Introduction: A Mnemosyne of Art & Science

This spotlight brings together three new contributions on the connections between art and science in the Portuguese Renaissance and Early Modern period – a novel line of research at the Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology. Although often undervalued when compared with the splendour of the Italian Renaissance or the innovations of French and English sixteenth- and seventeenth-century art and science, Portugal – and Iberia more generally – has its own unique story to tell. It served as an entrepôt, a site where the inheritance of Classical and Islamic culture was combined and confronted with novelties arriving from the New World. With the maritime expansion acting as a catalyst, new knowledge and new artistic concepts developed in Portugal had profound effects on artistic and scientific developments as well as on everyday life far beyond the kingdom's borders. This mini spotlight aims to shed further light on this transformative moment and its underlying processes. The direct observation of nature first appears – with surprisingly accurate results – in artistic works. Notable examples include the attention to ornithological detail in Giotto's Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds, and the representation of astronomical phenomena such as comets or meteors.1 The idea that the eye has access to the truth of reality (which ultimately makes observation the first step of the scientific method) is likewise evident in the application of geometric perspective discovered by Filippo Brunelleschi around 1418, as seen in the project for the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. Nor should we forget Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings, which predate those published in Andrea Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica (1548) by about 50 years and arguably demonstrate greater precision.2 In a period when ‘eye-witnessing’ was increasingly understood as a tool for discovering truth, Portuguese eyes occupied a privileged position. Lusitanian observers were often the first (or among the first) to behold lands, peoples, plants, and animals hitherto unknown to Europe. Their experiences would both challenge existing knowledge and stimulate important early records of ‘exotic’ entities, sometimes through pictorial means. From the earliest European representation of Brazil on the Cantino map (1502); to Dürer's rhinoceros (based on the animal that King Manuel I offered the Pope in 1514); to the groundbreaking acclimatisation and study of Asian plants in Garcia de Orta's garden, Portuguese engagement with the wider world generated both scientific and artistic revolutions. The Portuguese Renaissance was fundamentally global, reframing art and science in ways that reverberated well outside of Iberia. Emerging from a conference of the same name, which took place in March 2022 in memory of Helena Avelar (1964–2021), the papers presented here highlight some aspects of Portuguese artistic endeavours and their connection with scientific knowledge. The subjects covered include painting, gardening, architecture, decorative arts, and botany. Taken together, the papers tell a story of interconnections: between people, artefacts, plants, and lands; and more generally, between art and science during the first globalisation – in which Portugal played a prominent role. In the context of this collection, ‘art’ is understood in a broad sense and as a contribution to natural history. We are not seeking masterpieces, genres, or schools, but peering into places where art is not usually found: moments, objects, and locations in which the visual/experiential meet epistemic/scientific activities. In the same manner, the word ‘science’ is given a broad scope, embracing both artisanal practices and techniques relevant to learning about the world, and propositional knowledge in the fields of mathematics, materials, plants, nature, navigation, and the cosmos. The present-day dialogue between art, science, and technology has sparked numerous lines of academic inquiry; however, inquiry into how these links operated during the Early Modern period has tended to be more narrowly focused on scientific illustration, humanists (as artists/scientists), or natural philosophers who worked closely with artisans. Scholarship on the intersection between art and science in the Renaissance continues to emphasise the period's synthesis of intellectual and creative pursuits. This ambience nourished encyclopaedic, synthetic, and comparative corpora of knowledge (exemplified by the humanists), and opened pathways for productive ‘interdisciplinary’ exchange. Myriad examples of the latter phenomenon can be furnished: draughtsmen using mathematical perspective; artists investigating human anatomy; and apothecaries preparing and dispensing – often from the same plants – both medicinals for patients and pigments for painters. The boundaries between art and science were likewise blurred in the things being produced during this time. Artefacts whose original purpose had been pragmatic, like maps or nautical charts, became objects to be admired for their beauty; art was exploited to embellish depictions of scientific observations; and innovations in construction made buildings canvases for artistic grandeur.3 In recent years, importance has been given to the role of artisans in the production of knowledge. From Pamela Smith and Paula Findlen4 to Sachiko Kusukawa,5 scholars have shown how the development of early modern artistic and scientific practices was interconnected and how they mutually reinforced one another. It was also a period when the printing press and engraving techniques brought new dynamism through scientific illustration