In the present article we will compare three processes for artificially producing plants: palingenesis, a process in which plants that have been reduced to their ashes or salts are resuscitated in the laboratory by chemical procedures; the production of metallic trees, artificial crystallizations produced by dissolving a metal in acid under special conditions; and plasmogenics, a study of the origin and nature of protoplasm through artificial synthesis of its primordial structures and functions. Making use of these comparisons a number of problems connected with the notions of body, life, individual, generation and physiology are discussed, with the goal of establishing some lines of continuity between historical and philosophical aspects of the life sciences and chemistry of the seventeenth, eighteenth and twentieth centuries.

No presente artigo, compararemos três processos de produção artificial de vegetais: a palingênese, processo em que plantas reduzidas às suas cinzas ou sais são ressuscitadas em laboratório por meio de procedimentos químicos, a produção de árvores metálicas, cristalizações artificiais produzidas pela dissolução de um metal em ácido sob condições especiais e a plasmogenia, estudo da origem e da natureza do protoplasma através de síntese artificial de suas estruturas e funções primordiais. A partir dessa comparação, será discutida uma série de problemas em torno das noções de organismo, vida, indivíduo, geração e fisiologia, visando estabelecer algumas linhas de continuidade filosófica e histórica entre aspectos das ciências da vida e da química dos séculos xvii, xviii e xx.

One of the most remarkable contributions of Herrera’s Anotationes is the extensive analysis that the Sevillian author develops of all the rhetorical figures found in his poetic work. Not only do we see the definition, but also the Latin literary sources, mainly Virgil, where these figures and authorities completing his commentary can be found. Quintilian, Hermogenes, Rhetorica ad Herennium and other minor preceptists who have assisted him with his understanding and study. He couldn’t miss Scaliger who is present in more than 30 figures. He quotes him at times, but he doesn’t on numerous occasions and the mark of his reading and interpretation is undeniable. This article ends with an essential bibliography to complete this interesting chapter of Rhetoric.

F. De Herrera is an epic and lyrical poet. He composed hymns, odes, lost poems, except for stanzas and scattered lines we can find in his Anotaciones and references made by Sevillian poets belonging to his milieu. His precocious reading of Scaliger has aused him to follow on the epic path, a stimulus he also found in Aristotle’s Poetics. As a lyrical poet, he has produced sonnets, eclogues and elegies. For pastoral poetry he takes advantage of several ideas he picked up in chapter four of Book I and for his treatise on the eclogue he resorts to Scaliger’s doctrine. The elegy finds its support in Qui et idea, Qui et historicus e Qui et hipercriticus. Lyrical poetry draws on ideas found in Qui et historicus and, especially for the language he uses, he resorts to Qui et parasceve. The reading of the Italian preceptist has influenced his ideas on love, mores, purity, the sonnet in the place of the epigram. The article ends with a selected bibliography.