Clusius In Portugal: One voyage, Multiple Encounters

Abstract

From 1564 to 1565, Clusius (1526-1609) travelled to the Iberican Peninsula as the tutor of the young heir of the Függers. This journey, which lasted nearly a year, took the two men to the most important cities in the Peninsula. If strolling through the Portuguese countryside demonstrated the peculiarities of the local flora to the botanist, the decreed visit to Lisbon offered many surprising experiences. The encounter with the work recently arrived from the Orient —Colóquios dos Simples e Drogas he Cousas Mediçinais da Índia, by Garcia de Orta (Goa, 1563)— awakened his interest. The present article weaves together considerations on the multiple impacts that the botanist’s voyage to Portugal caused in European science of the time.