JOSÉ MUTIS (1774)

Botanist who initiated one of the most important periods of botanical exploration in Spain.

After receiving the bachelor´s degree from the University of Seville in 1753 he studied medicine and in 1757 became physician to the royal household of Ferdinand VI.

One of the first Spanish disciples of the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus, he studied botany in his spare time until 1760 when he was appointed physician to the viceroy of the Spanish kingdom of New Granada (now the Republic of Colombia, South America).

In 1764 three years after arriving in Bogotá, he requested financial support to establish a botanical garden but was refused because of a lack of funds. Two years later he took up residence in the Andes at Pamplona where he reorganized the teaching of medicine, developed modern minig methods, taught the use of platina and discovered quinine near Bogotá. He also taught botany and botanical drawing and he cultivated plants for medicinal and agricultural uses.

With the arrival of a new viceroy in 1782 he was named first botanist and astronomer of the botanical expedition of northern America and granted a budget and salary to build a botanical garden in the town of Mariquita.

At the same time, botanical explorers were sent by the Spanish government to Peru, Cuba, México, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

Meanwhile, Mutis built one of the finest botanical libraries in the New World. Along with his staff of artists, zoologists and botanist he assembled thousands of drawings, a collection of bird and animal skins, and a herbarium containing more than 24,000 plants.

In 1791 the botanical expedition moved to Bogotá where some years later it built the first conservatory to be constructed in South America.

He wrote hundreds of botanical papers, but his largest work Flora de Bogotá o de Nueva Granada containing more than 6,000 illustrations was so massive that the Spanish government could not afford to print it.