Albertus Seba

Albertus Seba (1665-1736) was a Zoologist who published an early Thesaurus of animal specimens.

Biography

As a young man, Albertus Seba chose to become a pharmacist. His decision proved fortunate, both for him and for science. In familiarizing himself with medicinal plants, he took an interest in other natural phenomena, including mammals, birds, mollusks, insects and—his apparent favorite—snakes. His success as an apothecary afforded him the opportunity to amass a large and impressive collection. Peter the Great, who trusted Seba's medicinal skill, took an interest in his collection and purchased it in 1717. Seba immediately started building an even bigger second collection.

In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the practice of pharmacy couldn't be learned through books, but only through apprenticeship, often in a variety of locations. After his training was complete, Seba settled in Amsterdam, a port city with a bustling international trade. Seba knew that some of the best exotic specimens were found by sailors, so he frequently scurried down to the docks, ready to bargain, when ships arrived.

Seba was not content merely to collect specimens, he wanted to publish a description of them, a Thesaurus. He engaged several artists and engravers in a massive and expensive effort. The results were 446 sizeable plates, 175 of them double-page, spread out over four separate books. The engraving process Seba used produced mirror images of the illustrations, and for the most part, this wasn't a problem, except for the mollusks, whose shells ultimately coiled in the wrong direction. The initial publication was black and white. This was troublesome for the specimens that couldn't be differentiated without color, so many of the books were hand-painted after publication.

Seba published the first volume of his Thesaurus in 1734, and the second in 1735. The next two volumes were planned for publication shortly afterwards, but Seba died in 1736, and clearing up his estate delayed publication of volumes three and four until 1758 and 1765. By the time the last two volumes were published, Seba's work drew some criticism, largely because it didn't reflect the new Linnaean system. Many critics overlooked the fact that the Linnaean system was only published in 1735, just a year before Seba's death.

Seba's Thesaurus was a beautiful publication, in a large part because the boundary between art and science was still pretty fuzzy. Animals posed artfully, and shells were arranged in decorative patterns. Some of the work was fanciful or even folly, such as the many electric-blue snakes and the seven-headed hydra, yet much of it exhibited an almost unprecedented attention to detail and accuracy.