Giovanni Baptista Ferrari

Giovanni Baptista (also Battista) Ferrari (1584 in Siena – 1 February 1655 in Siena), was an Italian Jesuit and professor in Rome, a botanist, and an author of illustrated botanical books and a Syriac-Latin dictionary.

He was born to an affluent Sienese family and entered the Jesuit Order in Rome in 1602. His career, besides the authoring of two important works, included being professor of Hebrew and Rhetoric at the Jesuit College in Rome and horticultural advisor to the Pope.

Giovanni Ferrari Baptista was linguistically highly gifted and an able scientist, who, at 21 years of age, knew a good deal of Hebrew and spoke and wrote excellent Greek and Latin. He was editor of a Syriac-Latin dictionary (Nomenclator Syriacus, 1622).

Ferrari devoted himself till 1632 to the study and cultivation of ornamental plants, and published De Florum Cultura, which was illustrated with copperplates by, amongst others, Anna Maria Variana, possibly the first female copper-engraver. The first book deals with the design and maintenance of the garden and garden equipment. The second book provides descriptions of the different flowers, while the third book deals with the culture of these flowers. The fourth book, continues with a treatise on the use and beauty of the flower species, including their different varieties and mutations.

The plants featured in Ferrari's research came from Cardinal Francesco Barberini's private botanical garden, the Horti Barberini, a garden which was under the care of Ferrari. The first edition of his de florum publication was dedicated to Barberini and the second was dedicated to Barberini's sister-in-law, Anna Colonna.

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