Plants and Politics in Padua During the Age of Revolution, 1820-1848

This book highlights the close interactions between plants, plant knowledge, politics,and social life in Padua during the age of revolution. It explores the lives andthoughts of two brothers, the lawyer Andrea Meneghini and the botanist GiuseppeMeneghini, illustrating the unspoken dreams of progress and a new socialorder, but also sheds light on the ambiguous relationship between the Paduanelite and Austrian rule before the 1848 revolution. A closer look at park designs,gardening associations and networks, fl ower exhibitions, agricultural societies,organicist metaphors, and botanical research on the organization of livingbodies opens up unexpected parallels between actors and ideas of two apparentlydistant areas: botany and political economy.