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50
A Medieval Tradition
The herbal, a compilation of material on the medicinal power of plants, was created for the use of physicians and apothecaries (Stannard, 1969). This type of written work reaches historically into "classical times," the one remaining example of which is Dioscorides' Materia medica (Elliott, 2011, p. 24). The tradition of this genre was added to over the centuries by local herb lore and legend" (Elliott, 2011, p. 24). From this context came the earliest printed herbals of the 1400s. -
1492
A Renaissance Reaction
Niccolo Leoniceno began the fight against the mediaeval herbal with his book, the title of which translates to "On the errors of Pliny and others in medicine" (Elliott, 2011, p. 25). A growing desire for a more systematic approach to plant identification and a more accurate attempt at illustration arose in tandem with the Renaissance's general rediscovery of the classical and its shedding of centuries of accumulated distortions. -
1542
De historia stirpium, or the Fuchs Herbal
Leonhart Fuchs was an herbalist of firsts: his herbal is known as "the first botanical work in which both the text and illustrations were based on personal observation rather than copying," a medieval approach which had led to plant illustrations that were impossible to use as field guides (Elliott, 2011. p.26). He was also "the first herbalist to describe American introductions like maize" (Elliott, 2011. p.26). Fuchs' herbal quickly came out in German followed by many octavo editions. -
A Standard Evolves
Plant descriptions began to look systematic in the years that followed. The terminology became standardized, as well, and more and more herbalists included important information about the location in which the plants were observed. John Gerard, who put together an "Herball," used a sort of Renaissance crowd sourcing, collecting letters from his network in England for his detailed notes on location. -
The Evolution of Medicine, The Decline of the Herbal
The Thirty Years War halted publication so that by the time William Salmon published his Botanologia: The English Herbal, medicine had made gains that would leave his work woefully behind the times. The Herbal is one of the most extensive of the English herbals, and yet it was ridiculed since its publication: medicine had moved beyond the Galenic principles that had guided the recommendations of earlier herbals. It does, however, offer insight into plant decoration in its day (Elliott, 2009). -
References
Dioscorides Pedanius, of Anzarbos, (6th century). De medicinali materia. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arnoglosson.jpg Elliott, B. (2011). The world of the Renaissance herbal. Renaissance Studies, 25(1), 24-41. Elliott, B. (2009). The forgotten herbal. The Garden 134, 42-43. Stannard, J. (1969). The herbal as a medical document. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 43(3), 212-220. All other images taken by Nitzan Watman
