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81-927: Ordine was a fellow of the Harvard University Center for Studies of the Italian Renaissance and of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung . He taught at the American universities of Yale and New York , and at the European universities EHESS, Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris , Paris-IV Sorbonne , Paris-III Sorbonne-Nouvelle , CESR of Tours, Institut Universitaire de France , Paris-VIII Vincennes , Institut des Études Avancées de Paris, Warburg Institute and Eichstätt University . His books have been translated into many languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Basque. In France he

162-815: A basic shape and then they were further adapted to their environment by an external force. Humboldt urged him to publish his theories. Together, the two discussed and expanded these ideas. Goethe and Humboldt soon became close friends. Humboldt often returned to Jena in the years that followed. Goethe remarked about Humboldt to friends that he had never met anyone so versatile. Humboldt's drive served as an inspiration for Goethe. In 1797, Humboldt returned to Jena for three months. During this time, Goethe moved from his residence in Weimar to reside in Jena. Together, Humboldt and Goethe attended university lectures on anatomy and conducted their own experiments. One experiment involved hooking up

243-579: A bureaucratic structure. Before leaving Madrid in 1799, Humboldt and Bonpland visited the Natural History Museum , which held results of Martín Sessé y Lacasta and José Mariano Mociño 's botanical expedition to New Spain . Humboldt and Bonpland met Hipólito Ruiz López and José Antonio Pavón y Jiménez of the royal expedition to Peru and Chile in person in Madrid and examined their botanical collections. Armed with authorization from

324-448: A captaincy-general based at Caracas. A great deal of information on the new jurisdiction had already been compiled by François de Pons, but was not published until 1806. Rather than describe the administrative center of Caracas, Humboldt started his researches with the valley of Aragua, where export crops of sugar, coffee, cacao, and cotton were cultivated. Cacao plantations were the most profitable, as world demand for chocolate rose. It

405-476: A distance, "because the images travelled, the botanists did not have to". Humboldt was astounded at Mutis's accomplishment; when Humboldt published his first volume on botany, he dedicated it to Mutis "as a simple mark of our admiration and acknowledgement". Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed

486-419: A frog leg to various metals. They found no effect until the moisture of Humboldt's breath triggered a reaction that caused the frog leg to leap off the table. Humboldt described this as one of his favorite experiments because it was as if he were "breathing life into" the leg. During this visit, a thunderstorm killed a farmer and his wife. Humboldt obtained their corpses and analyzed them in the anatomy tower of

567-460: A marvellously faithful and revealing guide to the ardent, magical world of Giordano Bruno". Umberto Galimberti in « La Repubblica »: "A magisterial and engrossing introduction to Bruno". Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation ( German : Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung ) is a foundation that promotes international academic cooperation between select scientists and scholars from Germany and from abroad. It

648-681: A number of large prizes, such as Humboldt Professorships and Sofia Kovalevskaya Awards . Fellowships and awards from the Foundation are considered to be among the most prestigious and generous awards in Germany; the alumni network is the foundation's greatest asset, comprising over 26,000 Humboldtians in more than 140 countries — including 57 Nobel laureates. The Foundation was initially established in Berlin in 1860 in order to provide German scientists support to do research in other countries. It

729-570: A prominent German noble family from Pomerania . Although not one of the titled gentry, he was a major in the Prussian Army , who had served with the Duke of Brunswick . At age 42, Alexander Georg was rewarded for his services in the Seven Years' War with the post of royal chamberlain . He profited from the contract to lease state lotteries and tobacco sales. Alexander's grandfather

810-591: A remarkable model of method in the field of philosophical exegesis, for he succeeds in reconstructing, in a very precise manner, the intellectual and spiritual itinerary of Giordano Bruno during the period, 1582-1585". Paul Oskar Kristeller : "The rich and complicated work will introduce the attentive reader to a vast number of primary and secondary sources on Western thought from antiquity to early modern times that would otherwise have escaped him". George Steiner : "The reader will find in Nuccio Ordine

891-411: A ship on a major expedition. Meantime, he went to Paris, where his brother Wilhelm was now living. Paris was a great center of scientific learning and his brother and sister-in-law Caroline were well connected in those circles. Louis-Antoine de Bougainville urged Humboldt to accompany him on a major expedition, likely to last five years, but the French revolutionary Directoire placed Nicolas Baudin at

