Pietro Nati (1625-1685) obtained his doctorate of medicine in Pisa. In 1672, Cosimo III nominated him Director of the Botanical Garden of the University of Pisa, founded by Cosimo de Medici in 1544. Nati was also head of the university pharmacy and the chemistry laboratory, and lecturer in natural history at the University of Pisa. In 1674 he published De malo limonia citrata-aurantia vulgo la bizzarria (On the Citron-Orange Lemon, called the Bizzarria), an important and now exceedingly rare study on the lemon-orange “graft chimera," a tree which bears oranges, lemons and citrons and combinations thereof. Its leaves and flowers are also a mix of different citrus varieties and it blooms in both spring and fall.
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Last modified: 12/1/2006 3:21 PM by by H. Hutchinson
