Marco Beretta, editor “…a particularly interesting volume in that it bridges a number of different approaches to the study of the history of natural history…raises many important issues pertaining to ownership, the use of collections ( beyond the purposes of classification or social standing ), the definition of “collection,” and the private/public continuum of collections…the volume shows how much more we can expand our overall narratives and how rich the subject is…” Isis, 98 : 1 (2007) “…In his excellent preface, Beretta discusses the idea that the emergence of natural history as an independent discipline ‘was closely connected to the possession and domination of nature, rather than its contemplation’. Thus it was the passion for collecting natural-history artefacts from the Renaissance to the end of the eighteenth century that drove the establishment of the discipline…From a natural historian’s viewpoint, these papers are far removed from the more familiar accounts of how collections, collectors and specimens contributed to our knowledge of the natural world, as they also address the largely unexplored subject of how the collections affected their collectors…well produced with many relevant illustrations.” —Nature “Seeking to balance Natural History's traditional emphasis on specimens and collections over writings, From Private To Public sheds a judicious and scholarly light upon humankind's quest to better understand the surrounding world. An excellent contribution to community and academic library Natural History study shelves.” —The Midwest Book Review Contents Preface The Museum of Alexandria: Myth and Model , Giovanni di Pasquale Natural Collections in the Spanish Renaissance, Susana Gómez López Wunderkammer vs. Museum? Natural History and Collecting during the Renaissance, Alessandro Tosi Pierre Pomet’s Parisian Cabinet: Revisiting the Invisible and the Visible in Early Modern Collections, E. C. Spary Uses and Publics of the Anatomical Model Collections of  La Specola, Florence, and the Josephinum, Vienna, around 1800, Anna Maerker Taste, Order and Aesthetics in Eighteenth-Century Mineral Collections, Jonathan Simon Collected, Analyzed, Displayed: Lavoisier and Minerals , Marco Beretta Owning and Collecting Natural Objects in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Samuel J.M.M. Alberti The Swedish Museum of Natural History and the “Linnaean Tradition, ” Jenny Beckman Do Collections Make the Collector? Charles Darwin in Context, Janet Browne The Museum of the Geological Survey of Portugal the Role of the “Bilobites” Collection in a 19th-century Palaeoichnological Controversy, Ana Carneiro Re-Humanizing a Sleeping Beauty, A Historian’s Vision of Natural History Collections, Christoph Meinel Notes on Contributors Index of Names Uppsala Studies in History of Science 32 European Studies in Science History and the Arts 5 September 2005, 272 pages, illustrated, ISBN 0-88135-360-4, clothbound and jacketed, $39.95 Front Matter and Preface (76KB) Also of Interest Marco Beretta Imaging a Career in Science The Iconography of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier 2001, ISBN 0-88135-294-2, $29.95 William R. Shea, editor Science and the Visual Image in the Enlightenment 2000, ISBN 0-88135-285-3, $39.95