José Celestino Bruno Mutis y Bosio (6 April 1732 – 11 September 1808) was a Spanish priest, botanist and mathematician.

During those same years he continued to study botany at the Migas Calientes Botanical Gardens (now the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid), and also astronomy and mathematics.

[2] After three years he decided to leave for America, as the private physician of the new viceroy of New Granada, Pedro Messía de la Cerda.

[3] From his arrival in the Viceroyalty, Mutis concentrated on his botanical studies, beginning work on an herbal and investigating for cinchona, which was considered a panacea for the treatment of all kinds of diseases.

These treasures arrived safely at Madrid in 105 boxes, and the plants, manuscripts, and drawings were sent to the botanical gardens, where they were relegated to a tool-house.

[citation needed] He determined the longitude of Bogotá by the observation of an eclipse of a satellite of Jupiter and was a major influence on the construction of the National Astronomical Observatory.

[citation needed] In March 1762, at the inauguration of the chair of mathematics at the Colegio del Rosario, he expounded the principles of the Copernican system and of the experimental method of science, leading to a confrontation with the Church.

In 1774 he had to defend the teaching of the principles of Copernicus, as well as natural philosophy and modern, Newtonian physics and mathematics, before the Inquisition.

José Celestino Mutis Botanical Gardens, a park and center of scientific investigation, is named in his honor in Bogotá.

[8] His collection of plant specimens deposited in Paris at the National Museum of Natural History, France was curated by Alicia Lourteig.

[9] The four expeditions authorized by King Charles III to the Spanish colonies were those of Hipólito Ruiz López and José Antonio Pavón to Peru and Chile (1777–88); Mutis to New Granada (1783–1808); Juan de Cuéllar to the Philippines (1786–97); and Martín Sessé y Lacasta to New Spain (1787–1803).