Jean Emmanuel Gilibert (1741–1814), francuski botanik, lekarz i polityk, część swojego życia spędził w Rzeczpospolitej Obojga Narodów. W latach 1775–1781 mieszkał w Grodnie, gdzie założył Królewską Szkołę Lekarską i ogród botaniczny, modernizował nauczanie medycyny i nauk przyrodniczych, a także przyczynił się do rozwoju badań. W 1781 r. przeniósł się do Wilna i tutaj na Uniwersytecie Wileńskim objął Katedrę Historii Naturalnej, i Ogród Botaniczny, zorganizował studia przyrodnicze i badania. W 1783 r. Gilibert opuścił Wilno, powrócił do Lyonu, gdzie praktykował jako lekarz i uczestniczył w życiu politycznym Francji. Podczas pobytu w Wielkim Księstwie Litewskim Gilibert kolekcjonował miejscowe rośliny z okolic Białegostoku, Brześcia, Merecza, Nowogródku, Nieświeża, Wilna, Waki, Trok, Warszawy. Od 1781 r. do końca życia ogłosił drukiem aż 16 prac poświęconych przyrodzie Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego. W większości z nich podał informacje o roślinach. Takie prace Giliberta, jak Flora Lituanica inchoata; Exercitium botanicum, in schola principe universitatis Vilnensis…; rozdziały zatytułowane Flora Lithuanica inchoata i Plantae rariores et communes Lithuaniae w książce Caroli Linnaei ... Systema plantarum Europae… oraz Exercitia phytologica… określane są (traktowane) jako Flora. W powyższych publikacjach cytuje ponad 1200 roślin występujących na terytorium Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego. W 1945 r. szwedzki uczony Nils Hylander opublikował artykuł, w którym zalecał zrezygnować ze wszystkich nazw naukowych zaproponowanych przez Giliberta w pracach Flora Lituanica inchoata i „Exercitia phytologica jako sprzecznych z zasadami nomenklatury binarnej Linneusza. W 1949 r. Roger McVought po dokonaniu analizy opracowania Giliberta Flora stwierdził, że spośród 1200 gatunków roślin, które opisał tu Gilibert, aż 850 nazw zostało przez niego zaproponowanych jako nowe, z których tylko 85–90 nazw teoretycznie mogłoby być używanych w wykazach roślin. Obecnie wszystkie Flory Giliberta są wciągnięte do Międzynarodowego Kodu Nomenklatury Glonów, Grzybów i Roślin (International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants) Appendix VI Opera utique oppressa. W tym rejestrze zamieszczono nazwy glonów, grzybów i roślin nieużywane i niepublikowane we współczesnych pracach z zakresu botaniki. Jeżeli właściwie wszystkie zaproponowane przez Giliberta nazwy roślin nie nadają się do publikowania, wówczas powstaje pytanie, jaką wartość mają prace Giliberta dla współczesnych badań flory Litwy. Zbadałam cytowania Giliberta w sześciotomowym rejestrze „Lietuvos TSR flora” [ 1-6 tomai. Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla, Vilnius 1959-1980.] opublikowanym w latach 1959-1980, który do dziś dnia jest największym i najważniejszym wykazem roślin na Litwie. W tym wydaniu obok podstawowej nazwy gatunku rośliny zostały podane ważniejsze nazwy synonimiczne oraz wskazane bardziej znaczące źródła pisane, w których gatunek ten został przedstawiony. We wszystkich sześciu tomach rejestru wiele razy są cytowane dwie publikacje Giliberta: Flora Lituanica inchoata i Exercitia Phytologica. W 1. tomie wydania „Lietuvos TSR flora”, gdzie zostały opisane Pteridophyta i Gymnospermae, Gilibert cytowany jest tylko raz. W 2. tomie, w którym znajduje się opis roślin jednoliściennych z 18 rodzin i 135 podrodzin, Gilibert cytowany jest 55 razy. W 3. tomie, gdzie dokonano opisu roślin dwuliściennych z 27 rodzin i 143 podrodzin, jest cytowany 79 razy. W 4. tomie poświęconym roślinom dwuliściennym z 39 rodzin i 155 podrodzin, wśród których znajdują się rośliny należące do takich dużych rodzin, jak Rosaceae i Leguminosae, Gilibert cytowany jest 104 razy. W 5. tomie, w którym opisane są rośliny dwuliścienne z 32 rodzin i 188 podrodzin, w tym też rośliny