Bartolomeo Maranta
Encyclopedia
Bartolomeo Maranta, also Bartholomaeus Marantha (Venosa
, 1500 - Molfetta
, 1571) was an Italian physician, botanist, and literary theorist.
The Marantaceae
, a family of herbaceous perennials related to the gingers
, are named after him. His name was also given to a street in Rome.
Maranta was born in Venosa
, in 1500 or 1514, to the lawyer and academic Roberto Maranta, originally from Venosa
, and Beatrice Monna, a noblewoman from Molfetta
. Having graduated at Naples
, around 1550 he moved to Pisa
where he became a student of the botanist and physician Luca Ghini
. From 1554 to 1556, he worked with the botanical garden
of Naples that Gian Vincenzo Pinelli
had founded, and around 1568 helped found a botanical garden in Rome.
He was a friend of the naturalist
Ulisse Aldrovandi
, and twenty-two letters from their correspondence survive. Maranta was also both the friend and rival of Pietro Andrea Mattioli
. The two competed upon the death of Ghini over which of them would inherit their teacher's papers and herbarium
.
Branda Castiglioni. He combined his interests in medicine and botany in Methodi cognoscendorum simplicium (1559), in which he organized the subject of botanical pharmacology
by nomenclature
, species
identification, and medicinal properties.
Maranta and other 16th-century naturalists differed from their classical predecessors in allowing empirical
evidence to have a direct shaping influence on their work; Maranta wrote that no one could "advance knowledge of simples
… without seeing different places and talking to diverse men [who are] experts in their profession."
Among Maranta's most-referenced works is his treatise on antidotes to poisons, Della theriac
a et del mithridato
, in two volumes (1572). Maranta maintained that theriac had been tested on criminals condemned to death and was proven in antiquity
to be infallible. It was also a treatment for all diseases. If theriac failed to produce results, he said, it was because the physicians and pharmacists of his own time lacked the knowledge to compound it. Maranta conducted experiments in the natural history
museum of Ferrante Imperato
on the proportion of wine needed to dissolve the ingredients for theriac, claiming that "it preserves the healthy" and "cures the sick." But theriac was a controversial drug; in the 1570s, two physicians were expelled from the College of Physicians in Brescia
for overprescribing it, and Maranta had to fend off criticism for substituting an ingredient in the formula.
. His major work of literary criticism
is Lucullianae quaestiones, in five volumes (1564). One of Maranta's interests is the effects of maraviglia, or "the marvelous," on plot. Torquato Tasso
had defined maraviglia in epic as "any virtuous feat that surpassed the ordinary capacity of great men," including miracles, but maraviglia could also derive from verbal artistry and style. Maranta describes the "marvels" of tragedy
and epic as that which is "unheard of, new, and beyond expectation."
Like Buonamici, Maranta sought to resist the Renaissance tendency to regard poetry as subject to rhetoric
. But of the Italian literary critics, only Maranta makes a point of insisting on the superiority of poetry to both rhetoric and history. In this regard, he has been compared to Philip Sidney
, although his work was not likely to have been known by the English poet and critic. Maranta believed that poets were more powerful teachers than philosophers because their discourse is made vivid, rather than abstract, by moving the passions and demonstrating behavior.
Venosa
Venosa is a town and comune in the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata, in the Vulture area. It is bounded by the comuni of Barile, Ginestra, Lavello, Maschito, Montemilone, Palazzo San Gervasio, Rapolla and Spinazzola....
, 1500 - Molfetta
Molfetta
Molfetta is a city and comune of the province of Bari in the southern Italian region of Apulia, on the Adriatic coast, at sea-level. It is 25 km WNW of Bari.It has a well restored old city, and its own dialect.- History :...
, 1571) was an Italian physician, botanist, and literary theorist.
The Marantaceae
Marantaceae
The Marantaceae or arrowroot family is a family of flowering plants known for its large starchy rhizomes. It is sometimes called the prayer-plant family...
, a family of herbaceous perennials related to the gingers
Zingiber
The genus Zingiber contains the true gingers, a set of plants with medicinal and culinary value in many parts of the world. The most well-known is Z. officinale, garden ginger.-Culinary:...
, are named after him. His name was also given to a street in Rome.
Life
Venosa
Venosa is a town and comune in the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata, in the Vulture area. It is bounded by the comuni of Barile, Ginestra, Lavello, Maschito, Montemilone, Palazzo San Gervasio, Rapolla and Spinazzola....
, in 1500 or 1514, to the lawyer and academic Roberto Maranta, originally from Venosa
Venosa
Venosa is a town and comune in the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata, in the Vulture area. It is bounded by the comuni of Barile, Ginestra, Lavello, Maschito, Montemilone, Palazzo San Gervasio, Rapolla and Spinazzola....
, and Beatrice Monna, a noblewoman from Molfetta
Molfetta
Molfetta is a city and comune of the province of Bari in the southern Italian region of Apulia, on the Adriatic coast, at sea-level. It is 25 km WNW of Bari.It has a well restored old city, and its own dialect.- History :...