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972-517: A voyage to the Pacific, they left the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil and headed for Acapulco on Mexico's west coast. Even before Humboldt and Bonpland started on their way to New Spain's capital on Mexico's central plateau, Humboldt realized the captain of the vessel that brought them to Acapulco had reckoned its location incorrectly. Since Acapulco was the main west-coast port and the terminus of

1053-500: Is here that Humboldt is said to have developed his idea of human-induced climate change. Investigating evidence of a rapid fall in the water level of the valley's Lake Valencia, Humboldt credited the desiccation to the clearance of tree cover and to the inability of the exposed soils to retain water. With their clear cutting of trees, the agriculturalists were removing the woodland's "threefold" moderating influence upon temperature: cooling shade, evaporation and radiation. Humboldt visited

1134-590: Is now the Mexican state of Guerrero . The route was suitable only for mule train, and all along the way, Humboldt took measurements of elevation. When he left Mexico a year later in 1804, from the east coast port of Veracruz, he took a similar set of measures, which resulted in a chart in the Political Essay , the physical plan of Mexico with the dangers of the road from Acapulco to Mexico City, and from Mexico City to Veracruz. This visual depiction of elevation

1215-626: The Asian trade from the Spanish Philippines, having accurate maps of its location was extremely important. Humboldt set up his instruments, surveying the deep-water bay of Acapulco, to determine its longitude. Humboldt and Bonpland landed in Acapulco on 15 February 1803, and from there they went to Taxco , a silver-mining town in modern Guerrero . In April 1803, he visited Cuernavaca , Morelos . Impressed by its climate, he nicknamed

1296-767: The Avila mount with the young poet Andrés Bello , the former tutor of Simón Bolívar , who later became the leader of independence in northern South America. Humboldt met the Venezuelan Bolívar himself in 1804 in Paris and spent time with him in Rome. The documentary record does not support the supposition that Humboldt inspired Bolívar to participate in the struggle for independence, but it does indicate Bolívar's admiration for Humboldt's production of new knowledge on Spanish America. In February 1800, Humboldt and Bonpland left

1377-493: The Gendarme regiment was something of a ne'er do well, not often mentioned in the family history. Alexander Georg died in 1779, leaving the brothers Humboldt in the care of their emotionally distant mother. She had high ambitions for Alexander and his older brother Wilhelm, hiring excellent tutors, who were Enlightenment thinkers, including Kantian physician Marcus Herz and botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow , who became one of

1458-708: The Royal College of Mines , the Royal Botanical Garden and the Royal Academy of San Carlos as exemplars of a metropolitan capital in touch with the latest developments on the continent and insisting on its modernity. He also recognized important criollo savants in Mexico, including José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez , who died in 1799, just before Humboldt's visit; Miguel Velásquez de León; and Antonio de León y Gama . Humboldt spent time at

1539-932: The Rupununi savannah had been misidentified as a lake. On 24 November 1800, the two friends set sail for Cuba, landing on 19 December, where they met fellow botanist and plant collector John Fraser . Fraser and his son had been shipwrecked off the Cuban coast, and did not have a license to be in the Spanish Indies. Humboldt, who was already in Cuba, interceded with crown officials in Havana, as well as giving them money and clothing. Fraser obtained permission to remain in Cuba and explore. Humboldt entrusted Fraser with taking two cases of Humboldt and Bonpland's botanical specimens to England when he returned, for eventual conveyance to

1620-566: The humanities . It allows scientists and scholars from all over the world to come to Germany to work on a research project they have chosen themselves together with a host and collaborative partner. Additionally it funds German scholars' via the Feodor Lynen Fellowships to go anywhere in the world to work on a research project with a host and collaborative partner, who must have held an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship themself. In particular, these fellowships and awards include

1701-692: The main plaza of Mexico City in 1790, along with select drawings of the Dresden Codex and others he sought out later in European collections. His aim was to muster evidence that these pictorial and sculptural images could allow the reconstruction of prehispanic history. He sought out Mexican experts in the interpretation of sources from there, especially Antonio Pichardo, who was the literary executor of Antonio de León y Gama 's work. For American-born Spaniards ( criollos ) who were seeking sources of pride in Mexico's ancient past, Humboldt's recognition of these ancient works and dissemination in his publications

