Andrea CesalpinoBorn 6 Jun 1519; died 23 Feb 1603 at age 83.Italian physician, philosopher and botanist who sought a philosophical and theoretical approach to plant classification based on unified and coherent principles rather than on alphabetical sequence or medicinal properties. He helped establish botany as an independent science. In 1555, he succeeded Luca Ghini as director of the Pisan botanic garden. His book De plantis libri XVI (1583) starts with botanical principles. Following Aristotle's division of plants into trees, shrubs, shrubby herbs, and herbs, Cesalpino's pioneering classification concentrated on fruits and seeds, neglecting broader affinities. The greater part of his book contains descriptions of about 1500 plants, but with less advice on their uses than the herbalists provided. |
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