z dużych rodzin, jak Labiatae i Scropulariaceae, Gilibert cytowany jest 133 razy oraz w 6. tomie, w którym przedstawione zostały rośliny dwuliścienne z 3 rodzin i 68 podrodzin, cytowany jest 72 razy. Niektóre rośliny, jak Zannichellia palustris L., Setaria verticillata (L.), Pulsatilla vernalis (L.) Mill., Euphorbia palustris L. do rejestru „Lietuvos TSR flora” zostały wpisane wyłącznie na podstawie danych Giliberta, ponieważ w tym czasie, kiedy powyższa publikacja była wydawana, brakowało dodatkowych informacji o występowaniu tych gatunków na terytorium Litwy. Część cytowanych nazw roślin podawanych przez Giliberta, które są zawarte w pracy „Lietuvos TSR Flora“, jest identyczna z nazwami proponowaymi przez Linneusza, część zaś nazw jest inna, utworzona przez Giliberta. Wszystkie nazwy roślin proponowane przez Giliberta cytowane w pracy „Lietuvos TSR Flora“ występują jako dodatkowe, uzupełniające źródło, jednakże częstość cytowania świadczy o tym, że wkład tego uczonego do badań flory Litwy jest istotny nie tylko pod względem historycznym, lecz i botaniczno-florystycznym.
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In order to locate copies of the works of Jean Emmanuel Gilibert (1741–1814) located in Poland, 54 libraries were selected for inquiry, chosen on the basis of their history or of the nature or size of their collections. So far, 27 libraries have responded to the inquiry. There are works of J.E. Gilibert stored in 14 of them. To date, 102 copies of different editions catalogued under Gilibert’s name have been recorded in libraries in Poland. These books were placed in these libraries in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mainly as part of donations from private libraries. In Poland, the reception of the botanical works of J.E. Gilibert changed over time. Initially they were accepted uncritically (Stanisław Bonifacy Jundziłł, Józef Jundziłł). Over time, and with the increase in floristic data subsequent to the publication of Gilibert’s works, his treatises were cited less frequently. As early as the second half of the nineteenth century, Polish botanists mentioned them only occasionally. More accurate works, containing newer taxonomical considerations of species, effectively supplanted the works of Gilibert in scientific circulation. It is worth noting that for contemporary plant taxonomy, the botanical works of Gilibert are of no scientific value. Four of them (Flora lituanica inchoata, Exercitium botanicum, Caroli Linnaei botanicorum principis, Exercitia phytologica) are listed in Appendix V, ‘Opera Utique Oppressa’, of the 2006 Vienna Code of Botanical Nomenclature. Names appearing in these works in the rankings specified at the end of each listing (species and intraspecific taxa) are not accepted as valid.
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The author is trying to remind us of great role of French culture and French people in spreading the ideas of Enlightenment in Poland. Common use of French language in high societies in 18th century and excellent knowledge of books from Paris created favourite conditions for contacts of Poland with France. The best evidence of common culture of Enlightenment was the Commission of National Education (KEN) and the deep social changes. The direct contacts of French thinkers, writers and scientists with Poland also caused the changes of horizons of aristocracy and gentry. We will remind the main animators of this movement followed A. Jobert. J.E. Gilibert takes a very important place among the animators of Enlightenment. Author intends to present the phases of knowing him, generally mentioning the main conclusions of many research on Gilibert. At the same time author leaves to next speakers a detailed analyze of Gilbert’s contribution to the development of Polish science.
