The books of the naturalists of Gdańsk in the collection of the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) in Paris

Abstract

The naturalist school in Gdańsk played a major role in the development of natural history and the foundations of modern biology. The Cabinet of the King of France, then the National Museum of Natural History, was one of the most important scientific centers in Europe. The numerous traces of the collaboration of the naturalists of Gdańsk with the center of Paris persist in the collections of the MNHN. The naturalists of Gdańsk played an important role in the redaction of Histoire Naturelle… published by Georges-Louis Leclerc comte de Buffon (1707-1788). The central library of the MNHN has books writed by Adrian Pauli, Nicolaus Ölhafen, Georg Segerus, Ernst Gottfried Heyse, Johann Adam Kulmus, Christian Mentzel, Christoph Gottwald, Georg Andreas Helwing, Johannes Philippius and Jacob Breyne, Jacobus Theodorus Klein, Michael Christoph Hanovius, Gottfried Reyger, Johann Daniel Titius, Johann Reinhold and Georg Forster. 90 books as well as numerous manuscripts, including the correspondence of Georg Forster, allow for a partial reconstruction of the history of the scientific relation between Gdańsk Natural History school with the Cabinet of the French King and the MNHN.