Saturday, March 21, 1:30 pm- Searching for Connections: An Adventure in Botanical History
Anna Pavord takes us on a marvelous journey – the search for the origins of plant identities. Beginning with treatises from the Classical period, she moves forward to the explorations and discoveries of the European Renaissance that redefined man’s relation to nature and led to a taxonomy of plants. Arab scholars were the vital link between the descriptions of plants created by Theophrastus and the work at the universities of Padua and Pisa. The culture of Islam fostered an active interest in plants and scientific and medical investigations that preserved and extended the ancient knowledge of plants until the Renaissance. Anna Pavord is the author of two best selling books, The Tulip and The Naming of Names: The Search for Order in the World of Plants. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 280 The Fenway, $15 general public, $12 seniors, $5 members. For more information log on to www.gardnermuseum.org, or call 617-278-5156
