosities appear in Italy. Yet it is clear that the practice of collecting started long before that, indeed its origins can be traced back thousands of years to European prehistoric communities. Whilst this early genesis is, due to lack of written records, still shrouded in much mystery, The Nature of Classical Collecting argues that the collecting practices of classical Greece and Rome offer a rich tapestry of experiences which can be reconstructed to illuminate a pivotal period in the long and ever developing phenomenon of collecting. Utilizing a wide variety of examples of classical collections - including grave goods, the accumulations of Greek temples and open-air shrines, the royal collections of Hellenistic kings, Roman art and curiosity collections, and relics - The Nature of Classical Collecting focuses on the field of the 'pre-history' of collecting, a neglected yet critical phase that helped crystallize the western concept of collecting. Drawing primarily on Latin writings from the period 100 BCE to 100 CE it shows how collecting underwent a transition from a religious and political activity, to an intellectual practice in which connoisseurship could impart social status. It also demonstrates how the appreciation of objects and artists changed as new qualities were attributed to material culture, resulting in the establishment of art markets, patronage and an interest in the history of art. By exploring these early developments, The Nature of Classical Collecting not only provides a fascinating insight into the culture of late Hellenistic/early Imperial Roman collecting, but also offers a much fuller grounding for understanding the influences and inspirations of those Renaissance collectors who themselves were to have such a profound influence on the course of European art, architecture and culture.

Charles Darwin, George Washington Carver, and Jane Goodall were once curious kids with pockets full of treasures! When you find something strange and wonderful, do you put it in your pocket? Meet nine scientists who, as kids, explored the great outdoors and collected "treasures": seedpods, fossils, worms, and more. Observing, sorting, and classifying their finds taught these kids scientific skills--and sometimes led to groundbreaking discoveries. Author Heather Montgomery has all the science flair of a new Bill Nye. Book includes the Heather's tips for responsible collecting.

This is the story of a child and a grandfather whose walk around the neighborhood leads to a day of shared wonder as they discover all sorts of tiny, perfect things together.

Once in a great while, as the New York Times noted recently, a naturalist writes a book that changes the way people look at the living world. John James Audubon’s Birds of America, published in 1838, was one. Roger Tory Peterson’s 1934 Field Guide to the Birds was another. How does such insight into nature develop? Pioneering a new niche in the study of plants and animals in their native habitat, Field Notes on Science and Nature allows readers to peer over the shoulders and into the notebooks of a dozen eminent field workers, to study firsthand their observational methods, materials, and fleeting impressions. What did George Schaller note when studying the lions of the Serengeti? What lists did Kenn Kaufman keep during his 1973 “big year”? How does Piotr Naskrecki use relational databases and electronic field notes? In what way is Bernd Heinrich’s approach “truly Thoreauvian,” in E. O. Wilson’s view? Recording observations in the field is an indispensable scientific skill, but researchers are not generally willing to share their personal records with others. Here, for the first time, are reproductions of actual pages from notebooks. And in essays abounding with fascinating anecdotes, the authors reflect on the contexts in which the notes were taken. Covering disciplines as diverse as ornithology, entomology, ecology, paleontology, anthropology, botany, and animal behavior, Field Notes offers specific examples that professional naturalists can emulate to fine-tune their own field methods, along with practical advice that amateur naturalists and students can use to document their adventures.

A father tells his child about the wonder of the natural world from a Christian point of view.