Ulisse Aldrovandi and Indigenous American Featherwork

Abstract

The article deals with Ulisse Aldrovandi’s study of Indigenous American featherwork. Its main section systematically reviews the textual descriptions and visual representations of feather artifacts that Aldrovandi was able to observe, either in his museum or in those of other collectors. The review includes some previously unnoticed texts and images, as well as the transcriptions of previously unpublished manuscript texts. The final part of the article discusses some specific aspects of Aldrovandi’s texts, showing how his use of the published sources available at the time led him to tackle some key tópoi of early modern European literature on Indigenous American featherwork, to which he added fascinating lexical nuances. Overall, the article reassesses the relevance of the Aldrovandian corpus for Indigenous American studies.