The Prussian Connection

Abstract

Claudio Gay did not like everyone joining the conversation that he had initiated. From Paris, he had limited influence on what happened next, not only regarding Chilean natural history but also regarding his beloved museum. In the decade following his departure, he remained a paternal contributor, sending materials and worrying from afar. As much as he felt tied to Chile, and carried on a parallel Chilean life in his imagination and through correspondence, Gay’s influence was bound to wane if and when someone championed the museum from Santiago. That someone was a middle-aged Prussian political exile, a well-regarded botanist with a wife and four small children: Rudolph Amandus Philippi (Rodulfo Amando in Chile). Not a man to emigrate, or do anything else, on a whim, Rodulfo sailed to Chile after years of listening to his brother sell Chile’s virtues; more importantly, he sailed to Chile having fled certain arrest. Unlike Darwin and Gay, Rodulfo would never go home. As different as siblings can be in personality, Rodulfo (b. 1808) and his younger brother, Bernardo (Bernhard Eunom, b. 1811), were both notable figures in the history of nineteenth-century Chile.