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Jean-Emmanuel Gilibert (1741-1814) has been the subject of few biographical works. This paper presents the results of research from unpublished documents, unknown by historians until now. The information, published in old sources as in Gilibert autobiographical sketches or in catalogues of natural history papers auctions, is critically analyzed here. We also tried to establish a list of documents from those cited by Gilibert biographers, but lost today. The author both presents and comments letters to Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1836) and André Thouin (1747-1824), as well as a letter to an unknown receiver, in the autograph’s collection of Gustave Thuret (1747-1824) and Eduard Bornet (1828-1911) - which is conserved in the collection of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. Precious information about Gilibert and his stay in Lithuania was found in the letters of Antoine Gouan (1733-1821) to Philippe-Isidore Picot de Lapeyrouse (1744-1818). Research were also conducted in the Museum’s herbarium in order to find Gilibert’s specimens from Lithuania as well as to discover more information about the naturalist himself. The documents of Jean Hermann (1738-1800) linked with Gilibert were found in Strasbourg’s National and University Libraries and in the Municipal Archives; a letter from Gilibert to Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu was also discovered in this collection. Some new and interesting data came from a register of Hermann’s natural history cabinet visitors Some additional information about Gilibert’s life and work was obtained as a result of the analysis of manuscripts conserved in the National Academy of Medicine in Paris, more specifically in Gilibert’s correspondences from Lithuania and Lyon about illnesses and epidemics. The information obtained allowed a better knowledge of the history of Gilibert floristic works in Lithuania, his zoological research, his practice of medicine and his study of different pathologies, his way of collecting and the collection itself of natural history specimens and the history of Gouan’s herbarium and Pierre Richer de Belleval’s copper plates brought from France to Lithuania. Some facts about Gilibert’s life unknown to his biographers were also discovered in these manuscripts. We also tried to discover to what extent the information obtained in Lithuania was used by Gilibert in France. The role of Gilibert in the description of the Alps flora and his participation in the work of Dominique Villars (1745-1814) were discussed. We tried to estimate the impact of Gilibert’s experience in Lithuania on his bio-geographical conceptions, as well as on botany in the XIX century. Based on this information, the character of Gilibert was found to be representative of a typical member of the „république des savants” while still remaining very specific to his atypical life. We therefore also tried to understand to what extent Gilibert was a typical naturalist of the XVIII century.
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In 1775-1783, Jean-Emmanuel Gilibert (1741-1814) stayed in Respublica Poloniae to organize a veterinary school, the Royal Botanic Garden and the Royal School of Physicians in Grodno, and since 1781 he worked in Vilnius as Professor of Natural History at the Principal School of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Little is known about his work conducted in Lithuania in the field of geology and earth sciences. The author has decided, on the basis of Gilibert’s publications and analysis of the literature (works of J. Garbowska and P. Daszkiewicz and others), to present his teaching and research activities in this field. In Grodno, Gilibert looked after and multiplied the collections of the natural history cabinet at the Royal School of Physicians, renowned for its rich mineralogical and fossil collections watched and admired by, among others, King Stanisław August, J. Bernoulli (1744-1807) and M. Patrin (1742-1815) who mentions the amber rosary with a different species of insects preserved in each bead. Gilibert’s tours around Lithuania were the opportunity to enlarge the geological collections and to adapt them to the needs of the school. He also appreciated the importance of ordinary specimens representing the geology of the area. These specimens not only enriched the natural history cabinet, but also defined the way of working and collecting. Ha was the first to found and gather fossil animals from near Grodno. The signs of mineralogical and geological interests of Gilibert can be found in the works of other authors of that epoch (L. Viteta (1736-1809) and J. Bernoulli). In Vilnius, Gilibert conducted a one year-long full lecture on natural history (zoology, botany and mineralogy). In his lectures on mineralogy, he presented not only the systematics, but also emphasized the usefulness of minerals in medicine, for the production of ornamental items and in different sectors of the economy. He adapted the process of teaching to the needs of practical life, based on observations and experiments, and was using the local wildlife specimens in his lectures. Thanks to the French naturalist, the teaching of natural science remained at a good European level since the time the Department was founded at the University of Vilnius. A treatise on physical geography