. Having graduated at Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, around 1550 he moved to Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
where he became a student of the botanist and physician Luca Ghini
Luca Ghini
Luca Ghini was an Italian physician and botanist, notable as the creator of the first recorded herbarium, as well as the first botanical garden in Europe....
. From 1554 to 1556, he worked with the botanical garden
Botanical garden
A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...
of Naples that Gian Vincenzo Pinelli
Gian Vincenzo Pinelli
Gian Vincenzo Pinelli was an Italian humanist from Padua, known as a savant and a mentor of Galileo. His literary correspondence put him at the center of a European network of virtuosi...
had founded, and around 1568 helped found a botanical garden in Rome.
He was a friend of the naturalist
Naturalist
Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...
Ulisse Aldrovandi
Ulisse Aldrovandi
Ulisse Aldrovandi was an Italian naturalist, the moving force behind Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. Carolus Linnaeus and the comte de Buffon reckoned him the father of natural history studies...
, and twenty-two letters from their correspondence survive. Maranta was also both the friend and rival of Pietro Andrea Mattioli
Pietro Andrea Mattioli
Pietro Andrea Gregorio Mattioli was a doctor and naturalist born in Siena.He received his MD at the University of Padua in 1523, and subsequently practiced the profession in Siena, Rome, Trento and Gorizia, becoming personal physician of Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria in Prague and Ambras...
. The two competed upon the death of Ghini over which of them would inherit their teacher's papers and herbarium
Herbarium
In botany, a herbarium – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in...
.
Medicine and botany
Maranta was physician to the Duke of Mantua and later to CardinalCardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
Branda Castiglioni. He combined his interests in medicine and botany in Methodi cognoscendorum simplicium (1559), in which he organized the subject of botanical pharmacology
Pharmacology
Pharmacology is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function...
by nomenclature
Nomenclature
Nomenclature is a term that applies to either a list of names or terms, or to the system of principles, procedures and terms related to naming - which is the assigning of a word or phrase to a particular object or property...
, species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
identification, and medicinal properties.
Maranta and other 16th-century naturalists differed from their classical predecessors in allowing empirical
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
evidence to have a direct shaping influence on their work; Maranta wrote that no one could "advance knowledge of simples
Herbalism
Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, herblore, and phytotherapy...
… without seeing different places and talking to diverse men [who are] experts in their profession."
Theriac
Theriac or theriaca was a medical concoction originally formulated by the Greeks in the 1st century AD and became popular throughout the ancient world as far away as China and India via the trading links of the Silk Route...
a et del mithridato
Mithridate
Mithridate, also known as mithridatium, mithridatum, or mithridaticum, is a semi-mythical remedy with as many as 65 ingredients, used as an antidote for poisoning, and said to be created by Mithradates VI Eupator of Pontus in the 1st century BC...
, in two volumes (1572). Maranta maintained that theriac had been tested on criminals condemned to death and was proven in antiquity
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
to be infallible. It was also a treatment for all diseases. If theriac failed to produce results, he said, it was because the physicians and pharmacists of his own time lacked the knowledge to compound it. Maranta conducted experiments in the natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
museum of Ferrante Imperato
Ferrante Imperato
Ferrante Imperato , an apothecary of Naples, published Dell'Historia Naturale and illustrated it with his own cabinet of curiosities displayed at Palazzo Gravina in Naples; the engraving became the first pictorial representation of a Renaissance humanist's displayed natural history research...
on the proportion of wine needed to dissolve the ingredients for theriac, claiming that "it preserves the healthy" and "cures the sick." But theriac was a controversial drug; in the 1570s, two physicians were expelled from the College of Physicians in Brescia
Brescia
Brescia is a city and comune in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, between the Mella and the Naviglio, with a population of around 197,000. It is the second largest city in Lombardy, after the capital, Milan...
for overprescribing it, and Maranta had to fend off criticism for substituting an ingredient in the formula.
Literary criticism
Maranta's literary theorizing, like that of Aristotle commentator Francesco Buonamici, is often AristotelianAristotelianism
Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. The works of Aristotle were initially defended by the members of the Peripatetic school, and, later on, by the Neoplatonists, who produced many commentaries on Aristotle's writings...
. His major work of literary criticism
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
is Lucullianae quaestiones, in five volumes (1564). One of Maranta's interests is the effects of maraviglia, or "the marvelous," on plot. Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...
had defined maraviglia in epic as "any virtuous feat that surpassed the ordinary capacity of great men," including miracles, but maraviglia could also derive from verbal artistry and style. Maranta describes the "marvels" of tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
and epic as that which is "unheard of, new, and beyond expectation."
Like Buonamici, Maranta sought to resist the Renaissance tendency to regard poetry as subject to rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
. But of the Italian literary critics, only Maranta makes a point of insisting on the superiority of poetry to both rhetoric and history. In this regard, he has been compared to Philip Sidney
Philip Sidney
Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier and soldier, and is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan Age...
, although his work was not likely to have been known by the English poet and critic. Maranta believed that poets were more powerful teachers than philosophers because their discourse is made vivid, rather than abstract, by moving the passions and demonstrating behavior.