Renaissance humanism and botany

Back to the roots: A quantitative survey of herbal drugs in Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica (ex Matthioli, 1568)

“…Greek botanical manuscripts (Palmer, 1985;Reeds, 1976;Stannard, 1966), which thanks to the advent of book 96 printing techniques were disseminated amongst a wider public, also in different European vernaculars (Reeds, 97 1976). 98…”

Navigatio ad Loca Aromatum

“…(Reeds, 1976) [See, especially, Mattioli's Herbal below]. Brunfels, a German physician and monk who left the monastery to join Luther's movement, employed Hans Weidetz, of the school of Durer, 8 to paint living plants as they were-wilted leaves, insect damage, and all.…”

“…(1551) Piety, national pride, the discovery of strange plants in far-off lands, the fear of ignorant pharmacists, the collector's lust for exotic curiosities, the quest for occult knowledge, the admiration of artists' skill at painting plants, and simple delight in natural beauty-each of these inspired some men to go out and look at plants. (Reeds, 1976) After Brunfels and Fuchs, many botanists followed the advice of Pliny and Dioscorides to travel widely to study plants in their natural habitats.…”

“…Over time, botanists recognized the limitations of the ancient writers, who had described so many fewer plants than were being found and observed. "Where Dioscorides had described some six hundred herbs, Bauhin could list six thousand kinds in his Pinax, theatric botanici of 1623" (Reeds, 1976 "If the figures of Mattioli are not always as true to nature as those of Brunfels, his book abounds, as that of Brunfels does not, in good original descriptions of plants, and many of them" (Greene,1983). So densely drawn that it is more effective in black and white than in color, the figures artificially fill the rectangle of the plate, and have a tendency to symmetry.…”

“…Although Mattioli's commentaries are often three times the length of Dioscorides's entries, he remained an ardent adherent. His book was the standard reference on medicinal botany for physicians throughout Europe in the latter half of the sixteenth century (Reeds, 1976 Dodoens studied the plants of the Netherlands and ultimately is considered the father of Dutch horticulture. In his important Cruydeboeck, Dodoens organized his classification by grouping plants according to their various characteristics ("species, form, name, virtue, temperament"), rather than alphabetically.…”