Ferrari and the Pregnant Lemons of Pietrasanta

Abstract

Giovanni Battista Ferrari lived and worked for most of his life in Rome and had an extraordinary career there. Born in Siena, he came to Rome in 1604 to become a Jesuit. After a successful education at College Romano, he was made professor Hebrew in the College. But almost immedately after the accession of Urban VIII to the Papacy in 1623, he changed directions in an almost totally unexpected way. He became horticultural adviser to the Barberini. He told them how to plan their new gardens on the Quirinal, and seems to have been the first to grow a number of new species in Rome. He claims the honour, for example, of having been the first successfully to cultivate the Hibiscus mutabilis or what he called the Chinese Rose, in Italy