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1782-597: The " Corriere della Sera " newspaper. Ordine died from a stroke on 10 June 2023, at the age of 64. Pierre Hadot (Collège de France in Paris): "Nuccio Ordine is well known to the public for his excellent studies on Giordano Bruno. He is one of the major contemporary experts on the whole social, artistic, literary, and spiritual milieu of the Renaissance and the Early Modern period. In the present work, he offers us

1863-674: The Americas; he was aided in obtaining it by the German representative of Saxony at the royal Bourbon court. Baron Forell had an interest in mineralogy and science endeavors and was inclined to help Humboldt. At that time, the Bourbon Reforms sought to reform administration of the realms and revitalize their economies. At the same time, the Spanish Enlightenment was in florescence. For Humboldt "the confluent effect of

1944-801: The Bourbon revolution in government and the Spanish Enlightenment had created ideal conditions for his venture". The Bourbon monarchy had already authorized and funded expeditions, with the Botanical Expedition to the Viceroyalty of Peru to Chile and Peru (1777–88), New Granada (1783–1816), New Spain (Mexico) (1787–1803), and the Malaspina Expedition (1789–94). These were lengthy, state-sponsored enterprises to gather information about plants and animals from

2025-605: The Foundation helped establish the German Section of the Scholars at Risk (SAR) network, a group of research institutions, universities, and science organizations committed to supporting at-risk academics and promoting academic freedom. Alexander von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 – 6 May 1859) was a German polymath , geographer , naturalist , explorer , and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science . He

2106-524: The Foundation’s closure for a second time, until it was re-established in Bonn-Bad Godesberg on December 10, 1953, with a new President, the renowned physicist Werner Heisenberg , and a new goal “to grant fellowships to academics of foreign nationality, without regard to gender, race, religion, or ideology, to enable them to continue their academic training by a study-visit to Germany“. In 2016

2187-435: The German botanist Willdenow in Berlin. Humboldt and Bonpland stayed in Cuba until 5 March 1801, when they left for the mainland of northern South America again, arriving there on 30 March. Humboldt is considered to be the "second discoverer of Cuba" due to the scientific and social research he conducted on this Spanish colony. During an initial three-month stay at Havana , his first tasks were to survey that city properly and

2268-508: The King of Spain, Humboldt and Bonpland made haste to sail, taking the ship Pizarro from A Coruña , on 5 June 1799. The ship stopped six days on the island of Tenerife , where Humboldt climbed the volcano Teide , and then sailed on to the New World, landing at Cumaná , Venezuela , on 16 July. The ship's destination was not originally Cumaná, but an outbreak of typhoid on board meant that

2349-757: The River Rhine ). The following year, 1790, Humboldt returned to Mainz to embark with Forster on a journey to England, Humboldt's first sea voyage, the Netherlands, and France. In England, he met Sir Joseph Banks , president of the Royal Society , who had travelled with Captain Cook; Banks showed Humboldt his huge herbarium, with specimens of the South Sea tropics. The scientific friendship between Banks and Humboldt lasted until Banks's death in 1820, and

2430-597: The Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until 8 September 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Mutis was based in Bogotá, but as with other Spanish expeditions, he had access to local knowledge and a workshop of artists, who created highly accurate and detailed images. This type of careful recording meant that even if specimens were not available to study at

2511-529: The Spanish realms, assess economic possibilities, and provide plants and seeds for the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid (founded 1755). These expeditions took naturalists and artists, who created visual images as well as careful written observations as well as collecting seeds and plants themselves. Crown officials as early as 1779 issued and systematically distributed Instructions concerning

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2592-657: The Valenciana silver mine in Guanajuato , central New Spain, at the time the most important in the Spanish empire. The bicentennial of his visit in Guanajuato was celebrated with a conference at the University of Guanajuato , with Mexican academics highlighting various aspects of his impact on the city. Humboldt could have simply examined the geology of the fabulously rich mine, but he took the opportunity to study

2673-529: The agricultural and commercial potential of Cuba was huge and could be vastly improved with proper leadership in the future. On their way back to Europe from the Americas, Humboldt and Bonpland stopped again in Cuba, leaving from the port of Veracruz and arriving in Cuba on 7 January 1804, staying until 29 April 1804. In Cuba, he collected plant material and made extensive notes. During this time, he socialized with his scientific and landowner friends, conducted mineralogical surveys, and finished his vast collection of

