Hercule Florence (English Edition)

Hercule Florence was an explorer, an inventor and an artist. Born into a family from Monaco, at the age of just nineteen Florence set sail for Brazil as a draftsman on the Langsdorff expedition, where he worked on the discovery of the New World, of its nature, its environment and of a society yet to be founded. This project aims to provide Hercule Florence and his work – produced from within a context of both intellectual and cultural isolation – with their rightful place in the history of scientific inventions that left their mark on the flourishing Europe of the day. Through a series of scientific contributions and painstaking research projects found in the archives, this book recounts the extraordinary character that was Hercule Florence. Considered one of the inventors of photography, a drawer, field researcher, businessman and educator, Florence deployed his practical and intuitive intelligence, making significant contributions to a number of sectors. The rich iconography of the volume and the largely unpublished documentation highlight his unappreciated genius and his visions, many of which were to be transformed into realities.