Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Page transcription

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Now comes the bad part. As I told you, Barbara plans to use for next year's Bulletin as covers only illustrations out of Schöffer's Latin Herbarius and asked me to write an article about him and it for the March-April Bulletin, since the January-February Bulletin will be entirely devoted to fund raising and just has an illustration out of the Herbarius on its cover, with just the name of the plant given, but no further description. I have read everything I could get hold off about the Herbarius (at least, I believe so) and find it entirely impossible not to repeat the things written by Agnes Arber about this work and by other authors. I also found that Arber copied almost word by word from Payne's paper on "The Herbarius" read before the Bibliographical Society. Since I found no evidence that this was copyrighted, I intend to use part of what he wrote.

He and Arber (probably copying from him) say that the plants in the Herbarius are all German native or garden plants, you also wrote me that it contains only German plants. It is true that the names are given in German as well as Latin, but Payne as well as Arber also mention that this work was probably printed from a manuscript Peter Schöffer found somewhere, that most of it was probably written hundred years before it was printed. He also wrote that it is a compilation from mediaeval writers, with some classical and Arabian authors. Why would an Arabian author write about German plants? In his History of Botany recently published, George H. M. Lawrence writes: "Two groups of incunabula followed, each passing through several editions or reprints (usually pirated). The first was the Latin Herbarius, or Ortus Sanitatis meaning (Garden of Health), and the second was the German Herbarius, or Gart der Gesundheit, also meaning "Garden of Health". The first edition of Ortus Sanitatis, an abundantly illustrated work, was printed in 1484 by Peter Schöffer of Mainz. Its text is in Latin.