of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is Gilibert’s best-known published work in Poland. Based on own observations, he determined, e.g., the causes of drying of ponds and marshes, as well as of the formation of peat, limonitic iron and ocher, the origin of rivers in Lithuania and the presence of amber, and described a number of fossils. He provided the characteristics of geological deposits (now included in the Quaternary), described their origin and age, and drew attention to the issues of dynamic geology (e.g. erosional activity of rainwater, river erosion, formation of sand dunes). From the period of his eight-year stay in Lithuania, Gilibert also submitted observations on the climate of Lithuania, documented by temperature measurements. He indicated that the climate of this part of Europe was milder than the French believed, with clearly noticeable two seasons: winter and summer. He pointed out that the autumn rains give rise to muddy areas persisting to the end of November, and the most severe frost, usually several days long, occurs in late December and January, when the winds blow from the northeast. June and July are typically the hottest months, but the northern winds sometimes cause July ground frosts. He compared Lithuania’s climate to that of the Alpine foreland. Gilibert was the first scholar who studied the natural environment of Lithuania based on scientific principles. Interesting are his observations on the amber resin, for example, unequivocal statement that amber is a resin, at the time when the idea was still much discussed. Worth noting are the geological elements in the physiographic description of Lithuania, published by Gilibert (1806) in Histoires des Plantes d’Europe. It should also be pointed to the methodological aspect of Gilibert’s works: the facts precede interpretations, the results are attempted to be universalized by transposition into areas other than those investigated by Gilibert, and the observations are linked with scientific theories, which were new at those times, in the field of geology, chemistry and physics. Gilibert’s descriptions were often the first ones available to the naturalists in western and southern Europe. They were all the more valuable that contained a lot of data on the geology, meteorology, physical geography etc., useful in various fields.
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Among the many topics of lively scientific work that Jean Emmanuel Gilibert (1741-1814) conducted in Grodno and Vilnius, an important place is occupied by his observations of wild mammals. Royal patronage and care from Antoni Tyzenhauz, Treasurer of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the governor of Grodno, allowed Gilibert to keep and observe wild fauna captured by royal services in royal forests, including Białowieża Primeval Forest. Such was an origin of a female bison kept by Gilibert in Grodno. Its description, published in Indagatores naturae in Lithuania (Vilnius 1781) for decades became the primary source of information about the behaviour, food preferences and the anatomy of European bison. European science has just begun to take interest in European bison, therefore Gilibert’s account entered scientific circulation by way of French natural history encyclopaedias (mainly Georges Buffon’s Histoire naturelle) and works by Georges Cuvier or Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Apart from the description of European bison, Gilibert left an entire series of observations of wild mammals inhabiting the forests of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. His accounts of moose were important in building a knowledge base for this species. In the first half of the 18th century, moose was known mainly from fantastic descriptions in Renaissance works and from prescriptions devoted to using moose hoof as the epilepsy treatment. Gilibert’s observations helped to overthrow such superstitions. Similarly, Gilibert’s first-hand information verified the widespread legends concerning brown bear (e.g. the belief that white bears, belonging to other species than polar bears, occur in Lithuania) . List of species kept and thoroughly watched by the scholar is much longer and includes lynx, wolf (and hybrids of wolves and dogs), beaver, badger, fox, hedgehog, and even white mouse. Also his comments on the species of mammals then absent in Lithuania but known either from farming or from the fur trade (wolverine, bobak marmot or steppe polecat). Also in these cases, Gilibert’s descriptions were often the first reliable information that entered the circulation in European science. His accounts were not free of errors and mistakes - but they resulted mainly from the pioneering role of his work. Some of his breeding experiments can arouse the reader’s sincere smile today, such as an attempt to feed a beaver with fish or serve cooked beans to a lynx In the margins of his mammal observations, Gilibert described also the place of their occurrence, extensive forests of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Read from the contemporary perspective, his thoughts are surprisingly relevant. In his praise of “primeval nature, free from human actions and not disturbed by accident or by the impatience of human desires” he sounds very similar to today’s eulogists of the primeval forest of Białowieża.
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