Scholars looked directly to the natural world in order to create highly realistic documentation that would be complied together. Members of the Accademia dei Lincei championed this concept of naturalism and aided in its institutionalization throughout Europe. Further, projects like Cassiano del Pozzo’s Paper Museum created a systemic way of documenting and preserving “new” discoveries. Cassiano used drawing as a mechanism to depict new natural phenomena rather than traditional written or oral methods. This desire was largely brought about by imperialism and the beginnings of globalization as scholars needed a way to compare the past with new territories and cultures. By establishing a bank of detailed, (mostly) accurate information about the natural world, academics of the time would be able to have a frame of reference and better connect the origins of their world.
Making projects more interdisciplinary and accessible would allow for scholars across the world to collaborate and build off each other’s ideas. We can learn from projects like the Paper Museum that attempted to bridge science and art. Both fields can strongly benefit from each other’s techniques and methods- like the microscope, for example. I think it’s also important to recognize that many academic disciplines stem from the same thing: observations and questions about the natural world. This reflection should allow for input and cooperation across historical lines.
I also found that The Warburg Insitute had a very informative website on their attempts to digitize and categorize works from the Paper Museum. It outlines the ways in which scholars organize the images and just how much of an undertaking the project really is.
https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/research-projects/archived-research-projects/paper-museum-cassiano-dal-pozzo-1588-1657
A Digital Resource