Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Herbals are books about plants, more especially, their use in treating man's physical ills. They often contain illustrations and usually at least some slight description of the plants. Even from the earliest times of Crataeus and Dioskorides, 2000 years ago, they frequently discussed also certain animal and mineral products useful in healing or dietetics, or even cosmetics. Our concern today is briefly to trace their history from ancient times to about 1600. By the beginning of the 17th century their greatest flowering was past and after that they were gradually replaced by more scientific works, by which I mean …

… vae Icones, 1530. The first publication of life-like engravings of plants; with descriptions extracted from the ancients. Leonhard Fuchs, Historia Stirpium, 1542. Contains over 500 engravings and the first botanical vocabulary. Martius de la Cruz, Juanas Badianus, Aztec Herbal, 1552. A manuscript done for medical purposes with plants grouped under diseases which they are reported to cure. Phytographers Hieronymus Tragus (Jerome Bock), New Krauterbuch, 1530. The first descriptions of plants independent of the ancients. Valerius Cordus, Opera Botanicae Conradi Gesneri, 1751. Emphasizes plant descriptions rather tha …

social background of the subject. FIFTEENTH CENTURY HERBALS Among the herbals in this collection are a few incunabula, notably the "Livre de Propriétés des Herbes," in two volumes. Among others, Bartholomew de Glanville, a fourteenth-century English monk. This, as Mrs. Agnes Arber explains in her admirable book on herbals, is one of the earliest printed works containing botanical information, and twenty-five editions of it appeared before the end of the 15th century. Mr. Druce's copy is of that printed at Cologne in 1483, and copied from the Bodleian Herbarium Library. Other incunabula are an undated Maer Floridu …

… n. Soc., Lond., Bot., 52:1, 1939). The authors have made a searching examination of the Historia Plantarum, which was written before 1545, but not published until 1561. This work has a wider scope than the herbals of Brunfels, Bock, and Fuchs; it contains early notices of many exotic drugs and timbers, in addition to numerous first records for Germany and Italy. Over 500 plants are described, of which about 66 are 'new'. The authors of the present study include an account of Cordus' life, and an appraisement of his botany from various points of view, but most of the work is occupied by a systematic consideration …

… ered, in the library of the venerable Benedictine monastery of Montecassino. It was printed at Rome, and its date has usually been given as 1484. Dr. Klebs has recently adduced evidence that it appeared as early as 1481. The point is less trivial than might be supposed for it depends the answer to the question whether this ancient and re- suscitated work could have influenced the next illustrated herbal, which was printed at Mainz in 1483. We believe that such influence can be shown and that therefore a date earlier than 1484 must be assigned to this Roman herbal. The first edition of the next work of the kind is …

the botanical illustration as it existed during the period of the herbals, immediately following the Adanson exhibit. We are going to use your proposal of reproducing some of the early illustrations by means of blown up photographs. If you have suggestions of some that you know lend themselves to this, we would be very pleased to have them. Also, if you know of Institutions that may have such blown up photographs, we might be tempted to write to inquire if they could be borrowed for our exhibition use. This might be asking too much, however. Again, many thanks for your kind note and the many nice things you wrote …

botanical figures, printed in Italy, which has no connection with the German "Herbals", but which it may be desirable to speak of first, as its history may perhaps throw some light upon that of the German books. I refer to the "Herbarium" of Apuleius Platonicus, printed at Rome, probably soon after 1480, by Philippus de Lignamine. It is a small quarto beginning with a dedication, in some copies to Cardinal F.(or D.F) de Gonzaga, in others to Cardinal Juliano de Ruvere. This, with a Table of Chapters, occupies four leaves (in my copy; perhaps there should be six). On the leaf is the title, in this form:- "Incipit …

… following Columbus' discovery. He travelled ex- tensively in the West Indies, Mexico and South America, and, as an eye- witness, reports many novel observations. Notable among the books selected for their illustrations was the so- called Latin Herbarius, printed in Mainz by Peter Schoeffer in 1484. It is the second printed botanical book containing illustrations; each plant is represented by a figure so stylized in most cases as to make identifi- cation almost impossible without the accompanying text and the Latin and German names by which it was known. Beside this book was placed Brunfels Herbarum vivae eicones …

… ying but often less scientifically useful than something simpler would have been. Among better examples are rice ( ) and plantago ( ); among poorer ones, Faba ( ) and Psyllium ( ). As tomes, nothing in the botanical world to equal Mattioli's folios had been seen. With well over a thousand pages and five hundred figures and with their fine print these were indeed compendia of herbal learning. Before closing we should note two famous English herbals. The first of these is John Gerard's The herball or general historie of plantes, 1597. ( ) Gerard's fame is somewhat greater than his merit for he essentially stole a t …

… he Histoty of Botanic Illustration. Trans. Herts. Nat. Hist. Soc. Vol. 12, 1906 (for 1803-5), p. 145 Lecture before the Linnean Soc. Jan. 15, 1920 The way in which one block got used time after time in the herbals. J. has followed the history of a block representing Clematis which made its first appearance in Dodons Pemptades in 1583. Its history was then as follows; Same actual block used in Dodons Pemptades, (second edition) 1616 Lobel's Historia 1576 "(Flemish version) 1581 " Icones 1581 and 1591 Clusius Historia 1601 Johnsin's two editions of Gerard's Herbal 1633 and 6 It was closely copied in Gerard's herbal …

