A Clockwork Orange

Abstract

In the early modern time citrus fruits unpredictably drew enormous attention, not only in mythology or artistic knowledge, but also in natural philosophy and medicine. Embedded within two lesser-known texts belonging to the sciences, in this article I analyse diverse sources to appraise the richness and plurality of approaches to citrus fruits that pool different ways of constructing a complex knowledge of plants. First, I explore the classificatory attempts of Renaissance botanists. Second, I discuss the experimental investigation in the enchantment for monstrosities and teratologies in Della Porta’s natural magic and Aldrovandi’s naturalism. Then, I present the more structured obsession displayed by Giovanni Battista Ferrari. Finally, I investigate the natural philosophical systematization of citrus in Gassendi’s corpuscularianism and Descartes’ mechanics. In outlining a combination of frameworks, the study of citrus fruits surfaces as a suitable case study to assess the complex knowledge of plants in early modern Europe.