Prospero Alpini

Prospero Alpini (also known as Prosper Alpinus, Prospero Alpinio and Latinized as Prosperus Alpinus) (23 November 15536 February 1617) The position was obtained with help from Antonio Morosini. From 1587 to 1590 he worked in Venice, Bassano and then at Genoa as physician to Giovanni Andrea Doria.

In Egypt he spent three years, and from a practice in the management of datepalms, which he observed in that country, he learned of sexual difference in plants, which was later to become important in the foundation of the Linnaean taxonomy system. He says that "the female date-trees or palms do not bear fruit unless the branches of the male and female plants are mixed together; or, as is generally done, unless the dust found in the male sheath or male flowers is sprinkled over the female flowers".

On his return, he resided for some time at Genoa as physician to Andrea Doria, and in 1593 he was appointed professor of botany at Padua. In 1603, following the death of Giacomo Antonio Cortuso (1513-1603), he was appointed prefect for the botanical garden at Padua. His knowledge of medicinal plants made him a much sought after physician consulted by others such as Fabrici of Acquapendente and Alessandro Massaria. Towards the end of his life he suffered from arthritis, skin inflammation and receptive aphasia. He died on 6 February 1617 and is buried in the Basilica of Saint Antonio. He was succeeded in the botanical chair by his son Alpino Alpini (died 1637). thumb

Books

Alpini's best-known botanical work is De Plantis Aegypti liber (Venice, 1592). Abrus, Abelmoschus, Lablab, and Melochia, each of which are native to tropical areas and were cultivated with artificial irrigation in Egypt at the time. Other species included Sesban Sesbania sesban and the baobab tree (which he spelled bahobab). Early adopters of Alpini's new botanical names included the botanists Carolus Clusius (died 1609), Johann Bauhin (died 1613), Caspar Bauhin (died 1624) and Johann Veslingius (visited Egypt in the 1620s; died 1649).

Prospero Alpini's was published in 1629 after his death. It has an expansion of the material in plus some other material. His De Plantis Aegypti liber is said to contain the first account of the coffee plant published in Europe although the German traveller Leonhard Rauwolf tasted coffee at Aleppo in 1573 and described its effects in 1582. His book De balsamo dialogus (1581, 1592) was among the first books to specialize on a single group of plants. He wrote on the prognosis of diseases in his De praesagienda vita et morti aegrotanti (1601) which led Kurt Sprengel to consider him as a modern father of diagnostic science. Another work that took nearly a decade was the De medicina methodica libri tredecim (1611) which sought a revival of the Methodic school of medicine. His works De plantis exoticis and the Rerum Aegyptiarum libri IV were published posthumously.

The genus Alpinia, belonging to the order Zingiberaceae (ginger family), was named after him by Linnaeus.

Works De balsamo dialogus, 1581, 1592. De medicina Aegyptiorum, 1591. De plantis Aegypti, Venice, 1592. De praesagienda vita et morte aegrotantium, 1601. De medicina methodica, 1611. , 1629. Rerum Aegyptiarum libri IV, 1735.