Argentine poet, essayist and professor María Negroni brings together in 'The Natural Idea' biographical notes on 49 figures who, from Antiquity to the 20th century, have tried to classify and write about nature. The Natural Idea sometimes take the form of a poem or letter, include various illustrations and summarize long biographies in short paragraphs.

“In many of these characters there is a delirium, an almost bulimic excess. They show the human desire to confront indecipherable and incomprehensible reality, something that neither science nor writing can access,” she says.