A NINETEENTH-CENTURY WOOD ANATOMIST'S COLLECTION OF HAND-MADE MODELS AT VILLA CORSINI MUSEUM IN ROME

It is interesting to discover historic collections left in museum deposits. In Rome at Villa Corsini Botanical Garden slices of twigs and stems marked by nineteenth-century labels happened to be kept aside awaiting for a new arrangement. Among hundreds of European, American, Australian, African and Asiatic wood samples there are a few well shaped and polished. Every one is made up by a young stem split in three parts then fixed on a small board, showing three different typical timber cuts: cross, tangential and radial ones. The models can be disassembled as wooden quoins keep their parts together. The circumstantial report about the making of such model is detailed by N.A.Pedicino (1878). Punicaceae, Sapindaceae, Fabaceae, Casuarinaceae, Anacardiaceae, Theaceae, Rutaceae, Pinaceae and Taxodiaceae taxa have been employed for this small collection. In nineteenth-century Europe timber was valuated mostly for its pleasant color and fine grain. Holtz-Bibliotheken were common at the time. They were wooden books with inside leaves, bark, small twigs and other wood items to give a picture of the taxon. N.A.Pedicino's wooden models have been planned to show grain and timber features in a simple peculiar way.