Jose Quer Biography

José Quer

(José Quer y Martínez; Perpiñán, 1695-Madrid, 1764) Spanish botanist, creator of the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid.Son of José Quer y Copons, he was a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish army and was orphaned at the age of twelve.His uncle Miguel de Copons, counselor to the king and chancellor of the University of Perpignan, took charge of his education.He became a surgeon and entered the army; after a short time he was appointed senior surgeon of the Soria regiment, which was then in Gerona, a city where he began to collect numerous plants, which he collected in an extensive herbarium.From there, he traveled with his regiment through Catalonia, Aragon, Valencia and North Africa, taking advantage of these trips to study the plants of the places where he passed.

In 1733, always as a military surgeon, he went to Italy , where, despite carrying out an effective and intense professional activity, he was able to expand his knowledge of botany.He was a disciple of Michael Angelus Tilli in Siena; he was also collecting plants in Florence.On his return to Spain, he was appointed senior surgeon in the army and began to observe and collect plants around Madrid, growing the ones he collected in the Duke of Atrisco's garden.This activity was interrupted four years after it began, having to leave again for Italy with the army.

Between 1742 and 1746 he traveled through Italy.His work as a surgeon was justly valued by the Italian professors of whom he was occasionally a consultant.He ran two field hospitals.He frequented the anatomical amphitheater of the University of Bologna and also regularly attended botany lessons at said university.

He made several trips collecting seeds that, on his return to Madrid, he planted in the aforementioned garden of the Dukes of Atrisco, which was soon insufficient and had to be expanded with that of the Count of Miranda.In the new scientific excursions that he made, he reached the Extremadura mountains and went around the Gredos lagoon and the Ávila mountains.In 1755, Fernando VI, aware of the interest of José Quer's work for the development of botany in Spain, gave his orchard of Migas Calientes to be destined for the Botanical Garden of Madrid.José Quer and Juan Minuart were appointed the first and second professors of botany of said garden.

From then on, Quer abandoned the practice of surgery and devoted himself entirely to botany.He traveled making herbalizations through Asturias, Galicia, León and Burgos; he wrote several dissertations, some of which were unpublished, and prepared his Spanish Flora , of which only the first four volumes were published.The last two were published twenty years later by Casimiro Gómez Ortega, fulfilling an order from Carlos III who entrusted the Protomedicate with the compilation and publication of what was left of the manuscript of José Quer's work.

La Spanish flora meant an attempt at systematization that was the starting point for later publications.It shows the great erudition and extensive botanical knowledge of the author, but suffers from a lack of method, excessive attention to small details and, on occasions, the plant described is not easily recognizable.

Follower of Joseph P.De Tournefort, he rejected and harshly criticized the new Linnaean classification system that was having such an enthusiastic reception throughout Europe.This criticism was undoubtedly influenced by the anger that Quer caused the negative judgment that the famous Swedish botanist had made about Spanish botanists, which provoked in José Quer an energetic response in defense not only of botany but of all Spanish science.As is known, Linnaeus later rectified that judgment and maintained close relations with Spain.