Aldrovandi’s planned history of marvels: Writing the preternatural into nature

This article looks at Ulisse Aldrovandi's planned Historia admirandis ('history of marvels'), a work that never came to fruition. Based on extensive archival research, the article reconstructs the efforts that went into the projected volume, which resulted in thousands of pages of notes and a much shorter work entitled Florilegium admirandorum, which Aldrovandi dedicated to his patron and relative Alberto Bolognetti. The article argues that the historical reception of Bartolomeo Ambrosini's posthumous publication of Aldrovandi's Monstrorum historia obscures the fact that Aldrovandi was hoping to write a very different and more ambitious work on marvels, in which he intended to include marvels of both nature and art. This work was deeply connected with the construction and expansion of Aldrovandi's museum, but also with his published works, including the Ornithologiae.