Work in Progress Spring 2025 - Imitating Pliny the Elder in Oviedo’s "Sumario"

NB: THIS SESSION WILL BE HELD ONLINE VIA ZOOM.

Eva Falaschi (Humboldt fellow, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen): 'Imitating Pliny the Elder in Oviedo’s Sumario' 

In the preface of his Sumario de la natural historia de las Indias (1526), Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés declares that he wants to follow Pliny the Elder as a model for his work. This presentation investigates how this imitation takes place, focusing on the descriptions of pearls, precious stones and gold. It demonstrates that the Naturalis Historia is a standard for organizing information and a reference reading that is manipulated to discuss some central issues in the exploitation of American resources.

Eva Falaschi is Humboldt fellow at the University of Tübingen with a project on wine culture in Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia. She was a 2024 Frances Yates Fellow at the Warburg Institute, working on Pliny’s reception in Oviedo’s works. She has extensively published on the reception of Greek art in Greco-Roman Imperial literature and her research was funded by several Institutes in Europe and U.S.A.   

IMAGE: Oviedo, Historia general y natural, Book 6, ch. 8 (Siviglia, Juan de Cromberger 1535, f. 66r). © Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library / Biodiversity Heritage Library | Public Domain.