From blowfish to flower still life paintings: Classification and its images, circa 1600

Today in my microcosm, you can see more than 18, 000 different things, among which 7000 in fifteen volumes, dried and pasted, 3000 of which I had painted as if alive (“al vivo�?). The rest-animals terrestrial, aerial and aquatic, and other subterranean things such as earths, petrified sap, stones, marbles, rocks, and metals-amount to as many pieces again. I have had paintings made of a further 5000 natural objects-such as plants, various sorts of animals, and stones-some of which have been made into woodcuts. These can be seen in fourteen cupboards, which I call the Pinacotheca. I also have sixty-six armoires, divided into 4500 pigeonholes, where there are 7000 things from beneath the earth, together with various fruits, gums, and other very beautiful things from the Indies, marked with their names, so that they can be found (emphasis added).5.