LAMARCK, JEAN-BAPTISTE-PIERRE-ANTOINE de MONET de. — Born on 1 August 1744 at Bazentin, a village in Picardy, and died in Paris on 18 December 1819.
He had already begun collecting plants during his military service; after returning to civilian life, at the age of 24, he undertook the study of medicine and at the same time attended in Paris the botany course given by Lemonnier; in 1778 he published the Flore française (3 vols., Paris), for which, in 1779, he was admitted to the Académie des sciences, to which, in 1870, he submitted in manuscript the Recherches sur les causes des principaux faits physiques (Paris 1794). In 1781–82 he travelled through various European countries together with Buffon’s son, charged with visiting herbaria, museums, and botanical gardens and purchasing objects useful for the collections. In 1783 he was entrusted with the preparation of the Dictionnaire de botanique (3 vols., Paris, completed in 1817); shortly thereafter he proposed a classification scheme common to animals and plants; in 1789 he was appointed botanist attached to the Cabinet du Roi and professor at the Jardin des plantes; he wrote many works on botany.
In 1792 the Museum of Natural History was founded in Paris, and L. was entrusted there with the study of invertebrates. From then on he devoted himself chiefly to these, publishing the important Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres (7 vols., Paris 1815–22), while also addressing general and philosophical problems collected in the Philosophie zoologique (2 vols., ibid. 1809). Unfortunately, he also became involved in questions entirely outside his field of training, for which he was strongly criticized.
In old age he returned to natural-history studies, republishing various editions of his principal works, some of which he dictated to his daughter, having become almost blind.