The Last Cassini: When a Star-Gazer’s Son Fell for Sunflowers

May 9, 1781

On this day, the illustrious Count Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini entered our world with a destiny that would defy his family's celestial traditions.

Born into what one might call astronomical royalty, this scion of stargazers would rebelliously turn his gaze from the heavens to the humble earth beneath our feet.

His second great-grandfather was the renowned Italian astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini—the man who first spotted Jupiter's Great Red Spot and identified the magnificent division in Saturn's rings that bears the family name. How the mighty cosmos must have beckoned to young Alexandre!

By the time our botanical hero made his appearance, his family had cleverly maneuvered themselves into French nobility through advantageous marriages (hence his Parisian birth). Poor timing, dear readers! For France was simmering with revolutionary fervor, and neither Italian heritage nor scientific accomplishment would shield the Cassinis from the bubbling cauldron of public resentment. The stage was set for upheaval, and the Cassinis were unfortunate enough to have front-row seats.

Cassini—designated "Cassini V" to distinguish him from his four star-struck forebears—chose to break with five generations of family tradition. One imagines the raised eyebrows and hushed whispers at family gatherings!

Instead of training his lens on distant planets, he aimed his considerable intellect at legal briefs. As a lawyer, Cassini ascended to the loftiest legal position France could offer in his time: "President of the Chamber." But here's the delicious irony, my garden-loving friends: botany was merely his hobby! While others might dabble in watercolors or collect porcelain figurines, Cassini classified complex flora in his spare hours.

His heart belonged completely to the sunflower family (Asteraceae), focusing with almost obsessive dedication on the Compositae. How fitting then, that the genus Cassinia—those delightful sunflowers—was named in his honor by botanist Robert Brown. It's rather remarkable that many of Cassini's meticulous descriptions remain scientifically valid over two centuries later. The man knew his daisies, I assure you!

In keeping with aristocratic traditions of his time, Cassini married his cousin—a practice that raises modern eyebrows but barely warranted notice in his day.

At the disappointingly young age of fifty, Cassini succumbed to cholera, that ruthless equalizer of social classes. In a twist of fate that seems almost deliberately cruel, his father outlived him by thirteen years. Alexandre Cassini, the botanical rebel among astronomical royalty, became the last to bear his illustrious name—the final punctuation mark on the remarkable Cassini legacy.

And so, dear gardeners, when next you admire a sunflower nodding in your garden, spare a thought for the man who chose to classify rather than calculate, who preferred petals to planets, and who, in turning from his family's stars, found his own form of immortality among the blooms.