Georg Marcgrave
Georg Marggraf ( born September 20, 1610 Dear City, Electorate of Saxony, † January 1644 in São Paulo de Loanda, Angola ) was a German naturalist and explorer in South America in the 17th century. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Marcgr. ".
Life and work
The son of a schoolmaster and organist began in 1627 a multi-year study of mathematics, botany, astronomy, chemistry and medicine, where he attended the universities of Strasbourg, Basel, Ingolstadt, Altdorf, Erfurt, Wittenberg, Leipzig, Greifswald, Rostock, Stettin and Leyden.
1638 he took over as one of the youngest participants, together with other scientists and artists such as Willem Piso, Frans Post and Albert Eckhout on the multi-year expedition to Brazil in Prince John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen part.
He charted three years the coast between the 5th and the 11th degree of latitude. Several excursions led Marggraf also into the interior of the country between the Rio Grande in the north and the Rio São Francisco in the south. During these excursions he drove extensive studies of astronomy and botany and conducted weather observations and records. He wrote, inter alia, the first scientific description of a solar eclipse in the New World ( 3./13. November 1640 ). At the conception of a zoological and botanical gardens in Recife, he was heavily involved.
Marggraf died in 1644 at the age of 34 years in S. Paulo de Loanda (Angola ) to tropical fever.
His scientific records came after his death Maurice of Nassau to Europe and from there into different hands, large parts are missing today. Johannes de Laet, the Marggraf had recommended for the expedition to Brazil, the records of the Brazilian birds processed for the first time in the 5th edition of the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae. Part of his maps were engraved on copper and published in the Atlas Basiliensis. Some of the rivers are far shown up in the interior. Even until the 18th century, influenced his cards, the image of Brazil. Missing, however, remained a major part of the mathematical and astronomical records. It is possible in this particular field of science that Marggraf here wrote down observations, which were partially published only decades later, such as the first star directory of the southern sky (presented in 1679 by Edmond Halley ).
From Marggraf probably came also the two volumes Libri Principis, Libri Picturati A 36-37, which are now kept together with the four-volume Theatrum rerum naturalium Brasiliae and the Miscellanea Cleyeri from the collection of the Berlin State Library in the Jagiellonian Library.
Marggraf Herbarium
Marggraf had created during his time Brazil an extensive herbarium, which served alongside the drawings of Albert Eckhout as a template for pictures in the Historia Naturalis, published in 1848 Brasiliae. In 1653 it had come into the possession of Villum Worm ( 1633-1704 ) and from him to the Danish king Frederik III. In 1783 it was finally over is the Botanical Institute Copenhagen, where it is still in use today. It contains 173 plants and some more scattered. Carl Linnaeus remarked 1751 Marggraf and his herbarium: "He makes good descriptions, an excellent collection. "
Problematic relationship with Willem Piso
The ratio between the two scientists Georg Marggraf and Willem Piso was during the stay in Brazil more and more tense, and Piso was later accused of having partially depreciated Marggraf. These accusations are sometimes very biased, while Carl Linnaeus calling for direct comparison of the two authors.
But the fact is that Johannes de Laet, the editor of the first joint work of 1648, had big problems to decipher Marggraf strongly encrypted texts and largely unordered made in the field notes and organize. He added independently added numerous additions and notes on each other's author. He is also responsible for word the same passages. On closer analysis, the Zab shares and Marggraf can certainly distinguish from each other, as was the recent example of the Paradise nut Lecythis Pisonis and the mangrove tree crab Aratus pisonii.
How closely related the work of both researchers was assessed by later scientists such as Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, shows among other things the fact that some animal and plant species have been named after them.
Ehrentaxon
Charles Plumier named in his honor, the genus of the plant family Marcgravia the Marcgraviaceae. Linnaeus later took the name. In addition, there are various according Marggraf named epithets ( marcgravii etc.).
Writings (selection )
- Willem Piso, Georg Marggraf: Historia Rerum Naturalis Brasiliae. Leiden and Amsterdam 1648th
- Georg Marggraf: Tractatus Topographicus & Meteorologicus Brasiliae, cum Eclipsi Solari; Quibus addit sunt Illius & Aliorum Commentarii De Brasiliensium & Chilensium indoles & Lingua. In: Willem Piso De Indiae utriusque re naturali et medica. Amsterdam 1658 pp. 1-39 (after Book IV Piso ).
- Georg Marggraf: História Natural do Brasil. Portuguese edition ( the proportion of Georg Marggraf in the Historia Rerum Naruralium Brasiliae of 1648 ). Rio de Janeiro in 1942.