Florike Egmond is a cultural historian and researcher at the University of Leiden. Her research concentrates on the European history of Renaissance natural history (as well as medicine and pharmacology), with a special emphasis on the combination of visual and textual information in botany and zoology, the European exchange networks of experts in these fields, naturalia in the history of collecting, styles of patronage by both individuals and institutions (such as courts and universities), and the contribution of non-university trained experts to the formation of natural history as a discipline during the period 1530–1630.