of fauna and flora, deepening the connection between the artistic world and empirical knowledge.6 In Portugal, this relationship between art and science was largely the work of hybrid actors: people of knowledge with an eye to art and people of art who generated books and treatises. These included cartographers, painters, artisans, physicians, gardeners, and other technical experts. Although the intersections between the history of science and art in the Renaissance have already attracted the attention of international specialists, there are still relatively few studies on art and science in the Renaissance in Portugal. Some have been carried out by art historians and others by historians of science. Among the topics investigated are the representation of scientific instruments and experiments in tiles; richly decorated maps featuring the fauna and flora typical of different parts of the world; depictions of exotic animals, such as the rhinoceros, as well as exotic plants and fruits, like the pineapple; processes for simulating blood in devotional sculptures; curiosity cabinets; and gardens, which are quintessential spaces for the synthesis of science and art.7 Research on the art/science matrix during the Portuguese Renaissance has thus identified a variety of subjects bearing on this topic. Sylvie Deswarte-Rosa has broken ground in the study of Francisco de Holanda, a pivotal figure for the Portuguese Renaissance. Known for his De Aetatibus Mundi Imagines and Da Pintura Antiga, Holanda played a crucial role in transmitting Italian Renaissance ideals to Portugal. Deswarte-Rosa's work highlights Holanda's dual identity as an artist and a theorist, bridging the ideals of Classical Antiquity and the Renaissance. She addresses Holanda's intellectual depth and relation to humanist thought, showing that his artistic profession went hand-in-hand with his work as a thinker engaging deeply with the spiritual, scientific, and intellectual dimensions of art.8 Homing in on non-human historical actors, Annemarie Jordan Gschwend has extensively explored the function of exotic animals and princely menageries in the cultural and political fabric of Renaissance Europe. Her work underlines how creatures like elephants, lions, dodos, and civets became signifiers of power, prestige, and curiosity, reflecting the global reach of European courts. She has examined the interplay between art, science, and diplomacy through detailed research and publications like The Story of Süleyman the Elephant, and her co-curated exhibition Princely Menageries in the Renaissance at Schloss Ambras. Her work demonstrates that animals operated not only as a symbol of nature's wonder, but also as an impetus for human ingenuity, perfectly illustrated by Albrecht Dürer's iconic Rhinoceros and other artistic representations.9 Similarly, Catarina Simões's doctoral dissertation focused on the use of exotic animals as symbols of power.10 Important contributions have also been made with respect to the Portuguese Renaissance art contained in scientific manuscripts.11 Among these are the studies conducted on the productions of Jewish illuminators in Portugal. These include technical books such as O Livro de como se fazem as cores (The Book on Colour Making) and the decoration of scientific books.12 Šima Krtalić has also approached these themes in the ambit of nautical cartography (particularly from late-medieval and Early Modern Italy and Portugal) and its artistic contents and inherent aesthetic norms.13 Concentrating on Portuguese tiles, Celso Mangucci has also added to the scholarly conversation this collection seeks to showcase. His work highlights how Jesuit colleges employed decorative tiles to depict mathematical, scientific, and philosophical ideas, using the tools of the crafts (here, ceramic painting) as a vehicle for communicating erudite concepts. Inspired by Aristotelian poetic theory, the Jesuits constructed iconographic narratives aligned with their educational mission in the humanities, sciences, and theology. Notable examples include the Aula da Esfera in Lisbon and the Colégio do Espírito Santo in Évora, created between 1740 and 1750 under Bartolomeu Antunes's leadership. These works attest to the harmony that was possible between Counter-Reformation theology and emerging scientific discoveries.14 Interestingly, the same conclusion was reached by historians of science with respect to the astronomical tiles in Portuguese Jesuit colleges.15 The merging of science and religious devotion, exemplified by the Jesuit mathematicians in Lisbon who integrated scientific principles into religious objects, was discussed by Nuno Castel-Branco in Material Piety: Science and Religious Culture.16 Such instances reflect a broader European trend, where the sciences (particularly astronomy and natural history) flourished alongside art and religion. This collection of articles aims to act as a sort of ‘Mnemosyne’ through which forgotten or understudied characters and aspects of the Renaissance are recovered and given their due consideration. In the same way, the collection stresses the ways a kingdom less frequently discussed in relation to the Renaissance as a cultural movement – Portugal – nonetheless had a key part to play. As these papers show, the Iberian maritime expansion was crucial to this phenomenon (and fostering closer ties between art and science). Together, the papers gathered here reveal Renaissance Portugal to be a dynamic intermediary between worlds, exerting a major influence on the trajectories of other major European powers by mediating the circulation of people, ideas, and wonders. The first of these, from Vasco Medeiros, challenges the boundaries that historiography has drawn between cartography, drawing, and