Botanical Illustration Mr 1-4 6 July 8th June - 1936 pseud thi'same after Edi I, P Herbals + made in connexion with lectures on Botanical Illustration, pp 8-10 an additional note on Veronica made in 1936

understanding. Apart from a few reprints of the XVth, and a few new editions of the XVIth and XVIIth centuries, all the herbals we have mentioned, with the exception of the Prague Botanikus edition and the Berlin Thurneisser print, were thus produced at Mainz, Frankfurt, Strassburg or Basel. Of course there are plant-illustrations in other works too, not only in editions of P.de Crescentis and other older authors, but also in some medicine-books, as e.g. in the so-called "Garden of Paradise, in which the finest herbs are pictured" ("Paradiesgärtnlein darinnu die adelste Krüuter abcontrafeytet sind") written entir …

for bibliographical studies of botanical and horticultural literature than it is a library in the conventional sense. Its collections, which serve as the tools for its research program, are divided into four categories: Books. These number about 11,000 titles of bound volumes and 2,500 of pamphlets (largely of botanical biography). The strength of the book collection is in works of the midnineteenth century and earlier, and particularly of those on systematic botany, medical and economic botany, herbals, early agriculture, gardening, and voyages. It has a strong representation in both early and contemporary works …

BIBLIOGRAPHY History: Arber, A. 1912. Herbals. Univ. Press. Cambridge. (Written with her customary charm and thoroughness.) Dorsey, G. A. 1931. Man's own show, civilization. Harper, N. Y. (Place of botany in the history of mankind.) Green, E. L. 1909. Landmarks in botanical history. I. Prior to 1563. Smiths. Miss. Coll. 54. Publ. 1870. Green, J.R., 1914. A history of botany in the United Kingdom. Dutton, N. Y. Hawks, E. 1928. Pioneers of plant study. Macmillan, N. Y. (Good reading.) Legge, J. 1861-1893. The Chinese classics. Trübner, London. Meyer, E. H. F. 1854-1857. Geschichte der Botanik. Gebrüder Bornträger, …

… Aristotle from the Hebrew and Arabian. An event of much importance to botany was the invention of the printing press. This resulted in a new form of herbal. An herbal of wide distribution and with profuse illustrations. The few herbals with the exception of Otto Brunfels's that appeared before 1550 were compilations of earlier works of many authors done by the publishers and one or several scholars. The competition soon became however and haphazard illustrations and descriptions would no longer suffice. The consequence was an enormous impetus for botanical research; in the field of systematics in particular and …

A CHAPLET OF HERBS. Gatherings from the Early Herbals. By FLORENCE HINE. 64 x 44 168 pp. Routledge, 2s. 6d. n. This is rather a happy thought in the way of an illustration to the quaint title extracts gain attraction from the editor's introduction. Bibliography.

… and 12 spices. His work, too, is derived from Dioskorides, Pliny and others. His poem was very popular, there being over a dozen mss versions known and over a score of printed editions. The second group of herbals is made up of a remarkable group of three titles, each appearing in its first edition in the German city of Mainz, the seat of the first European printing with movable type. Authorship here is much less definite than in the first group; in fact, these works are always referred to by their titles. They are: 1484 Herbarius Moguntinus 1485 Gart der Gesundheit 1491 Hortus sanitatis The first of these is in …

[Reprinted from THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, May, 1904.] ENGLISH HERBALS. BY AGNES ROBERTSON, B.Sc., UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON IN the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was a renewal of the scientific spirit, as well as the more obvious revival in art and letters of which we commonly speak as the Renaissance. Among the most striking of the many visible fruits of this revival were numerous herbals, in which all the plants then known were enumerated, described and often beautifully figured. The earliest English example with which I am acquainted is a small, black-letter, anonymous volume published in 1525. Th …

B Proof to A. Arber 52 Huntingdon Road AN16A Cambridge Thomas Johnson: Botanist and Royalist. By H. Wallis Kew and H.E.Powell. Longmans, Green and Co. 1932. 8/6 net. The most famous of the English herbals, that of John Gerard, appeared in 1597 and held the field without a competitor for more than a generation. Though the book was full of errors, no further edition appeared during this time; if was not until rumours arose that John Parkinson would soon produce a new herbal to take its place, that the successors of Gerard's original publisher were brought to the point of undertaking a second edition. In 1632 they c …

EARLY HERBALS. A. Ancient and mediaeval. Dioskorides. De medica materia libri vi. 1st cent. A.D. Apuleius Barbarus. [Herbal] 5th cent. Aemilius Macer. De viribus herbarum carmen. 11th cent. Dioskorides' six books are headed: 1. Aromatics, oils, ointments, trees. 2. Living creatures, milk and dairy produce, cereals and sharp herbs. 3. Roots, juices, herbs. 4. Herbs and roots. 5. Vines and wines, metallic ores. 6. Poisonous plants and poisons B. German (1484 - 1491) (all published in Mainz) Herbarius Moguntinus (no author) Latin. 1484. Cart der Gesundheit [? by Johann von Cube] German. 1485. Hortus Sanitatis, Jacob …