As noted in chapter 2, the period of time spanning Block’s adult life was a time of curiosity and fascination about nature, and empiricism—in the Republic, and throughout Europe. Whereas the earlier chapters established Vijverhof’s centrality in Block’s self-fashioning and self-representation as Flora Batava and its place in Dutch culture, this chapter shows that Vijverhof was also a site of knowledge creation, exchange, and community. The estate was an intermediary in Block’s most important relationships and it served as a platform for her extensive network of experts and amateurs. These networks, in turn, were essential to her achievements as an amateur botanist, and in her self-fashioning as Flora Batava.

This chapter sets out the collaborative nature of early modern botany and examines Block’s participation in that enterprise in that context, a participation that was complicated and hindered by her gender. It was by establishing productive relationships with individuals who did have access to resources and institutions (i.e., men) that Block was able to claim her place as an influential and productive member of a “garden circuit” that was arguably one the seventeenth century’s most important organs of the production of botanical knowledge.

Early Modern Botany: A Collaborative Enterprise

The development of botanical knowledge during the early modern period was a collaborative enterprise that emerged through public debate and exchange. As Brian Ogilvie noted, “it could be the product only of a community.”