painting in the fifteenth century. As he points out, all three activities were carried out by artisans belonging to the broad category of artifex whose overlapping areas of expertise could encompass crafts, fine arts, performance, or technical creation, regardless of whether their work was considered artistic or scientific. In this context, the high degree of exchange between disciplines that relied on drawing, mathematics, and geometry was both natural and essential. Art and science shared methods, tools, and a common purpose: to know, interpret, and represent the world. Medeiros argues that in Portugal, this interplay took on a distinctive character because of its relevance to the art and craft of navigation. Understanding the relationships between painters and cartographers, the ways in which perspective and geometry informed both fields, and the potential involvement of painters in map and atlas decoration permits us to ask new questions about the depiction of landscapes, particularly those outside Europe. Documentary evidence – especially from the surviving pictorial and cartographic collections of the period – furnishes the means to investigate these questions, unveiling ‘trading zones’ where artistic and scientific practices mingled. The essay highlights such zones of collaboration and the epistemic transfers they enabled, shedding light on how shared visual languages developed into enduring models of representation in the Early Modern era. The next two essays take us into the world of Renaissance botany. First, Ana Duarte Rodrigues tells the hidden history of Gabriel Grisley, a German physician who came to Portugal during the Spanish dynasty of the Philips (1580–1640) and founded a botanical garden near the mouth of the Xabregas River in Lisbon during the 1610s. Recognising the garden's value to the kingdom, King João IV offered Grisley a royal privilege during the Restoration War (1640–1668), thus changing its status from private to public. This garden, abundant in cultivated plants, served both practical and scholarly purposes. On the one hand, it supplied the medicinal resources for whatever maladies might require pharmacological treatment; on the other, it maintained an associated herbarium, allowing physicians and herbalists to study living and preserved specimens throughout the year. Far from being a common medical garden, Grisley's enterprise may in fact represent the earliest botanical garden in Portugal, predating (by more than a century) the foundation of the Garden of Ajuda in 1768. This paper argues for its identification as such and situates Grisley's work within a wider European tradition of botanical and institutional gardens. Teresa Nobre de Carvalho examines the pineapple's journey to Europe. Native to the Americas, the pineapple (Ananas comosus L. Merr.) instantly captivated Europeans. Celebrated in the reports of voyagers and missionaries from the early 1500s, the fruit figured into both chronicles and natural history treatises as a symbol of exotic abundance. Unable to survive transatlantic shipping, the fruit initially reached Europe only as a preserve. After successful transplantation to the gardens of Goa by the mid-sixteenth century, however, it enjoyed cultivation in suitable climates across the East. Alongside preserved specimens, descriptions and images of the pineapple travelled throughout Europe. The earliest printed depiction, based on observations in Goa, was featured in Cristóvão da Costa's Tractado de las Drogas (Burgos, 1578), followed by Jan Huygens van Linschoten's Amsterdam publication of 1596. These images were reproduced and adapted across European botanical literature. While seventeenth-century innovations in hothouse cultivation allowed the Dutch to grow pineapples in central and northern Europe (inspiring further visual documentation), not all later depictions embraced contemporary realism. The eighteenth-century Eastern illustrations analysed in this paper echo earlier printed models, raising questions about their visual genealogy and the persistence of outdated imagery. This study traces the sources of these representations and considers why older templates endured despite the availability of more accurate portrayals. Taken as a whole, the three contributions collected in this mini spotlight reveal that – in large part due to a vigorous dialogue between art and science – Early Modern Portugal was not peripheral to the transformative cultural dynamics characteristic of the Renaissance but played host to its own equally vibrant version of this phenomenon. Far from existing in isolation, Portuguese artists, cartographers, navigators, botanists, and scholars participated in, and sometimes led, the circulation of ideas, techniques, and visual models that defined the period. The studies here demonstrate how painting and cartography intersected in the shared aim of representing and understanding the world; how botanical knowledge was cultivated and institutionalised long before traditional chronologies suggest; how global exchanges introduced and transformed the visual and material culture of exotic species such as the pineapple; and how, across these fields, interdisciplinary collaboration moulded both practical outcomes and intellectual frameworks. Together, these chapters seek to instal Portugal in the broader narrative of the Renaissance, not only as a recipient of European trends but as an active contributor whose artistic and scientific pursuits were intertwined with maritime expansion and global engagements. By emphasising these intersections, the volume re-casts Renaissance Portugal as a crucible of innovation, instrumental in bringing about a new vision of the natural world. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.