Jan Commelin
Encyclopedia
Isaac Commelin
Isaac Commelin was a Dutch historian.-Life:He wrote Lives of the Stadtholders William I and Maurice and Beginning and Ending of the Dutch East India Company, as well as other basic works in the fields of geography, cosmography and astronomy, discovery and travel...
a historian; his brother Casparus was a bookseller and newspaper publisher. Jan a botanist became a professor of botany when many plants were imported from the Cape and Ceylon and a new system had to be developed. As alderman
Alderman
An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...
of the city, together with burgomaster
Burgomaster
Burgomaster is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or chairman of the executive council of a sub-national level of administration...
Johan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen
Joan Huydecoper II
Joan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen II was the eldest son of burgomaster Joan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen I and the brother-in-law of the collector Jan J. Hinlopen and the sheriff Jacob Boreel. He was mayor of Amsterdam for 13 terms between 1673 and 1693...
he led the arrangement of the new botanic garden, Hortus Medicus later becoming Hortus Botanicus. He cultivated exotic plants on his farm 'Zuyderhout' near Haarlem. Commelin amassed a fortune by selling herbs and drugs to apothecaries and hospitals in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities.
East Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
and West Indies, and was illustrated mainly by Jan Moninckx
Jan Moninckx
Jan Moninckx , was a Dutch botanical artist and painter, best known for the colour plates he and his daughter, Maria Moninckx, created and which make up the nine-volume Moninckx Atlas...
and his daughter Maria Moninckx
Maria Moninckx
Maria Moninckx , was a Dutch botanical artist and painter, best known for the colour plates she and her father, Jan Moninckx, created and which make up the nine-volume Moninckx Atlas...
.
His nephew Caspar Commelin (1667-1734) became the director of the Amsterdam botanic garden after Pieter Hotton left. Caspar finished the work of his uncle and had it published with the help of Frederik Ruysch
Frederik Ruysch
Frederik Ruysch was a Dutch botanist and anatomist, remembered for his developments in anatomical preservation and the creation of dioramas or scenes incorporating human parts...
.
The genus Commelina
Commelina
Commelina is a genus of approximately 170 species commonly called dayflowers due to the short lives of their flowers. They are less often known as widow's tears. It is by far the largest genus of its family, Commelinaceae...
is named after him.
Works
- Nederlantze Hesperides (1676)
- Catalogus plantarum indigenarum Hollandiae (1683)
- Horti medici Amstelodamensis rariorum... (1697-1701)
Sources
- Wilfrid BluntWilfrid Jasper Walter BluntWilfrid Jasper Walter Blunt was an art teacher, author, artist and curator of the Watts Gallery at Compton, Surrey. He taught art at Haileybury College and Eton College and helped to start a revolution in the hand-writing of British school-children, using the 15th c...
: The Art of Botanical Illustration: An Illustrated History. Dover Publications, 1994. ISBN 0-486-27265-6 - Gordon Douglas Rowley: A History of Succulent Plants. Strawberry Press, 1997.
- D.O. Wijnands (Herausgeber): The Botany of the Commelins. Rotterdam, 1983. ISBN 90-61912-62-8