The Naturalist’s Craft: Studying Nature

Regions rich in natural diversity, like Brazil, were true paradises for naturalists, who were motivated to discover and collect new species with the aim of enhancing studies of the mineral, plant, and animal world.

With the support of local helpers who knew the environment and the surroundings, they assembled a huge collection of natural objects. There were 6,500 plant species, forming a herbarium of 20,000 pressed specimens, as well as hundreds of living plants, which they took to Europe.

The fauna comprised 85 species of mammals, 350 of birds, 130 of amphibians, 116 of fish, 2,700 of insects, 50 of arachnids, and 50 of crustaceans. Plus mineralogical and paleontological pieces. A good part of the collection was successively sent in boxes to Munich, of which none were lost.

Under the influence of the philosophy of nature and the poet Goethe, they sought to unite science and poetry. They were inspired by the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who chose the American tropics as a privileged place for the “ancient communion of nature with the spiritual life of man”.