The Age of Discovery denotes the period from the late 15th century to the early 18th century. Enormous scientific and intellectual advances were made in Europe at this time, paving the way for the Enlightenment of the 18th century. The discoveries of new lands, notably by Columbus and Vespucci in the years around 1500, revolutionised the British and European worldview. Pioneering naturalists such as Maria Sibylla Merian and Mark Catesby made expeditions to the New World in order to study live specimens of many new and exotic species at first hand. Trade routes opened up, and products from newly discovered lands began to be imported to Britain and Europe. Many great collections were formed in the 16th and 17th centuries, consisting of both zoological and ethnographic specimens; these collections served as research laboratories for scholars and scientists, such as Cassiano dal Pozzo. Botanical specimens also flooded in from the New World and the Near and Middle East, and gardens became the absorbing pursuit of an elite of scholars and collectors, contributing greatly to the study of the natural world and its ordering and classification.

1492    Christopher Columbus discovers America.
1499    Amerigo Vespucci sails to the West Indies and discovers the mouth of the Amazon.
1501    Amerigo Vespucci sails along the north coast of South America. His acceptance of South America as a continent altered cosmography.
1576    The Crown Imperial introduced to a European garden from Constantinople.
1590s    Tulips introduced to Europe, also from Turkey.
1603    The Accademia dei Lincei, Europe’s first modern scientific academy, established in Rome by Prince Federico Cesi. (Cassiano dal Pozzo becomes a member in 1622.)
1607    Foundation of Jamestown, Virginia, forming the first permanent English settlement in North America.
1616    Surinam in northeast South America colonised by the Dutch.
1621    Opening of the Oxford Physic Garden, the first botanical garden in Britain.
1620s and 30s    ‘Tulipomania’ sweeps through Holland.
1660    Charles II founds the Royal Society, the first scientific society in Britain.
1680    Foundation of Charleston, South Carolina.
1699-1701    Maria Sibylla Merian’s expedition to Surinam.
1705    Publication of Maria Sibylla Merian, Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium.
1707    Publication of the first volume of Sir Hans Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica with the Natural History of the Herbs and Trees, Four-footed Beasts, Fishes, Birds, Insects, Reptiles Etc…
1712-19    Mark Catesby’s expedition to Virginia.
1722-26    Mark Catesby’s expedition to Carolina.
1729-47    Publication (in parts) of Mark Catesby’s Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands
1753    Foundation of the British Museum by Sir Hans Sloane.


Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was profoundly curious about the natural world. His extraordinary drawings show his supreme ability to observe and record not only the outward appearance of natural objects, but also their inner structure and the forces that give them life.

Leonardo believed that the painter had to understand every facet of creation in order to produce truthful images. As he perceived these facets as infinitely interlinked, it is impossible to draw firm boundaries between one field of investigation and another. Much of Leonardo’s activity can be related at some level to his projected treatise on painting, the ultimate and unspoken aim of which was, in essence, a complete description of every aspect of natural phenomena. Inevitably, that treatise remained unfinished, but the studies that it spawned – into human and animal anatomy, botany, geology, hydraulics, optics, flight, and much else besides – mark Leonardo out as one of the greatest scientists, as well as one of the greatest artists, of the Renaissance.

One of Leonardo’s interests was geology. He made many drawings of weathered and collapsing rocks, including an outcrop of splintered, stratified rock bursting out of the earth. He drew it with a concentration and acuity not found again before the 17th century. He also made numerous studies of plants in preparation for his painting Leda and the Swan, which was to have a foreground teeming with plants and flowers. These drawings were far more detailed than was necessary for the painting of Leda, and it seems that Leonardo began to study botany as an end in itself. His beautiful drawing of the Star of Bethlehem is highly stylised in the twisting motion of its leaves and far from natural. Some of the other plant studies, such as his minutely detailed studies of oak leaves, branches of blackberry and the heads of rushes, rank among the most objective of Leonardo’s drawings.

Animal anatomy was also a productive line of enquiry. On one sheet of paper Leonardo drew naturalistic drawings of cats sleeping, grooming and fighting alongside a rather unexpected dragon, which had evidently arisen from his observations of feline movement. Leonardo made numerous detailed studies of the horse in preparation for designing equestrian monuments. Some of these are vivid drawings of the horse in motion; others are careful
studies of equine proportion.

Leonardo also performed animal dissections. He dissected a bear, and his extraordinary study of the anatomy of its foot, where he concentrated on the tendons and their attachments to the bones, shows his capability for great accuracy and objectivity.

The 18 drawings by Leonardo included in the exhibition are part of the unparalleled group in the Royal Collection, acquired in the late 17th century almost certainly by Charles II.