Whether they were introducing materia medica into the medical curriculum at the universities, going out into the countryside to search for and study plants for themselves, leading students on field trips to do the same, establishing and developing botanical gardens, or creating their herbaria, the Renaissance humanist physicians in the first half of the sixteenth century always had their botanical guides from antiquity to hand. Mostly one or other edition of Dioscorides but also Theophrastus on plants, Pliny’s Historia Naturalis, and Galen’s texts on medical simples. The work of all four of these authors concentrated largely on plants growing around the Mediterranean, although they did include some medical herbs from other areas, India for example. The North Italian, Renaissance, medical humanists also started out studying the Mediterranean plants, but soon their field of study widened, as the changes they had initiated spread throughout Europe led to other medical humanists to search for and study the plants of their own local regions. This expansion became even larger as colleagues began to study and compare the plants growing in the newly discovered land in the so-called age of exploration. Reports began coming into Europe of plants growing in the Americas and Asia. These developments meant that Dioscorides et al were no longer adequate guides for the teaching of medical herbal lore and the age of the Early Modern printed herbal began.
As already noted in an earlier episode of this series Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica, which is, of course, a herbal, was well known and widely available throughout the Middle Ages, but it was by no means the only medieval herbal. Herbal medicine was widely used throughout the Middle Ages and many monks, apothecaries, and herbalists, who utilised herbal cures, compiled their own herbals, some of which were copied and distributed amongst others. A few of these herbals were printed during the incunabula period in the second half of the fifteenth century. Many printer publishers in this early period were on the lookout for potential money earning publications and herbals certainly fit the mould.
The earliest of these was the De proprietatibus rerum of the Franciscan friar Bartholomeus Anglicus (before 1203–1272), written in the thirteenth century and printed for the first time about 1470, which went through twenty-five editions before the end of the century. This was an encyclopaedia containing a long section on trees and herbs.
This was followed by the herbal of Apuleius Platonicus, also known as Pseudo-Apuleius, about whom almost nothing is known, but it is assumed he probably wrote his herbal the Herbarium Apuleii Platonici in the fifth century; the oldest known manuscript dates from the sixth century. It is a derivative text based on Dioscorides and Pliny. It is a much shorter and simpler herbal than Dioscorides, but was immensely popular throughout the Middle Ages, existing in many manuscripts. The first printed edition appeared in Rome in 1481.
Shortly after the Herbarium Apuleii Platonici, three other medieval herbals were printed and published in Mainz in Germany. The Latin Herbarius (1484), and the Herbarius zu Teutsch or German Herbarius (1485), which evolved into the Hortus or Ortus sanitates (1491).
These herbals probably date back to the Early Medieval Period but unlike the Herbarium Apuleii Platonici there is no hard proof for this. All three books went through numerous editions under various titles in various languages. In England the first printed herbal was by Rycharde Banckes in which the title page begins Here begynneth a newe mater, the whiche sheweth and treateth of ye vertues and proprytes of herbes, the which is called an Herball, which appeared in 1525.
It had no illustrations. This was followed by the more successful The grete herbal, printed by Peter Treveris in 1526 and then again in 1529. Many of the illustrations were taken from the French Le Grant Herbier, but which originated in the Herbarius zu Teutsch, continuing an old process of copying illustrations from earlier books, which as we will see continued with the new Renaissance herbals to which we now turn.
Whereas the printed medieval herbals were largely derived from the works of Dioscorides and Pliny, the Renaissance humanist physicians produced new printed herbals based on new material, which they and their colleagues had collected on field trips. However, these new herbals were still based in concept on Dioscorides’ De materia medica, were medical in detail, although they gradually led towards botany as an independent discipline throughout the century.
We begin with four Germans, who are often described as “The Fathers of Botany”. The first of these was Otto Brunfels (possibly 1488–1534), a Carthusian monk, who converted to Lutheran Protestantism and became a pastor.
He was the nominal author of the Herbarum vivae eicones published in three volumes between 1530 and 1536 and the German version of the same, Contrafayt Kräuterbuch published in two volumes between 1532 and 1537. Both publications were published by Hans Schott in Straßburg and were illustrated by Hans Weiditz the Younger (1495–c. 1537). I said nominal author because it is thought that the initiative for the book was Schott’s centred around Weidnitz’s illustrations with Brunfels basically employed to provide the written descriptions of the plants. Weidnitz’s illustrations, drawn from nature, are excellent and set new standards in the illustration of herbals.
