The literary legacy of Thomas Penny (c.1532–c.1588) is revealing about the nature of collecting and collections, in that he was lucky enough to find followers (Thomas Muffet and Theodore Mayerne) who mined his entomological research and bundled it into a book. On the other hand, it was unfortunate that nothing of the sort happened to the extensive notes he made during botanical excursions in Switzerland and France with the aim of completing Conrad Gessner’s unfinished ‘Historia plantarum’ of 1565. While we have the benefit of the ‘Insectorum, sive, Minimorum animalium theatrum’ (1634) – a semi-authentic work on insects, on which Penny’s reputation has exclusively rested – yet owing to his failure ultimately to publish either Gessner’s or his own botanical legacy, this aspect of his work has remained little known. Fortunately, much of his preparatory material survives so that we have the authentic, original documents to hand, which remain to be explored. This paper offers an initial contribution to that task by presenting an evaluation of Penny’s botanical notes and by providing his extant letters (as supplementary material) for the first time, both in transcription and in translation, showing Penny as a keen observer of nature amid the political turmoil of his time.

中文翻译：

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Thomas Penny 和 Conrad Gessner 植物遗产的保存

Thomas Penny (c.1532–c.1588) 的文学遗产揭示了收藏和收藏的本质，因为他很幸运地找到了追随者（Thomas Muffet 和 Theodore Mayerne），他们挖掘了他的昆虫学研究并将其捆绑到一本书。另一方面，不幸的是，他在瑞士和法国进行植物学远足期间为了完成康拉德·格斯纳 (Conrad Gessner) 未完成的 1565 年“植物史”而进行的大量笔记没有发生任何类似的事情。 Insectorum, sive, Minimorum animalium theatrum”（1634 年）——一部关于昆虫的半真实作品，佩妮的声誉完全依赖于此——但由于他最终未能出版 Gessner 或他自己的植物学遗产，他作品的这一方面已经鲜为人知。幸运的是，他的大部分准备材料都保存下来，因此我们手头有真实的原始文件，还有待探索。本文对 Penny 的植物笔记进行了评估，并首次提供了他现存的信件（作为补充材料），无论是转录还是翻译，都为该任务做出了初步贡献，表明 Penny 是一位敏锐的自然观察者。他那个时代的政治动荡。