"Las cosas singulares de piedras, animales, plantas": la formación y el funcionamiento de la red imperial española de remesas centíficas en el Virreinato del Río de la Plata

Abstract

This article follows the process of shipping animal and vegetable species from the administrative region the Vice-royalty of Río de la Plata to the Spanish scientific institutions, such as the Real Gabinete, the Real Jardín Botánico and the menageries of Retiro and Aranjuez. The objective was to grab such shipments at the exact moment these institutions were being created, in order to make explicit their presiding logic, which mixed economicist purposes, the culture of gift, typical of the Ancien Regime, with modern scientific practices which were, in turn, being built.