History of the Fungi of the Rimini Territory

WHEN, toward the end of the year 1741, I was called by the people of Savignano to publicly lecture on Philosophical Institutions (Savignano is a not ignoble town in the diocese of Rimini), it happened that, while walking outside the town during my spare hours with friends to meditate on plants and to cultivate that faculty which I had learned in part from my distinguished teacher J. Plancus (not without benefit to the town and its pharmacists, as I knew very well), it happened, I say, that I encountered many fungi of different species. I began to bring them home and paint them on paper. But by the following year, both in Savignano and at my villa, which they call Pedrolara, I had such a collection of painted fungi that I counted more than two hundred distinct species. Meanwhile, I devoted myself to observations and meditations so that those things which were unknown to me regarding fungi might become known; therefore, I acquired books for myself on this subject and consulted men more famous in botany through letters. But since I could obtain nothing certain, neither from botanical books nor from the letters of those I consulted, especially regarding the generation of these fungi, I turned my mind to putting the observations and systems of others to the test. Because many things written by authors of even great name did not at all agree with my observations, and I possessed more than four hundred illustrations of fungi painted with a pen, I began to devise a plan to weave together a history of the fungi of this our territory and to make it public.

However, two things especially worked against me for a long time: the fear of vanity and a rather short supply of means; the latter was because of the expense of engraving the plates in copper, by which I was violently discouraged; the former troubled me, lest I attempt something that would be a nuisance to the age. Yet, regarding the first, Nature sailed with me, so that without any leader or teacher I learned the method of engraving on copper with an iron stylus. Regarding the other, I found rest in the counsel of my most beloved Plancus, who did not disapprove of our Opuscule, and who, for his singular kindness and beneficence toward me, provided helping hands and the aid of books, as well as his own most ample erudition. Also, I was supported by the counsel of Joseph Monti, the excellent Professor of Botany at Bologna, to omit others, who persuaded me to commit this little history to print with a cheerful heart.

With these things noted, it remains now, friendly Reader, that you be taught concerning the method I used to arrange the classes of fungi. And so, having followed neither the Tournefortian system, because the botanists of this age seem to be gradually abandoning it, nor the very recent Gleditschian system, because it has not yet reached my hands, I began with the First Class of Coral-like fungi.