Curiosity, wonder, and the usefulness of science: experiencing the American agave plant by early members of the leopoldina

Abstract

Classified in early modern Europe as a species of the aloe, which was already a familiar plant, the American agave caught the special attention of European naturalists and laity alike. While it had long served as medicine, food, and building material by Indigenous people in Mexico, its utility shifted on European soil. Blooming only once in its lifetime, the American agave inspired wonder in its spectators, a wonder that was built through decades-long care and cultivation of the plant. This wonder did not end, though, with the plant's biological death but lived on via images, text, and commemorations. In this paper, I show how curiosity and wonder inspired by the rare flowering of the American agave, as observed by early members of the Leopoldina academy, culminated in a disciplined contemplation of the divine in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century German-speaking territories. Situating the American agave within broader early modern cultures of curiosity and wonder, I show that wonder, inspired by a marvellous object, could continue after physical decay. This marvel was not merely encountered but actively intensified by human intervention.