From a monetary perspective, it was a bad move he would have commanded a much higher salary by sticking with medicine.

By then, however, he had developed a strong interest in natural history, and eventually turned to teaching that subject. He completed his degree in medicine and philosophy in 1553, and began teaching logic the following year. As a young man, Aldrovandi studied law, philosophy, logic and mathematics at the universities of Bologna and Padua. He moved to the city again at the age of 16 before returning to Bologna and then traveling through Spain and France for months. (His brother was named Achille after the other protagonist.)Īt the age of just 12, Aldrovandi visited Rome on his own. Considering himself a latter-day Aristotle, Aldrovandi was named after one of the two protagonists of The Iliad and The Odyssey.

It is still on display today, in the Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna.Īldrovandi was a true Renaissance man, living between the lifetimes of da Vinci and Galileo, and rooted in both classical and religious sensibilities. A lifelong dragon aficionado, he kept in his collections the remains of another, diminutive dragon, only a little larger than a human hand. Ulisse Aldrovandi inspected the dragon's alleged carcass and (remarkably) called it a good omen for the new pontiff. He assumed the papal throne equipped with a cousin who specialized in dragons. It was a worrisome event, but one could say the new pontiff was well prepared. When Pope Gregory XIII assumed his new exalted post in 1572, a 'fearsome' dragon appeared in the countryside in Bologna.

Possessing Nature by Paula Findlen