Ilustração Científica - alguma história (em inglês- espólio de John Hay Library )

Tulipa Gesneriana From The Temple Of Flora, 1799
By Robert Thornton. Hand-coloured engraving: 57cm x 46cm.

Robert Thornton vowed that his book, Temple of Flora would be the most magnificent botanical publication ever. Exotic plants were lavishly illustrated in dramatic landscape settings. The extravagant costs of publishing this sumptuous book ruined Thornton financially. His wordy, overblown text and the use of poems and quotations from literature to describe each plant were aimed much more at the wealthy amateur flower fancier than at the scientific market. The plates produced for the book were unique in that Thornton set each flower in "scenery appropriate to the subject", creating magnificent coloured plates of plants in highly stylised, romanticized settings.

MERIAN, Mariæ Sibillæ.
Dissertatio de generatione et metamorphosibus insectorum Surinamensium :
In quâ, præter vermes et erucas Surinamenses,
earumque admirandam metamorphosin, plantæ, flores & fructus,
quibus vescuntur, & quibus fuerunt inventæ, exhibentur...
Amstelædami, : apud Joannem Oosterwyk, MDCCXIX. [1719].

Maria Sibylla Merian was a Swiss naturalist who was among the first to study and record tropical moths, butterflies, and other insects. Originally published in Amsterdam in 1705, the edition owned by the Hay, one of the first books about the flora and fauna of Surinam, has additional plates provided by the author's daughters, from material found after her death. 

Or he could have given a lavish dinner, featuring a menu of exotic dishes:

The Blowfish From From Ippolito Salviani’s 1557 
Aquatilium animalium historiae, liber primus.

An early and very important treatise on fish, abundantly and accurately illustrated with many beautiful engravings depicting creatures of the sea. Not much is known of the artist(s) who designed the plates, but generally it is assumed that Nicolas Beatricetto was responsible for the title-page and some of the fish illustrations, and that most of the illustrations are by Antoine Lafréry. Salviani (1514-1572) studied medicine in Rome and developed a specialisation in natural history in the field of ichthyology. He became the protégée of cardinal Cervini, later Pope Marcellus II, who stimulated and financed his study of fish, not only on the coast of Italy but also in other Mediterranean and Northern European regions. [Fonte: Booktryst]

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