They are, however, not matched by Brunfels’ descriptions, which are very poor quality, simply cobbled together from early descriptions.
The second of the so-called “German Fathers of Botany” was Hieronymus Bock (1498–1554), whose Latin texts were published under the name Hieronymus Tragus (Tragus is the Greek for the German bock, a male goat).
Like Brunfels he converted from Catholicism to Lutheran Protestantism. His knowledge of plants was acquired empirically on botanical excursions. His first publication was De herbarum quarundam nomenclaturis, a tract linking Greek and Latin names to local plants, which, interestingly was published in the second volume of Brunfels’ Herbarum vivae eicones. It was also Brunfels who persuaded him to publish his own herbal. This was titled Neu Kreütterbuch and appeared in 1539. Unlike Brunfels book, Bock’s herbal had no illustration, however, his plant descriptions were excellent, setting new standards. In 1546 there was a second expanded edition with illustration by David Kandel (1520–1592).
A third expanded edition was published in 1551 of which a Latin translation, De stirpium, maxime earum, quae in Germania nostra nascuntur …, was published in 1552. All these editions were published by Wendel Rihel in Straßburg, who produced an edition without the text in 1553 and several editions after Bock’s death.
The original German edition without illustrations had less impact that Brunfels’ herbal but after the addition of the illustrations and the Latin edition his work became successful. Bock was very innovative in that instead of listing the plants in his book in alphabetical order, he listed them in groups based on what he perceived as their similarities. An early step towards systematic classification.
The third of the German herbal authors Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566) was the most well-known and successful of the quartet.
He received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Ingolstadt in 1524. After two years of private practice followed by two as professor of medicine in Ingolstadt, he became court physician to George von Brandenburg Margrave of Ansbach. He acquired a very good reputation and was reappointed to the professorship in Ingolstadt in 1533. As a Lutheran, he was prevented from taking up the appointment and became professor for medicine in Tübingen instead in 1535, where he remained until his death despite many offers of other positions. In Tübingen he created the botanical garden. He edited a Greek edition of Galen’s work and translated both Hippocratic and Galenic medical texts. Fuchs became somewhat notorious for his bitter controversies with other medical authors and the sharpness of his invective.
Unlike Brunfels and Bock, whose herbals were based on the own empirical studiers of local German herbs, Fuchs concentrated on identifying the plants described by the classical authors, although when published his herbal included a large number of reports on local plants as well as new plants discovered in the Americas. In 1542 he published his De Historia Stirpium Commentarii Insignes (Notable commentaries on the history of plants) in Latin and Greek, it contained 512 pictures of plants, which are even more spectacular than the illustrations in Brunfels’ Herbarum vivae eicones.
In a rare innovation he named the Illustrators, Heinrich Füllmaurer and Albrecht Meyer along with the woodcutter Veit Rudolph Speckle including portraits of all three.
A German translation New Kreüterbuch was published in 1543. Alone, during Fuch’s lifetime 39 editions of the book appeared in Dutch, French, German, Latin, and Spanish. Twenty years after his death an English edition was published.
Fuchs influence went further than the editions of his own books. The excellent illustrations in his Historia Stirpium were borrowed/pirated reused in a number of later herbals and botanical books:
The majority of the wood-engravings in Doeden’s Crūÿdeboek (1554), Turner’s New Herbal (1551-68), Lyte’s Nievve Herball (1578), Jean Bauhin’s Historia plantarum universalis (1650/1), and Schinz’s Anleitung (1774), are copied from Fuchs, or even printed from his actual wood-blocks, while use was made of his figures in the herbals of Bock, Egenolph, d’Aléchamps, Tabernaemontanus, Gerard, Nylandt, etc., and in the commentaries on Dioscorides of Amatus Lusitanus and Ruellius. It was not the large woodcuts in De Historia Stirpium (1542) which chiefly served for these borrowings, but the smaller versions of the blocjks, made for Fuchs’ octavo herbal of 1545.[1]
If Fuchs is the most well known of the so-called four German “Fathers of Botany”, then Valeriuis Cordus (1515–1544) is the least well known.
