Bernard Palissy (1510–1590) and the French geologists: a critical reappraisal concerning the founding naturalist and his rustic ceramics

Abstract

Abstract Bernard Palissy benefited from two centuries (mid-18th - mid-20th c.) of a striking reputation – only partly justified – as a precursor of the European geologists and as a prolific producer of a new ceramic ware. During the last decades that appreciation was revealed to be overrated. His scientific and technological fame were respectively founded on misreadings by 18th c. rediscoverers (Jussieu, Réaumur, Fontenelle) and on erroneous attributions to a so-called “rustic Palissy’s ware style” of most of the pieces of China with animals in full relief referred to Palissy. The attributions to the Palissy’s workshop of pieces including fossil shell casts, by 19th c. romantic ceramic collectors, was confirmed by Alexandre Brongniart [1854], the pioneer decipherer, along with G. Cuvier, of the geology of the Paris basin, who identified Lutetian fossil shells. Munier-Chalmas [in Dupuy, 1894], noting that Palissy did not accept that inland fossils could belong to any marine assemblages, did not understand that this misinterpretation contradicts the current fame of Palissy as the discoverer of marine transgressions. Modern geologists, following F. Ellenberger [1988], the first to point out this contradiction, undertook the rehabilitation of the true geological message of Palissy as a pluridisciplinary precursor in nature processes elucidation, at least equal to Leonardo da Vinci in accuracy. This contribution seeks also to solve the last major point of misunderstanding, which resulted in the mingling of the rare true rustic wares designed and produced in Palissy’s workshop at Saintes (according to the shells and vertebrates casts), with the more famous and numerous chinas, different in style, especially those with Tertiary fossil shells cast from nature, probably conceived more than a century after the rustiques figulines of Palissy, in a workshop set up in the northernmost Ile de France and not copied from them. The highest established merits of Palissy are acknowledged, that finally place him ahead of the world geologists.

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