Georg Marcgrave

Georg Marcgrave (1610-1648). (Surname also found in some sources as "Markgraf".) German naturalist and astronomer. Born in Liebstadt, near Dresden, Marcgrave studied botany, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine in Germany and Switzerland until 1636 when he journeyed to Leiden in the Netherlands. In 1637, he was appointed astronomer of a company being formed to sail to the Dutch colony in Brazil. He arrived there in early 1638 and undertook the first zoological, botanical, and astronomical expedition in Brazil, exploring various parts of the colony to study its natural history and geography. His large map of Brazil, an important event in cartography was published in 1647. According to Cuvier, Marcgrave was the most able and most precise of all those who described the natural history of remote countries during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was the co-author (with Willem Piso) of "Historia Naturalis Brasiliae", an eight-volume work on the botany and zoology of Brazil. It was published in 1648 and is the work for which he is best remembered.

External links

* [http://www.illustratedgarden.org/mobot/rarebooks/author.asp?creator=Piso,%20Willem&creatorID=111 Account of Piso and Marcgrave] to promote sale of a digitalized version of "Historia Naturalis Brasiliae".

Further reading

* Darmstaedter, L. (1928) "Georg Marcgrave und Wilhelm Piso, die ersten Erforscher Brasiliens", Velhagen Klasings Monatshefte. 1928. pp. 649-654.
* Whitehead, P.J.P. (1979) "The biography of Georg Marcgraf (1610-1643/4) by his brother Christian, translated by James Petiver" in "J. Soc. Biblphy nat. Hist.", 9:301-314.