2754-572: The basis of observations generated during his travels, local impacts of development causing human-induced climate change . Humboldt is seen as "the father of ecology" and "the father of environmentalism". Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin in Prussia on 14 September 1769. He was baptized as a baby in the Lutheran faith, with the Duke of Brunswick serving as godfather. His father, Alexander Georg von Humboldt (1720-1779), belonged to

2835-586: The captain changed course from Havana to land in northern South America. Humboldt had not mapped out a specific plan of exploration, so that the change did not upend a fixed itinerary. He later wrote that the diversion to Venezuela made possible his explorations along the Orinoco River to the border of Portuguese Brazil. With the diversion, the Pizarro encountered two large dugout canoes each carrying 18 Guayaqui Indians. The Pizarro ' s captain accepted

2916-708: The city the City of Eternal Spring . Humboldt and Bonpland arrived in Mexico City, having been officially welcomed via a letter from the king's representative in New Spain, Viceroy Don José de Iturrigaray . Humboldt was also given a special passport to travel throughout New Spain and letters of introduction to intendants, the highest officials in New Spain's administrative districts (intendancies). This official aid to Humboldt allowed him to have access to crown records, mines, landed estates, canals, and Mexican antiquities from

2997-585: The coast with the purpose of exploring the course of the Orinoco River and its tributaries. This trip, which lasted four months and covered 1,725 miles (2,776 km) of wild and largely uninhabited country, had an aim of establishing the existence of the Casiquiare canal (a communication between the water systems of the rivers Orinoco and Amazon ). Although, unbeknownst to Humboldt, this existence had been established decades before, his expedition had

3078-491: The entire mining complex as well as analyze mining statistics of its output. His report on silver mining is a major contribution, and considered the strongest and best informed section of his Political Essay . Although Humboldt was himself a trained geologist and mining inspector, he drew on mining experts in Mexico. One was Fausto Elhuyar , then head of the General Mining Court in Mexico City, who, like Humboldt

3159-459: The founders of modern geography as they established it as an independent scientific discipline. Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in the Americas , exploring and describing them for the first time from a non-Spanish European scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in several volumes over 21 years. Humboldt resurrected the use of

3240-554: The frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real and reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey. Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo , where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time (for a westerner— Incas had reached much higher altitudes centuries before), but 1000 feet short of

3321-533: The head of it rather than the aging scientific traveler. On the postponement of Captain Baudin's proposed voyage of circumnavigation due to continuing warfare in Europe, which Humboldt had been officially invited to accompany, Humboldt was deeply disappointed. He had already selected scientific instruments for his voyage. He did, however, have a stroke of luck with meeting Aimé Bonpland , the botanist and physician for

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3402-469: The highest post in his department, but he was also entrusted with several important diplomatic missions. Neither brother attended the funeral of their mother on 19 November 1796. Humboldt had not hidden his aversion to his mother, with one correspondent writing of him after her death, "her death... must be particularly welcomed by you". After severing his official connections, he awaited an opportunity to fulfill his long-cherished dream of travel. Humboldt

3483-547: The important results of determining the exact position of the bifurcation , and documenting the life of several native tribes such as the Maipures and their extinct rivals the Atures (several words of the latter tribe were transferred to Humboldt by one parrot ). Around 19 March 1800, Humboldt and Bonpland discovered dangerous electric eels , whose shock could kill a man. To catch them, locals suggested they drive wild horses into

3564-401: The incident in several of his later writings, including his travelogue Personal Narrative (1814–29), Views of Nature (1807), and Aspects of Nature (1849). Two months later, they explored the territory of the Maipures and that of the then-recently extinct Atures Indians. Humboldt laid to rest the persistent myth of Walter Raleigh 's Lake Parime by proposing that the seasonal flooding of

3645-492: The intellect have the advantage of bringing attention to a large number of important facts". Humboldt was impressed with Mexico City, which at the time was the largest city in the Americas, and one that could be counted as modern. He declared "no city of the new continent, without even excepting those of the United States, can display such great and solid scientific establishments as the capital of Mexico". He pointed to

3726-565: The island's flora and fauna that he eventually published as Essai politique sur l'îsle de Cuba . After their first stay in Cuba of three months, they returned to the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda, they arrived in Bogotá on 6 July 1801, where they met the Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis , head of