His father was Euricius Cordus (1486–1535), who published his Botanologican, a guide to the empirical study of plants in 1534. Valerius can be said to have gone into the family business, studying medicine and botany under his father at the University of Marburg from the age of twelve in 1527. He graduated bachelor in 1531 and changed to the University of Leipzig, also working in the apothecary shop of his uncle Johannes Ralla (1509–1560), where he learnt pharmacology. In 1539 he changed to the University of Wittenberg, where he once again studied medicine and botany, and lectured on the De materia medica of Dioscorides. In Wittenberg he continued his studies of pharmacology in the apothecary shop of the painter Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1473–1553), where he wrote his Dispensatorium, a pharmacopoeia, a systematic list of medicaments. During a short visit to Nürnberg in 1542, there were strong ties between Wittenberg and Nürnberg, Cordus presented his Dispensatorium to the city council, who awarded him with 100 gulden, paid for it to be printed posthumously in 1546, as the Dispensatorium Norimbergense. It was the first officially government approved pharmacopoeia, Nürnberg being a self-governing city state. It soon became the obligatory standard throughout Germany.
On the last of his many journeys from Wittenberg, Cordus travelled through Italy visiting Padua, Lucca, Florence, and Rome, where he died, aged just twenty-nine in 1544. When he died, he had published almost nothing, his Dispensatorium, as already stated was published posthumously as were two further important books on botany. In 1549, Conrad Gessner published the notes on his Wittenberg lectures on Dioscorides De materia medica, which had collected by his students, as Annotationes in Dioscoridis de materia medica lihros in Straßburg.
Gessner also published his Historiae stirpium libri IV (Straßburg 1561), which was followed in 1563 by his Stirpium descriptionis liber quintus. As with the other German herbals, Cordus’ books were issued in many further editions. Like Brock, Cordus rejected the alphabetic listing of the earlier herbals and in fact went much further down the road of trying to distinguish what we now call species and genus.
Not considered one of the “German Fathers of Botany”, the work of Joachim Camerarius the Younger (1534–1598) was also highly influential.
Son of the famous philologist and the friend and biographer of Philip Melanchthon, Joachim Camerarius the Elder (1500–1574), he studied at Wittenberg and other universities before completing his doctorate in medicine in Bologna in 1562. Following graduation, Camerarius returned to Nürnberg where he set up as a physician practicing there for the rest of his life. Already a lifelong fan of botany, influenced by his time in North Italy he set up a botanical garden in his home city. He was a central figure in the reforms in the practice of medicine in Nürnberg similar to those I outlined in episode XXXII of this series, of which the publication and adoption of Cordus’ Dispensatorium was an important element.[2] Camerarius was also a central figure in the medical-botanical republic of letters that I will deal with in a later episode. As well as his own herbal Hortus Medicus et Philosophicus (Frankfurt/M., 1598), he published an expanded German translation of the Di Pedacio Dioscoride Anazarbeo Libri cinque Della historia, et materia medicinale tradotti in lingua volgare italiana (1554 and later editions) of Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501–c. 1577), as Kreutterbuch deß hochgelehrten unnd weitberühmten Herrn D. Petri Andreae Matthioli : jetzt widerumb mit viel schönen neuwen Figuren, auch nützlichen Artzeneyen, und andern guten Stücken, zum andern mal auß sonderm Fleiß gemehret und verfertigt (Frankfurt, 1586).
As with the introduction of the materia medica into the university medical curriculum, the field trips, the botanical gardens, and the herbaria, which all spread out through Europe from Northern Italy, the new style herbals also spread throughout the continent during the sixteenth century.
In the Netherlands, the printer-publisher and bookseller Christophe Plantin (c. 1520–1589), who I dealt with fairly extensively in an earlier post, contributed much to the dissemination of herbals and other plant books. The first notable Flemish author was the physician and botanist Rembert Dodoens (1517–1585), who published a herbal in Dutch, his Cruydeboeck, with an emphasis on the local flora of the Netherlands, with 715 images, 515 borrowed from the Dutch edition of Fuchs’ herbal, and 200 drawn by Pieter van der Borcht the Elder (c. 1530–1608) with the blocks cut by Arnold Nicolai (fl. 1550–1596), published in Antwerp in 1554 and again in 1563.
Unlike Fuchs, who still listed his herbs alphabetically, Dodoens grouped his herbs according to their properties and reciprocal affinities, making his book as much a pharmacopoeia as a herbal. The Cruydeboeck was translated into French by Charles de l’Ecluse (1526–1609) in 1557, Histoire des Plantes, into English via the l’Ecluse French by Henry Lyte, A new herbal of historie of plants in 1578. Later in 1583, it was translated into Latin Stirpium historiae pemptades sex. Both the French and the Latin translations were commissioned and published by Platin. It is claimed that it was the most translated book after the bible during the late sixteenth century and in its numerous versions it remained a standard text for two hundred years.
