Étienne Pierre Ventenat
Étienne Pierre Ventenat (* March 1, 1757 in Limoges, † August 13, 1808 in Paris) was a French botanist.
Biography
He is first a priest and then Director of the Library of Sainte-Geneviève. On a trip to the UK, he discovered the English gardens and decides to devote the science. With the French Revolution, he resigned from the priesthood and begins to work with Charles Louis L' Héritier de Brut Elle ( 1746-1800 ). In 1792 he published the works Dissertation sur les parties of the qui mousse étaient regardées fleurs comme mâles et comme les fleurs femelles and Mémoire sur le meilleurs moyens de distinguer calice de la corolle.
1794 published his Principes de botanique, expliqués au Lycée républicain par Ventenat ( Sallior, Paris, year III), the plants were drawn and engraved by Sophie Dupuis. But Ventenat finds the book very mediocre and tries to buy back all copies to destroy them. On 22 Frimaire IV (13 December 1795) he is a member of the French National Institute of Arts and Sciences (now the Académie des sciences ) is selected in the Department of Botany and Physics of plants.
His Tableau du règne selon la méthode de Jussieu végétal ( printed by J. Drisonnier, Paris, four volumes, year VII), which appears in 1798, is actually nothing more than the translation of the work Genera plantarum of Antoine- Laurent de Jussieu ( 1748 - 1836), which he supplemented by information on the use and history of plants.
His reputation rests on two magnificently illustrated works, the Description des plantes nouvelles et peu connues, cultivées dans le jardin de J.-M. Cels ( printed at Crapelet, Paris, in the year VIII - 1799 ) ( printed in Crapelet, Paris, Year XI - 1803 ) and the Jardin de la Malmaison. The illustrations were created by Pierre -Joseph Redouté (1759-1840) and as a copper engraved by François Noël Sellier ( 1737 -? ), Where the latter was supported at the second work of other engravers. The Jardin de la Malmaison fulfills the desire of Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763-1814) who make the rare, partly botanists unknown plants that came from all parts of the world and were planted by her in the gardens and greenhouses of Malmaison Castle, immortal wanted. They hired the best of his time Illustrateur, Redouté, and familiar Ventenat the botanical part of. She gets the work in five deliveries.
He finished the Histoire des champignons de la France, ou Traité élémentaire, renfermant dans un ordre méthodique les descriptions et les figures of mushrooms qui croissent naturellement, en France ( Leblanc, Paris, three volumes, 1812), by Pierre Bulliard ( 1742-1793 ) was started. The Flore de la région parisienne he leaves unfinished.
His brother, Louis Ventenat (1765-1794), participates at the request of Jean -François de La Pérouse (1741-1788) as a chaplain and naturalist on the expedition of Bruny d' Entrecasteaux Antoine (1737-1793), in which also the botanist Jacques Julien Houton de Labillardiere and the engraver Guillaume Nicolas Delahaye ride. Louis Ventenat dies during the return trip.
Georg Ludwig Koeler dedicated to him the gramineous Ventenata.