3807-526: The men laboring in the mines. He opened a free school for miners, paid for out of his own pocket, which became an unchartered government training school for labor. He also sought to establish an emergency relief fund for miners, aiding them following accidents. Humboldt's researches into the vegetation of the mines of Freiberg led to the publication in Latin (1793) of his Florae Fribergensis, accedunt Aphorismi ex Doctrina, Physiologiae Chemicae Plantarum , which

3888-609: The mission at Caripe and explored the Guácharo cavern , where he found the oilbird , which he was to make known to science as Steatornis caripensis . He also described the Guanoco asphalt lake as "The spring of the good priest" (" Quelle des guten Priesters "). Returning to Cumaná, Humboldt observed, on the night of 11–12 November, a remarkable meteor shower (the Leonids ). He proceeded with Bonpland to Caracas where he climbed

3969-450: The most experimental of Humboldt's publications, since it does not have "a single ordering principle" but his opinions and contentions based on observation. For Humboldt, a key question was the influence of climate on the development of these civilizations. When he published his Vues des cordillères , he included a color image of the Aztec calendar stone , which had been discovered buried in

4050-463: The most important botanists in Germany. Humboldt's mother expected them to become civil servants of the Prussian state. The money left to Alexander's mother by Baron Holwede became instrumental in funding Alexander's explorations after her death; contributing more than 70% of his private income. Due to his youthful penchant for collecting and labeling plants, shells, and insects, Alexander received

4131-525: The most secure and economic means to transport live plants by land and sea from the most distant countries , with illustrations, including one for the crates to transport seeds and plants. When Humboldt requested authorization from the crown to travel to Spanish America, most importantly, with his own financing, it was given positive response. Spain under the Habsburg monarchy had guarded its realms against foreigner travelers and intruders. The Bourbon monarch

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4212-778: The nearby towns of Guanabacoa , Regla , and Bejucal . He befriended Cuban landowner and thinker Francisco de Arango y Parreño ; together they visited the Guines area in south Havana, the valleys of Matanzas Province, and the Valley of the Sugar Mills in Trinidad . Those three areas were, at the time, the first frontier of sugar production in the island. During those trips, Humboldt collected statistical information on Cuba's population, production, technology and trade, and with Arango, made suggestions for enhancing them. He predicted that

4293-420: The nuptials. Humboldt graduated from the Freiberg School of Mines in 1792 and was appointed to a Prussian government position in the Department of Mines as an inspector in Bayreuth and the Fichtel Mountains . Humboldt was excellent at his job, with production of gold ore in his first year outstripping the previous eight years. During his period as a mine inspector, Humboldt demonstrated his deep concern for

4374-412: The offer of one of them to serve as pilot. Humboldt hired this Indian, named Carlos del Pino, as a guide. Venezuela from the 16th to the 18th centuries was a relative backwater compared to the seats of the Spanish viceroyalties based in New Spain (Mexico) and Peru, but during the Bourbon reforms, the northern portion of Spanish South America was reorganized administratively, with the 1777 establishment of

4455-486: The only literary story Humboldt ever authored, he tried to summarize the often contradictory results of the thousands of Galvanic experiments he had undertaken. In 1792 and 1797, Humboldt was in Vienna ; in 1795 he made a geological and botanical tour through Switzerland and Italy. Although this service to the state was regarded by him as only an apprenticeship to the service of science, he fulfilled its duties with such conspicuous ability that not only did he rise rapidly to

4536-450: The playful title of "the little apothecary". Marked for a political career, Alexander studied finance for six months in 1787 at the University of Frankfurt (Oder) , which his mother might have chosen less for its academic excellence than its closeness to their home in Berlin. On 25 April 1789, he matriculated at the University of Göttingen , then known for the lectures of C. G. Heyne and anatomist J. F. Blumenbach . His brother Wilhelm

4617-416: The prehispanic era. Humboldt read the writings of Bishop-elect of the important diocese of Michoacan Manuel Abad y Queipo , a classical liberal , that were directed to the crown for the improvement of New Spain. They spent the year in the viceroyalty, traveling to different Mexican cities in the central plateau and the northern mining region. The first journey was from Acapulco to Mexico City, through what

4698-500: The river, which brought the eels out from the river mud, and resulted in a violent confrontation of eels and horses, some of which died. Humboldt and Bonpland captured and dissected some eels, which retained their ability to shock; both received potentially dangerous electric shocks during their investigations. The encounter made Humboldt think more deeply about electricity and magnetism, typical of his ability to extrapolate from an observation to more general principles. Humboldt returned to

