What role did the creative imagination play in the development of natural history? Can artists contribute to the production of scientific knowledge? Much of early modern natural history focused on the collection of factual knowledge about the exotic fauna and flora of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Daniel Margocsy, a historian of science at Hunter College, will examine the hypotheses about what unknown and strange animals and plants might be hiding in the forests of New England, the archipelago of the Caribbean, the unfathomable depths of the Northern Sea, or even in the cavernous mountains of the Moon. Natural historians of the scientific revolution came to rely on the expertise of artists such as Dürer and Rubens in picturing fantastic and monstrous animals, in making educated guesses about what unseen plants might look like. As a result, painters’ and printmakers’ fictitious images of unicorns, camels, and monkfish (to name a few) came to populate the zoological and botanical encyclopedias of the period. Margocsy is also the author of Commercial Visions: Science, Trade, and Visual Culture in the Dutch Golden Age.
