Elliott, Brent (Author)
Renaissance Studies
Volume: 25
Pages: 24--41
Edition Details: Part of a special issue on gardens and horticulture
Language: English
A herbal is a treatise on medicinal plants; the intended audience was traditionally one of doctors and apothecaries, and the purpose was to enable them to know which plants to use for medical purposes, and how to identify them in the field. In the 1530s appeared the first herbals for which artists were employed to draw plants from real specimens, rather than simply copying older illustrations -- which, as a result of generations of manuscript copying, were not useful for practical identification purposes. Herbals became a genre with a strong market, and all the publishing traditions of plagiarism and competition can be traced during the course of the 16th and 17th centuries. They also became the focus for one aspect of the rediscovery of the classical past: the endeavour to rediscover the works of Pliny and Dioscorides, and the attempt to determine accurately which plants those authors had described -- for there was no significant concept of geographical distribution in the early 16th century, until previously unknown plants began to be introduced from the Americas. As the interest in both classical botany and new plants spread, the market for herbals widened, and they began to include information on garden varieties, thus providing a record of European horticultural activity.
...MoreArticle Samson, Alexander (2011) Introduction Locus amoenus: Gardens and Horticulture in the Renaissance. Renaissance Studies (p. 1).
Similar Citations
Book
Bidwell, John;
Mattioli, Pietra Andrea;
(2003)
Mattioli's Herbal: A Short Account of Its Illustrations, with a Print from the Original Woodblock
(/isis/citation/CBB000320269/)
Article
Wu Huiyi;
Zheng Cheng;
(2020)
Transmission of Renaissance herbal images to China: The Beitang copy of Mattioli’s commentaries on Dioscorides and its annotations
(/isis/citation/CBB942941844/)
Book
Samson, Alexander;
(2012)
Locus Amoenus: Gardens and Horticulture in the Renaissance
(/isis/citation/CBB001213050/)
Article
Patrizia Cremonini;
(2016)
Carte verdi nell'Archivio di Stato di Modena: l’Erbario Estense, foglie tra i fogli, un rebus, un progetto
(/isis/citation/CBB333401859/)
Article
Samson, Alexander;
(2011)
Introduction Locus amoenus: Gardens and Horticulture in the Renaissance
(/isis/citation/CBB001230830/)
Thesis
Rickman, Melissa L.;
(2011)
Making the “Herball”: John Gerard and the Fashioning of an Elizabethan Herbarist
(/isis/citation/CBB001567334/)
Article
Andrea van Leerdam;
(2021)
Popularising and Personalising an Illustrated Herbal in Dutch
(/isis/citation/CBB024315593/)
Book
Walravens, Hartmut;
(2005)
A Japanese Herbal in the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine: A Contribution to the History of the Transfer of Scientific Knowledge from Europe to Japan
(/isis/citation/CBB001221360/)
Book
Cruz, Martín de la;
(2000)
An Aztec Herbal: The Classic Codex of 1552
(/isis/citation/CBB000110156/)
Article
Duilio Contin;
(2016)
Dalla Bibliotheca Antiqua di Aboca Museum: un raro erbario sulle piante medicinali africane
(/isis/citation/CBB496296458/)
Chapter
García Sánchez, Expiración;
(2008)
Utility and Aesthetics in the Gardens of al-Andalus: Species with Multiple Uses
(/isis/citation/CBB000760493/)
Book
Tobyn, Graeme;
Denham, Alison;
Whitelegg, Margaret;
(2011)
The Western Herbal Tradition: 2000 Years of Medicinal Plant Knowledge
(/isis/citation/CBB001252819/)
Book
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, ;
Ventura, Iolanda;
(2007)
De proprietatibus rerum, t. VI, Liber XVII
(/isis/citation/CBB001020095/)
Article
Perry Guevara;
(2020)
Milton's Plant Eyes: Minimal Cognition, Similitude, and Sexuality in the Garden
(/isis/citation/CBB113300543/)
Thesis
Gushurst-Moore, B;
(cited 2012)
A Garden in Her Cups: Botanical Medicines of the Anglo-American Home, c. 1580--1800
(/isis/citation/CBB001567420/)
Article
Chabrán, Rafael;
(2009)
Dr. Francisco Hernández and Denmark: The Presence of the Mexican Treasury in the Work of Ole Worm: An Introduction
(/isis/citation/CBB001023370/)
Article
Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann;
(2015)
Healing Plants in the Spiritual Landscape of the Shanhai Jing (Itineraries of Mountains and Seas, Comp. 1st c. BC)
(/isis/citation/CBB049816709/)
Book
Dendle, Peter;
Touwaide, Alain;
(2008)
Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden
(/isis/citation/CBB000831099/)
Article
Giorgio Mellerio;
(2016)
Un erbario didattico del Settecento
(/isis/citation/CBB826418628/)
Article
Chiara Fedrigotti;
(2016)
Oltre il banco dello speziale: l'Erbario Foletto (Ledro, Trentino Alto-Adige)
(/isis/citation/CBB918983226/)
Be the first to comment!