ABSTRACT
In the present exploration of early modern natural history I hope to join authors such as Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi, Harold Cook, Giuseppe Olmi, Karen Reeds, Deborah Harkness, Stephen Pumfrey, Emma Spary, Paula Findlen, Pamela Smith, Brian Ogilvie and Mario Biagioli. By their inspiring work – which is constantly present in this study, even if it is not continually mentioned in the notes – all of them have thrown a great amount of new light on early modern research practices, practitioners and their relevance to the formation of early modern science. If by investigating the world of Carolus Clusius we nd that the boundaries of the new history of science itself are being stretched and that it is turning into a cultural history of knowledge and its formation, so much the better.4
