Santiago Madriñán, “Caribbean Early Modern Botany: Jacquin’s expedition to the Americas 1754–1758”
on Friday 13 March 2026 at
17:00 Central European Time (Italy) (16:00 Greenwich Mean Time, UK; 11:00 Eastern Standard Time, USA)
This talk will explore the early career and American expedition of Nikolaus Joseph Jacquin (1727–1817), an Austrian botanist trained in Leiden and later appointed by Emperor Franz I to lead one of the most ambitious scientific voyages of the eighteenth century. Between 1754 and 1759, Jacquin collected plants, animals, and minerals across the Caribbean and northern South America, establishing the foundations for the imperial gardens of Schönbrunn and for the study of American flora in Europe. Upon his return to Vienna, he published several landmark botanical works and maintained active correspondence with Carl Linnaeus. Jacquin’s work laid the groundwork for generations of botanical exploration and classification.
Santiago Madriñán is a botanist and historian of science affiliated with the Jardín Botánico de Cartagena and Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. He is the author of Nikolaus Joseph Jacquin’s American Plants: Botanical Expedition to the Caribbean (1754–1759) and the Publication of the Selectarum Stirpium Americanarum Historia (Brill, 2013). His research on plant collecting in the Caribbean and South America combines archival work and field botany.
To join this meeting, please use the following Zoom link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82664248972?pwd=HvEuSbQ359YYTIAe0VCc9IOIIKz6OQ.1
Meeting ID: 826 6424 8972
Passcode: 046150