Francesco Cupani: the “scientific network” of his time and the making of the Linnaean “system”

Francesco Cupani, a seventeenth century Sicilian botanist, developed a network of scientific exchanges andconnections with the most important scientists of his time. Despite living in considerable isolation, he managed, aboveall thanks to Sherard, to correspond and exchange with Ray, Commelin, Tournefort, Triumfetti, Volkamer and Böhm. Heparticipated in the intellectual process and debate on the method of classifying plants that he undertook following thecomparison and contrast between Linnaeus and Buffon, in formulating the Linnaeus method and in creating the conceptsof genera and species. Cupani and other contemporary botanists were not able to establish a system of plantclassification. Each of them was so engaged in researching the distinctive characters of individual plants, in avoidingduplications and synonyms, that they could not grasp what they had in common. Linnaeus, giving them notablerecognition, placed them in the category of the “Curious”. These pre-Linnaean researchers contributed to the difficultprocess of overcoming the rigidity of late-Aristotelian classifications, thanks also to the invention of a “scientificnetwork” that enabled the mutual debate and exchange of botanical material (publications, iconography, seeds and exsiccata).