Giovanni Battista Ferrari
Hesperides sive de Malorum Aureorum Cultura et Usu Libri Quatuor
1646

110 plates by the Dutch engraver, Cornelis Bloemaerts the younger (1603-1684), and others, depicted life sized fruits, both whole and in section. Although trained as a painter, as had other members of his family, he was primarily a printmaker. Bloemaerts worked in Rome in 1630 under the patronage of the Cortona & Barberini families and rose to become one of the great seventeenth century botanical artists.

Giovanni Battista Ferrari (1582 or 1584 -1655) was an Italian Jesuit scholar with a keen interest in taxonomy and classification of fruit. A native of Sienna, he removed to Rome where he was appointed chair of Hebraic studies at the Collegio Romano, a position he held for 28 years allowing him to give full reign to his thoughts and studies as a man of letters. In 1623, Ferrari became horticultural advisor to the family of Pope Urban VIII, at the Palazzo Barberini, soon famous for its rare plants, including orange trees. He later wrote the first book on citrus trees, equating them with the mythical Golden Apples of the Hesperides won by Hercules. Orange and Lemon trees became an important element in baroque gardens symbolizing the rewards merited by the benevolent prince.

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