Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation
A Research Division of Carnegie Mellon University

Hunt Institute Archives Text Discovery Platform

Search a large and growing portion of our online collections, including handwritten documents.
PROTOTYPE

This prototype uses state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, including a vision-language model (VLM) capable of reading handwritten documents as well as typed and printed text, to create searchable transcriptions of digitized materials in the Hunt Institute Archives. This makes it possible to search the textual contents of individual pages, including material that may not be described in the archival catalog.

Use Keyword search for specific words, names, dates, scientific names, or phrases. Try Semantic search (experimental) to describe a topic, question, or kind of material when you do not know the exact wording used in the documents.

About the AI-generated transcriptions

The transcriptions are generated automatically from page images and may contain errors, especially with difficult handwriting, unusual names, multiple languages, image-quality problems, or complex layouts. They are intended primarily as a discovery aid rather than authoritative transcriptions.

Each result provides the generated transcription and links to the original digitized material and associated archival description so that readings can be checked against the source. The transcription workflow uses AI models run locally by the Hunt Institute.

About Keyword and Semantic search

Keyword search is the default and matches the wording in the transcriptions. Results contain all your terms. Use quotes for an exact phrase. Substring matching is supported, so aceae can find plant-family names ending in -aceae.

Semantic search (experimental) is useful when you know what kind of material you are looking for but do not know the words used in the documents. It ranks transcribed passages by similarity of meaning, so relevant results may not contain the exact words in your query.

Semantic queries can be broad research topics, descriptions of activities or relationships, or natural-language questions. For example:

Semantic search is not a chatbot: a question is used as a search query, and the system returns archival passages that appear conceptually related to it rather than generating an answer or summary. Short descriptions and ordinary research questions generally work better than lists of disconnected keywords. Quotation marks have no special meaning in Semantic mode. Cross-language matching may work in some cases, but it should not be treated as translation.

Keyword and Semantic search are complementary. Keyword search lets you require particular wording; Semantic search can surface differently worded passages about the same subject. Depending on the research question, trying both can reveal different useful material.

Open a result: use the prominent page-and-transcription link to see the metadata, PDF, and full transcription. Keyword-search terms are highlighted in the transcription.

Archives Collections Database (ArchivesSpace): the Collection, Item/Folder, and Digital Object links open the corresponding archival records. Collection-level dates describe the collection as a whole, not necessarily the specific item or page.

If a PDF does not load: on the detail page, use the Digital Object link, click “Go to file” in ArchivesSpace, and navigate to the page number shown here.

Current limitations
  • Automated transcriptions can contain missing or incorrect text or unintended repetition. Difficult handwriting, image quality, unusual layouts, and multiple languages can reduce accuracy. Always consult the original page image when an exact reading matters.
  • Semantic search remains experimental. Its rankings are an additional discovery aid, not a complete or definitive set of relevant results, and highly ranked pages can sometimes be only broadly related.
  • This is an active prototype. Search coverage, transcriptions, functionality, and the interface may continue to change as additional archival material is processed and the system is improved.

← Back to results

Page 138 · DO #1810 · 142_Payne_Schreiber_Vol.1_r

Collection
Payne, Joseph Frank (1840–1910 and Schreiber) manuscript of speech "On the 'Herbarius' and 'Hortus Sanitatis'" (Payne) and "The Herbals of the XVth and XVIth Centuries"
Item/Folder
Manuscript, 1901, 21 January 1901
Digital Object
DO #1810, page 138
Collection-level dates
21 January 1901
Open PDF at page 138 ↗

Page transcription

most have been copied from earlier herbals. Tabernamontanus' work, in
which much space was given to the description of curative powers of the
plants, had little success originally. 1613 however, it was re-edited in
3 volumes by Caspar Bauhinus, whom we have already mentioned as the editor
of Matthiolus' herbal, and again published in 1525. After that the wood-
blocks came from Frankfurt to Basel, where in 1634 an edition, revised by
Hieronymus Bauhinus, appeared at Jakob Werenfels', which was printed in
two further editions in 1687 and 1731.

The Period of Decline in Germany.
Of the plant-pictures in the "Historia sive descriptio plantarum" of Leon-
hard Thurneisser zum Thurn, who in spite of his boastful advertisements was
not entirely without merit, not many good points could be mentioned. He in-
tended to publish his book in 10 parts, of which however only one reached
the public during his lifetime. This one volume appeared in 1578 at Michael
Montzka's publishing office in Berlin, in German, and at the same time in
a Latin translation, done by Solomon Teichmann. The 37 plant illustrations
contained in it have been copied in much reduced size from Matthiolus and
other works. They have oval shape and are about 81 mm in height, each of
them surrounded by a little frame with two small figures, which also bears
the name of the plant in Hebrew and Greek language and a short indication
of the medical products won from them and their effects, all/ composed in
loose type.

Part of the woodblocks which were used for Thurneisser, and which
originally numbered 1921, were acquired by Thomas Panscivius, who in 1554
produced a new edition of Thurneisser's book; later on they were owned by
Bartholomaeus Zorin, who published a new edition in 1573. He says in his
preface: "Having seen by chance in the house of a noble gentleman in this