I nuovi mondi e la natura. Realtà e rappresentazione nel discorso scientifico della prima età moderna

Early modern natural philosophy generated a multiplication of the worlds, realms, and branches of nature. The fashioning of these new worlds was ruled by changing the invisible into visible: Galilei’s depiction of the moon’s surface (1610), Hooke’s disclosure of the amazing realm of the insects (1665), the galleries of plants and animals described in the Mexican Treasure of the Lincean academicians (1651), up to the similarities and dissimilarities classified in Linnaeus’ System of Nature (1735), all share, with different methods, the same need to make the new worlds of nature recognizable. The nexus between representation and comprehension turned out to be a fundamental one: being visible only through instrumental observation (either with the telescope or the microscope) or the collection of natural evidence and exotic objects, these new worlds could be “seen” and understood only by means of an epistemic mediation that ranged from taxonomy to visual arts.