Charles de l’Ecluse, better known as Carolus Clusius, was himself a physician and botanist, a student of Guillaume Rondelet (1507–1566) at the University of Montpellier, he became one of the leading medical botanists in Europe.
Clusius had two great passions languages and botany. He was said to be fluent in Greek. Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Flemish, and German He was also a polymath deeply knowledgeable in law, philosophy, history, cartography, zoology, minerology, numismatics, and epigraphy. In 1573, he was appointed director of the imperial botanical garden in Vienna by Maximillian II (1564–1576) but dismissed again shortly after Maximillian’s death, when Rudolph II (1576–1612) moved the imperial court to Prague. Later in his life, when he was called to the University of Leiden in 1593, he created the university’s first botanical garden. His first botanical publication was his translation into French of Dodoens’ Cruydeboeck.This was followed by a Latin translation from the Portuguese of Garcia de Orta’s Colóquios dos simples e Drogas da India, Aromatum et simplicium aliquot medicamentorum apud Indios nascentium historia (1567) and a Latin translation from Spanish of Nicolás Monardes’ Historia medicinal delas cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales que sirven al uso de la medicina, , De simplicibus medicamentis ex occidentali India delatis quorum in medicina usus est (1574), with a second edition (1579), both published by Plantin.His own Rariorum alioquot stirpium per Hispanias observatarum historia: libris duobus expressas (1576), based on an expedition to Spain and Portugal followed. Next up Rariorum aliquot stirpium, per Pannoniam, Austriam, & vicinas quasdam provincias observatarum historia, quatuor libris expressa … (1583). All of these were printed and published by Plantin. His Rariorum plantarum historia: quae accesserint, proxima pagina docebit (1601) was published by Plantin’s son-in-law Jan Moretus, who inherited the Antwerp printing house. Appended to this last publication was a Fungorum historia, the very first publication of this kind. In his publications on plants, Clusius definitely crossed the boundary from materia medica into the discipline of botany qua botany.
The third Platin author, who made major contributions to the herbal literature was another of Guillaume Rondelet’s students from Montpellier, Mathias de l’Obel (1538–1616), a Frenchman from Lille also known as Lobilus.
His Stirpium aduersaria noua… (A new notebook of plants) was originally published in London in 1571, but a much-extended edition, Plantarum seu stirpium historia…, with 1, 486 engravings in two volumes was printed and published by Plantin in 1576.
In 1581 Plantin also published a Dutch translation of his herbal, Kruydtboek oft beschrÿuinghe van allerleye ghewassen… There is also an anonymous Stirpium seu Plantarum Icones (images of plants) published by Plantin in 1581, with a second edition in 1591, that has been attributed to Loblius but is now thought to have been together by Plantin himself from his extensive stock of plant engravings. Like others already mentioned, de l’Obel abandoned the traditional listing of the plants alphabetically and introduced a system of classification based on the character of their leaves.
The major Italian contributor to the new herbal movement in Europe was Pietro Andrea Gregorio Mattioli (1501–c. 1577),
who, as already mentioned in the episode on the publication of the classical texts as printed books, produced a heavily annotated Italian translation version of Dioscorides’ De materia medica, which included descriptions of one hundred new plants, Commentarii in libros sex Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbei, de medica materia, which went through four editions between 1544 and 1550, published by Vincenzo Valgrisi (c. 1490– after 1572) in Venice, and selling thirty-two thousand copies by 1572.
Mattioli’s annotations, or commentaries, were translated into translated into French (Lyon, 1561), Czech (Prague, 1562) and German (Prague, 1563).
Another Italian botanist was Fabio Colonna (1567–1640)
who disappointed by the errors that he found in Dioscorides researched and wrote two herbals of his own Phytobasanos (plant touchstone), published in Naples, 1592 and Ekphrasis altera, published in Rome, 1616. Both books display a high standard in the illustrations and in the descriptions of the plants.
The main Portuguese contribution was the Coloquios dos simples, e drogas he cousas mediçinais da India by Garcia de Orta (1501–1568) published in Goa in 1563, one of the earliest European books printed in India, which as we have seen was translated into Latin by Clusius.