4779-461: The summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima , Peru. At Callao , the main port for Peru, Humboldt observed the transit of Mercury on 9 November and studied the fertilizing properties of guano , rich in nitrogen, the subsequent introduction of which into Europe was due mainly to his writings. Humboldt and Bonpland had not intended to go to New Spain, but when they were unable to join

4860-490: The two shared botanical specimens for study. Banks also mobilized his scientific contacts in later years to aid Humboldt's work. Humboldt's passion for travel was of long standing. He devoted to prepare himself as a scientific explorer. With this emphasis, he studied commerce and foreign languages at Hamburg , geology at Freiberg School of Mines in 1791 under A.G. Werner , leader of the Neptunist school of geology; from anatomy at Jena under J.C. Loder ; and astronomy and

4941-414: The university. In 1794, Humboldt was admitted to the famous group of intellectuals and cultural leaders of Weimar Classicism . Goethe and Schiller were the key figures at the time. Humboldt contributed (7 June 1795) to Schiller's new periodical, Die Horen , a philosophical allegory entitled Die Lebenskraft, oder der rhodische Genius (The Life Force, or the Rhodian Genius). In this short piece,

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5022-530: The use of scientific instruments under F.X. von Zach and J.G. Köhler . At Freiberg, he met a number of men who were to prove important to him in his later career, including Spaniard Manuel del Río, who became director of the School of Mines the crown established in Mexico; Christian Leopold von Buch , who became a regional geologist; and, most importantly, Carl Freiesleben  [ de ] , who became Humboldt's tutor and close friend. During this period, his brother Wilhelm married, but Alexander did not attend

5103-420: The voyage. Discouraged, the two left Paris for Marseilles , where they hoped to join Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt, but North Africans were in revolt against the French invasion in Egypt and French authorities refused permission to travel. Humboldt and Bonpland eventually found their way to Madrid , where their luck changed spectacularly. In Madrid, Humboldt sought authorization to travel to Spain's realms in

5184-419: The word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multivolume treatise, Kosmos , in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity, which introduced concepts of ecology leading to ideas of environmentalism . In 1800, and again in 1831, he described scientifically, on

5265-610: Was Johann Paul von Humboldt (1684-1740), who married Sophia Dorothea von Schweder (1688-1749), daughter of Prussian General Adjutant Michael von Schweder (1663-1729). In 1766, his father, Alexander Georg married Maria Elisabeth Colomb , a well-educated woman and widow of Baron Friedrich Ernst von Holwede (1723-1765), with whom she had a son Heinrich Friedrich Ludwig (1762-1817). Alexander Georg and Maria Elisabeth had four children: two daughters, Karoline and Gabriele, who died young, and then two sons, Wilhelm and Alexander. Her first-born son, Wilhelm and Alexander's half-brother, Rittmaster in

5346-608: Was a boon. He read the work of exiled Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavijero , which celebrated Mexico's prehispanic civilization, and which Humboldt invoked to counter the pejorative assertions about the new world by Buffon, de Pauw, and Raynal. Humboldt ultimately viewed both the prehispanic realms of Mexico and Peru as despotic and barbaric. However, he also drew attention to indigenous monuments and artifacts as cultural productions that had "both ... historical and artistic significance". One of his most widely read publications resulting from his travels and investigations in Spanish America

5427-446: Was a center of learning in the U.S., Humboldt met with some of the major scientific figures of the era, including chemist and anatomist Caspar Wistar , who pushed for compulsory smallpox vaccination, and botanist Benjamin Smith Barton , as well as physician Benjamin Rush , a signer of the Declaration of Independence , who wished to hear about cinchona bark from a South American tree, which cured fevers. Humboldt's treatise on cinchona

5508-574: Was a compendium of his botanical researches. That publication brought him to the attention of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , who had met Humboldt at the family home when Alexander was a boy, but Goethe was now interested in meeting the young scientist to discuss metamorphism of plants. An introduction was arranged by Humboldt's brother, who lived in the university town of Jena, not far from Goethe. Goethe had developed his own extensive theories on comparative anatomy. Working before Darwin, he believed that animals had an internal force, an urform , that gave them

