The Early Years
The project had thus become reality as a new age in scientific activity had come to dawn in Madrid. Its statutes would be successively modified over the years; unfortunately, such modifications are only partly known, as archives from the period 1752-1791 were lost. And this period is especially interesting as it is marked by the deaths of Cervi and Ortega, as well as by the incorporation of the work of the eminent Valencian physician, Andrés Piquer. It was also during these years that the Academy contributed to both the creation of the Botanical Garden and the mammoth undertaking of the publication of Joseph Quer’s Flora Española.