Enclosing the Open Fields

Early modern natural history was both characterized by naturalists collecting jointly on excursions and by the employment of paper technologies in the exchange of information and objects. Evaluating a sample of Matthias Ernst Boretius’s correspondence with Johann Philipp Breyne (Gotha research library) as well as Jacob Breyne’s 1659 herbarium as a gift to Hieronymus van Beverningh (Naturalis Biodiversity Center Leiden), this paper argues that naturalists made creative use of those technologies as substitutes for joint outings. It analyzes the specific characteristics of the letter and the herbarium as instruments for both distance interaction and self-presentation, considering the relationship between sender and addressee, and the aims the authors pursued with their respective media. As the herbarium has not been fully considered before this background yet, the paper contributes to its understanding as a means of naturalist communication.