5589-423: Was a general editor of two series at Les Belles Lettres Publishing House : the complete works of Giordano Bruno and the “Bibliotheque Italienne”. In Italy, he was the general editor of the “Sileni” series at Liguori Publishing House, the “Classics of European thinking” series at Nino Aragno Publishing House, and the “Classics of European literature” series at Bompiani Publishing House . Nuccio Ordine also wrote for

5670-406: Was a welcome foreign scientist and mining expert, the Spanish crown had established fertile ground for Humboldt's investigations into mining. Spanish America's ancient civilizations were a source of interest for Humboldt, who included images of Mexican manuscripts (or codices) and Inca ruins in his richly illustrated Vues des cordillères et monuments des peuples indigènes de l'Amerique (1810–1813),

5751-452: Was able to spend more time on writing up his research. He had used his own body for experimentation on muscular irritability, recently discovered by Luigi Galvani and published his results, Versuche über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser (Berlin, 1797) ( Experiments on Stimulated Muscle and Nerve Fibres ), enriched in the French translation with notes by Blumenbach. With the financial resources to fund his scientific travels, he sought

5832-812: Was already a student at Göttingen, but they did not interact much, since their intellectual interests were quite different. His vast and varied interests were by this time fully developed. At the University of Göttingen, Humboldt met Steven Jan van Geuns, a Dutch medical student, with whom he travelled to the Rhine in the fall of 1789. In Mainz, they met Georg Forster , a naturalist who had been with Captain James Cook on his second voyage. Humboldt's scientific excursion resulted in his 1790 treatise Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein (Brunswick, 1790) ( Mineralogic Observations on Several Basalts on

5913-663: Was established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and is funded by the Federal Foreign Office , the Federal Ministry of Education and Research , the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development as well as other national and international partners. Every year, the Foundation grants more than 700 competitive research fellowships and awards, primarily going to academics from natural sciences , mathematics and

5994-669: Was himself a scientist, Humboldt wrote to him saying that he would be in the United States. Jefferson warmly replied, inviting him to visit the White House in the nation's new capital. In his letter Humboldt had gained Jefferson's interest by mentioning that he had discovered mammoth teeth near the Equator. Jefferson had previously written that he believed mammoths had never lived so far south. Humboldt had also hinted at his knowledge of New Spain. Arriving in Philadelphia , which

6075-548: Was named after the polymath Alexander von Humboldt . In 1923, when hyperinflation was crippling much of the Weimar Republic ’s economy, the Foundation ceased operations due to capital constraints. It was re-established by the German Reich in 1925, although its new goal was to attract and support talented, pro-German students from other countries to study and research in Germany. The fall of Germany in 1945 led to

6156-501: Was open to Humboldt's proposal. Spanish Foreign Minister Don Mariano Luis de Urquijo received the formal proposal and Humboldt was presented to the monarch in March 1799. Humboldt was granted access to crown officials and written documentation on Spain's empire. With Humboldt's experience working for the absolutist Prussian monarchy as a government mining official, Humboldt had both the academic training and experience of working well within

6237-413: Was part of Humboldt's general insistence that the data he collected be presented in a way more easily understood than statistical charts. A great deal of his success in gaining a more general readership for his works was his understanding that "anything that has to do with extent or quantity can be represented geometrically. Statistical projections [charts and graphs], which speak to the senses without tiring

6318-581: Was published in English in 1821. After arriving in Washington D.C, Humboldt held numerous intense discussions with Jefferson on both scientific matters and also his year-long stay in New Spain. Jefferson had only recently concluded the Louisiana Purchase , which now placed New Spain on the southwest border of the United States. The Spanish minister in Washington, D.C. had declined to furnish

6399-552: Was the Essai politique sur le royaum de la Nouvelle Espagne , quickly translated to English as Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain (1811). This treatise was the result of Humboldt's own investigations as well as the generosity of Spanish colonial officials for statistical data. Leaving from Cuba, Humboldt decided to take an unplanned short visit to the United States. Knowing that the current U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson ,

6480-406: Was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography , while his advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement pioneered modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring. Humboldt and Carl Ritter are both regarded as

6561-494: Was trained in Freiberg. Another was Andrés Manuel del Río , director of Royal College of Mines, whom Humboldt knew when they were both students in Freiberg. The Bourbon monarchs had established the mining court and the college to elevate mining as a profession, since revenues from silver constituted the crown's largest source of income. Humboldt also consulted other German mining experts, who were already in Mexico. While Humboldt

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