Herbals, Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany 1470-1670Arber, Agnes Robertson
History
Herbals, Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany 1470-1670
Arber, Agnes Robertson
Botany -- Europe -- History; Herbals -- Europe -- History
The publisher Christian Egenolph of Frankfort, though not himself a
botanical writer, must be mentioned at this stage, because he brought
out, in 1533, a set of plant illustrations which became particularly
well known (e.g. Text-figs. 33 and 85). They do not reflect any great
credit on Egenolph, since they were mostly pirated from Brunfels.
They were not even used to illustrate a new herbal, but merely a new
edition of the old German Herbarius, enlarged and improved by Dr
Eucharias Rhodion, and issued under the name of ‘Kreutterbůch von allem
Erdtgewåchs].’
Egenolph was evidently a keen man of business, for he made his figures
do duty over and over again. He used them not only as illustrations to
the herbal, but as a separate publication, without any letter-press,
and also in conjunction with an entirely unrelated text, such, for
example, as a Latin version of Dioscorides. Many later editions of
the Kreutterbůch appeared, and to these a number of figures were
added, chiefly copies, on a reduced scale, from those of Bock, who had
himself made considerable use of the drawings in the octavo edition
of Fuchs’ herbal. The editions produced under the auspices of Adam
Lonicer, the publisher’s son-in-law, are particularly well known. No
other botanical works of the period had a success comparable to that of
this long series of books, of which Rhodion’s ‘Kreutterbůch’ was the
prototype. This success was, however, achieved in the teeth of much
adverse contemporary criticism. Fuchs, in the preface of his ‘Historia
stirpium’ (1542), referred with unsparing touch to Egenolph’s botanical
mistakes. His trenchant indictment may be rendered into English as
follows—“Among all the herbals which exist to-day, there are none
which have more of the crassest errors than those which Egenolph, the
printer, has already published again and again.” This statement Fuchs
supports by means of actual examples.
It must nevertheless be admitted that, even if their quality was poor,
the herbals published by Egenolph and his successors did good service
in disseminating some knowledge of the plant world among a very wide
public. There is, in the British Museum, a beautiful copy of the 1536
edition, with a binding stamped in gold and bearing the arms of Mary,
Duchess of Suffolk, daughter of Henry VII. The duchess may perhaps have
inherited a taste for herbals from her father, for the British Museum
also possesses a copy of Vérard’s translation of the ‘Ortus Sanitatis,’
which is known to have been purchased by him.
[Illustration: Text-fig. 33. “Erdöpffel” = _Ranunculus ficaria_ L.,
Lesser Celandine [Rhodion, Kreutterbůch, 1533].]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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