He wrote an encyclopedia of natural sciences in the 16th century: Who is Ulisse Aldrovandi?

(1522-1605) Italian naturalist and physician. He developed system-based observation techniques for the first time in medicine and natural sciences. He was born into a noble family in Bologna on September 11th. He studied Latin, mathematics, law, and philosophy at the universities of Rome and Padova. Although he was arrested and sent to Rome in 1549 for opposing religious values while teaching logic and natural history at the University of Bologna, he managed to get himself forgiven by using his family's influence. Returning to his chair at the university and receiving his doctorate of medicine in 1553, Aldrovandi was gaining great attention for his systematic approach to natural history lectures. In 1560 he was appointed professor of medicine at the same university. In 1568, he assumed the directorship of the Bologna Botanical Garden, which he founded. He died in Bologna on May 4, 1605.

Ulisse Aldrovandi (11 September 1522 – 4 May 1605) was an Italian naturalist, the moving force behind Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. Carl Linnaeus and the comte de Buffon reckoned him the father of natural history studies. He is usually referred to, especially in older scientific literature in Latin, as Aldrovandus; his name in Italian is equally given as Aldroandi.

Botanical gardens, which first appeared in Italy, were usually established under universities, and the plants grown were mostly selected from species that would be useful for drug production. Aldorvandi, who planned to establish such a botanical garden within the University of Bologna, diversified his plant selection by not limiting it only to drug production, and he grew different plant species in the garden he established in 1568. In this way, he not only provided a good observation opportunity for himself and his students but also created a rich collection for the encyclopedia of natural sciences that he would later prepare by having many artists draw pictures of these plants. In the same years, Aldrovandi's appointment as inspector of drugs and pharmacies caused a reaction among pharmacists. They united against him, claiming that he had planted forbidden plants in his garden. Finally, his maternal relative, Pope Gregory XIII, approved the appointing order, calming the controversy; moreover, the task of preparing the official codex was given to Aldrovandi. This codex, published in 1574 as Antidotarii Bononiensis Epitome (“Bologna Compendium”), containing the raw materials, formulas, and effects of drugs, was used for many years.

Aldrovandi's botanical garden and the rich biology museum, which he donated to the city of Bologna after his death, are the source of all his work in the field of natural sciences. Aldrovandi, who first thought of publishing his research in separate books, decided to prepare a large encyclopedia that would cover the entire living world with all the information he had gathered later. The first four volumes of this 14-volume work were published during Aldrovandi's lifetime with the financial support of Pope Gregory XIII. The rest was published in fifty years, with the compilation of the manuscripts he left in the city of Bologna by his students. The first three volumes of the encyclopedia are devoted to birds; the fourth volume is about insects, and the next volumes are about other animals, plants, and minerals. In this well-illustrated study, classification was given on the basis of anatomy and this approach influenced the development of animal classification in the following years. There are some similarities between this work and the Historia Animalium ("History of Living Things"), published between 1551 and 1558 by the Swiss naturalist Gesner, who lived at the same time. However, it is seen that Aldrovandi gives more importance to lesser-known plant and animal species living outside his country. Anatomical studies are also more weighted than Gesnet's work. Aldrovandi's work, which was criticized for its abundance of unnecessary material, did not have complete scientific accuracy but was the most reliable and comprehensive source in the natural sciences until the 18th-century French naturalist Buffon's Histoire Naturelle ("History of Nature").