The Pre-Linnaean Herbarium of Paolo Boccone (1633–1704) in Wrocław, Poland: Its History, Description, its Purpose, and its Usefulness for Historians of Science

Here we offer an interdisciplinary study and a detailed description of a pre-Linnaean herbarium located in the Museum of Natural History in Wrocław Herbarium, Poland. Our study reveals that it is the herbarium of Paolo Boccone (1633-1704), a prominent Italian botanist and the only Boccone collection in Poland. It is also the oldest herbarium among all Polish collections. We trace the volume’s history, assess its condition as a natural history artefact, and as a scientific object of potential taxonomic, nomenclatural, biogeographical and economic importance in addition to assessing its historical importance. It contains 313 specimens, mostly plants and algae, mounted on 142 numbered sheets, collected mainly from the western Mediterranean. The dating of the collection was determined by a combination of historical data and the contents of the volume itself, including the dates on the specimen labels and the years of publication of the botanical sources cited on them. The specimens were not arranged in any systematic order. As with other collections during this period, Boccone’s motivation for compiling this collection stemmed from his personal interest in rarities, which led him to collect some exotic plants from various gardens. We also note that Boccone’s biography is important for dating and interpreting the contents of the herbarium. His errors in identifying certain medicinal species show that the success of historical medicines may have depended on taxonomic expertise. Finally, we also show that certain plants were grown in European gardens before they were considered medicinal.