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Persistent Remaindering
(Pena and de l'Obel's Adversaria, 1570-1618)
By ALBERT E. LOWNES

PIERRE Pena and Matthias de l'Obel's Stirpium Adver-
saria Nova (London, 1570-1571) is a herbal memorable
for many things, not the least of which is that it contains
the first engraved representations of the true tobacco plant
(Nicotiana tabacum) and, beside it on the plate, the first picture
of a man in the act of smoking." Thus Lawrence C. Wroth an-
nounced the addition of a remarkable book to the John Carter
Brown Library.

If space had permitted, Dr. Wroth might have pointed out
some of the things that make the volume memorable. The title
page, dated 1570, is one of the earliest if not the first engraved
title page in an English book. As part of its design it incorporates
the earliest engraved English map. The authors, Pierre Pena,
a Frenchman, and Matthias de l'Obel, a Belgian, had been stu-
dents under the famous teacher, Guillaume Rondelet, at Mont-
pellier. After completing their studies they had traveled widely
on the Continent before arriving in England in 1559. Their
herbal was the most comprehensive work of its kind published
in Britain up to that time. Its sole rival might have been Wil-
liam Turner's A New Herball, which appeared in three parts,

1 STC 19395.
2 JCB Annual Report, 1950-1951, p. 53. The picture is a woodcut, not an engraving.
See also two plates in Panacea or Precious Bane, Tobacco in Sixteenth Century
Literature, by Sarah Augusta Dickson (New York Public Library, 1934). The
captions read: "Tupinamba Indians Smoking in council deciding when to eat their
prisoner, Staden. From Warhafige Historia und beschreibung, 1557, by Hans
Staden" (p. 110); "Brazilian Indian smoking a primitive cigar. From Les Singu-
laritez de la France antarctique, Paris, 1557, by Andre Thevet" (p. 120).

Bibl. Soc Amer 295
PAP. 52:245-299. 1958.