It was the Portuguese, who brought the herbs of Asia into the European herbals in the sixteenth century, those of the newly discovered Americas were brought into Europe by the Spanish, most notably by Nicolás Monrades (1493–1588).
Monrades learnt about the American herbs and drugs not by visiting the Americas but by collecting information at the docks in Seville. He published the results initially in three separate parts the first two parts in 1569 and 1571 and in complete form in 1574 under the title Primera y Segunda y Tercera partes de la Historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales que sirven en Medicina.
This is the book that once again Clusius translated into Latin. It was also translated into English by John Frampton, a merchant, who specialised in books on various aspects of exploration, and published under the titles The Three Books of Monardes, 1577, and Joyfull newes out of the new founde worlde, 1580.
The most significant herbal produced in Switzerland didn’t become published in the sixteenth century. This was the general history of plants, Historia plantarum compiled by the polymath Conrad Gessner (1516–1565), which was still unfinished when he died.
It was partially published in 1750, with the first full publication being by the Swizz Government at the end of the nineteenth century. The quality of the drawings and the descriptions of the plants would have set new standards in botany if Gessner had published it during his lifetime. A student of Gessner’s, who also went on to study under Fuchs was Jean Bauhin (1541–1613).
As a young man he became an assistant to Gessner and worked with him collecting material for his Historia plantarum. Later he decided to compile his own Historia plantarum universalis. Like his teacher he died before he could complete and publish his work. It was first published in full in three volumes in 1650/1.
Jeans younger brother Garpard (1560–1624) also set out to produce a complete catalogue of all known plants, but like Jean he never lived to see it published.
In fact, unlike Jean’s Historia plantarum universalis, it was not even published posthumously. He did, however, publish sections of it during his life: Phytopinax (1596), Prodromos theatre botanici (1620,) and Pinax theatre botanici (1623). The Pinax contains a complete and methodological concordance of the names of plants, sorting out the confusing tangle of different names awarded by different authors to the same plant.
This was a major step in the development of scientific botany. The work of all three Swiss authors transcends the bounds of the herbal into the science of botany.
The only notable French botanical author of the sixteenth century was Jean Ruel (1474–1537), who produced a Latin translation of Dioscorides in 1516, which served as the basis for Mattioli’s Commentarrii. He also wrote a general botanical treatise on Aristotelian lines, De Natura stirpium, published in 1536.
One should, however, remember that the students of Guillaume Rondelet in Montpellier form a veritable who’s who of botanical authors in the sixteenth century.
Turning finally to England the earliest herbal author was William Turner (c. 1509–1568), who during his wanderings through Europe had studied botany at the University of Bologna under Luca Ghini (1490–1556), who, as we saw in the previous episode, had a massive influence on the early development of medical botany in the early sixteenth century. Turner also knew and corresponded with Conrad Gessner and Leonhart Fuchs. Turner’s first work was his Latin, Libellus de re herbari novus (1538). In 1548, he produced his The names of herbes in Greke, Latin, Englishe, Duche, and Frenche with the common names that Herberies and Apotecaries use. His magnum opus was his A new herball, wherin are conteyned the names of herbes… published in three volumes, the first in London 1551, the first and second on Cologne in 1562, and the third together with the first and second in 1568.
It was illustrated with the pictures from Fuchs’ De Historia Stirpium Commentarii Insignes. Henry Lyte (1529?–1607),
an antiquary, published an English translation of Dodoens Cruydeboeck, A nievve Herball, or Historie of Plantes,…, from the French of Clusius in 1578. This included new material provided by Dodoens himself. Once again the illustration were taken largely from Fuchs.
John Gerrard produced the most successful English herbal, his The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes(1597), which was however, a plagiarism.
A Dr Priest had been commissioned by the publisher John North to translate Dodoen’s Stirpium historiae pemptades sex into English, but he died before completing it. Gerrard took the work, completed it, and rearranged the plants according to the scheme of de l’Obel from that of Dodoens, and then published it as his own work.
As I hope is clear from the above herbals were an important genre of books in the sixteenth century, which over time gradually evolved from books of a medical nature into the earliest works in the science of botany.
[1] Agnes Arber, Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany 1470–1670, CUP; 1912, republished Hafner Publishing Company, Darien Conn., 1970, p. 70
[2] This is wonderfully described in Hannah Murphy, A New Order of Medicine: The Rise of Physicians in Reformation Nuremberg, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 2019, which I reviewed here
The Renaissance Mathematicus 