The person depicted in this work is Ulysses Aldrovandi, a great naturalist from Bologna who sponsored and promoted the direct observation of nature as a privileged form for the construction of knowledge. Professor of Philosophy in Bologna, and founding Director in 1568 of the city’s Botanical Garden, Aldrovandi boasted of not having ever described something without having first touched it with his own bare hands and interpreted its anatomy. This painting was attributed to Agostino Carracci, in large part due to its use of teaching methods practiced by members of the Carracci family in the Academia degli Incamminati, which they founded, and where the study of truth based on natural observation trained students in the acquisition of personal visions of reality.