Rumphius, Georgius Everhardus (1711), Thesaurus imaginum piscium testaceorum : cancri, echini, echinometra, stelle marine, etc ut & cochlearum … conchylia … conchae univalviae & bivalviae … mineralia, Petrum vander AA, Lugduni Batavorum.
Thesaurus imaginum piscium testaceorum is the first edition in Latin of Rumphius' Ambonese curiosity cabinet: a ground breaking work on the natural history of the Molucca Islands and the Indonesian Archipelago with engraved plates after Maria Sibylla Merian. His Ambonese curiosity cabinet was first published in Dutch in 1705 (titled Amboinsche Rariteitkamer). This present Latin edition followed in 1711. His greatest work, the 7 volume Herbarium Amboinense was published between 1741 and 1755. These texts after so many, many years are still the only extensive source on flora of Ambon.
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| Illustrated plate from Thesaurus imaginum piscium testaceorum. |
Employed by the Dutch East India Company, Rumphius spent the greater part of his life on the island of Amboina (Ambon), a small but important trading centre in the East Indies, where he conducted innumerous observations on plants and animals.
Rumphius may have lived and worked in a faraway isolated region of the world, but his impact on science continued to be enormous for centuries after his death. Centuries later, this pioneering influence was picked up by 20th century malacologists such as Sir Maurice Yonge and S. Peter Dance. In his book Shell collecting: an illustrated history (which includes a fine Foreword by C.M. Yonge), Dance describes Rumphius as a “remarkable man”.
“Despite Rumphius' blindness which he developed late in life, and the fact that the work was published posthumously, even a cursory examination ... reveals the outstanding talents of its originator; for the Amboinese Curiosity Cabinet, despite its unpromising title, is full of accurate and detailed observations on the invertebrate animals encountered by him and mollusks are given special attention ... First and foremost he was a brilliant field naturalist ... In the consistent and accurate recording of locality data, Rumphius was far ahead of his time and no less noteworthy is his attention to molluscan ecology, in which field he must be considered a pioneer" (Dance).Rumphius’ original drawings were destroyed in a fire on Amboina in 1687, and by that point his blindness prohibited him from drawing new specimens himself. The plates in the posthumously published work were engraved after drawings by Maria Sybilla Merian, commissioned expressly for the work. Merian's original drawings are in the Archives of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburgh.
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| Illustrated plate from Thesaurus imaginum piscium testaceorum. |
The Thesaurus holds some 60 magnificent copper engravings which can be separated into the following categories: crabs (12), sea-urchins & starfish (4), snails & muscles (33), and petrifications and minerals (11). The engraving are all large (20 x 32 cm), with exquisite detail. The very front page of the Thesaurus includes a full page portrait of Rumphius at age 68, by his son Paulus. Rumphius sits, clearly blind from glaucoma, but surrounded by his many plant and animal specimens. It is a very fine and remarkable illustration indeed, and creates an impressive introduction to an outstanding work of science.
The copy of the Thesaurus held at JCU Special Collections includes interesting notations on the verso pages of the front and back covers. The names of members of the Irish Cleland family (Richard Rose Cleland, and Ja. Clealand) are inscribed on the front pages, showing dates 1736, and 1806. Book plates from James Cleland or Ja. Clealand, of Rathgill or Rath Gael House, near Bangor Island are also present. James Cleland was a well-regarded naturalist in the 1790’s, with a strong interest in conchology. Whilst having no publications to his name, he was an avid shell collector, providing many species to James Sowerby for inclusion in the British Museum of Natural History.
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| Illustrated plate from Thesaurus imaginum piscium testaceorum. |
About the author
Georgius Everhardus Rumphius (originally Rumpf, 1627-1702), also known as the "Indian Pliny", was one of the great tropical naturalists of the seventeenth century. Born in Germany, he spent most of his life in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, stationed on the island of Ambon in eastern Indonesia. Despite extensive personal tragedies, including the loss of his sight, Rumphius persevered to produce the definitive work of natural history on the region. Circumstances began to conspire against Rumphius in his efforts to understand the rich fauna and flora of his tropical paradise. Working in the glare of intense sun during the day and writing and drawing at night with paltry candles, his eyesight began to fail. By 1670, Rumphius was blind, probably from glaucoma. His wife and children probably assisted Rumphius in his scientific notes and collecting, but then more tragedy struck. A powerful earthquake struck Ambon on February 17, 1674; a wall crushed and killed his wife and daughter. Less resilient individuals might have baulked at continuing their work with these personal losses. Rumphius continued to compile his notes about the fauna and flora of this fascinating portion of Indonesia. By 1680, his manuscript was ready for publication. His record of the medicinal value of the local flora was unique. It is not surprising that one of the officials of the VOC asked for a copy of the manuscript to be made before it was shipped to the Netherlands for publication. This copy was incredibly significant, because Rumphius's manuscript was lost at sea, the transporting ship sunk by a French vessel (the French were then at war with the Dutch).
Rumphius was elected as a member of what is now the oldest science society in the world, the Academia Naturae Curiosorum of the German Roman Empire (founded in 1657, today still exists as the Leopoldina). Members were given nicknames, his was “Plinius”, a most honorific title as it referred to the Roman administrator Gaius Plinius Secundus (23-79 AD), killed in the eruption of Vesuvius and who was one of the founders of European natural sciences. His influence lasted for 1500 years until the end of the Middle Ages.
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| Detail of a portrait of Rumphius, from Thesaurus imaginum piscium testaceorum. |
Rumphius is the undisputed patriarch of Melanesian botany, zoology, geology (including fossils!), colonial history, pharmaceutical, ethnological, linguistic, historical and religious matters, including astrology and magic. In addition to his major contributions to plant systematics, he is also remembered for his skills as an ethnographer and his frequent defence of Ambonese peoples against colonialism. To botanists, he is best known for his work Herbarium Amboinense, which was a 7 volume folio work with extensive descriptions and discussions in Latin and Dutch of about 1200 species with over 800 full page illustrations. Decades after his death, the work was finally published in Amsterdam.
Suzie Davies, Special Collections Volunteer
James Cook University Library
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Bibliography
Dance, S.P. (1966). Shell collecting: an illustrated history. London: Faber & Faber
MacDonald, R. and McMillan, N. (1959). James Dowsett Rose Clealand (Cleland): A Forgotten Irish Naturalist, The Irish Naturalists' Journal, 13 (3), 70-72.
Valauskas, E.J. (2013). Georgius Everhardus Rumphius. Retrieved 22 March 2018, from https://www.chicagobotanic.org/library/stories/rumphius
Veldkamp, J.F. (2011). Georgius Everhardus Rumphius (1627-1702), the blind seer of Ambon. Gardens’ Bulletin Singapore, 63(1-2), 1-15. Retrieved March 22, 2018, from https://www.sbg.org.sg/images/4_4_Research_Gardens_Bulletin/4_4_63_1_2_pdf_Vol_63_Part1_Part2_2011/4.4.63.1-2.01_y2011_V63_P1_P2_GBS_pg.1.pdf
Veldkamp, J.F. (2002). II. 15 June 2002, 300th anniversary of Rumphius’ death. Flora Malesiana Bulletin, 13(1), 7-21. Retrieved 22 March 2018, from http://repository.naturalis.nl/document/570887
Wikipedia contributors. (2018, February 20). Georg Eberhard Rumphius. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22 March 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Georg_Eberhard_Rumphius&oldid=826657993
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