This page covers:
|
Herbals provide some of the earliest records of drawings and paintings of plants - although not all Herbals included illustrations.
Herbals were originally used in relation to early attempts at medication and the need to identify a specific plant. They included descriptions and what medicinal use a plant has in terms of preparations, such as medicines and ointments, which can be made from it. Some herbals included illustrations of what a plant looks like in order to aid identification. the illustrated Herbal (is) one of the rare types of manuscript with an almost continuous line of descent from the time of the Ancient Greeks to the end of the middle ages |
What is a herbal? |
What’s a herbal? |
What is a herbal? |
What is a Herbal? |
The earliest flower drawings were for the most part made to assist the searcher after herbs and simples. Realism was required and to a surprising degree achieved... the illuminations provided for herbals nearly two thousand years af]go were highly naturalistic
Wilfrid Blunt The Art of Botanical Illustration (Chapter 1)
The history of Herbals has seen attempts to make each being better than the last while all owe a huge debt, not to mention content, to those which have gone before.
This page focuses on those Herbals which include illustrations of note, while at the same time providing some context in terms of very notable Herbals which have limited or an unknown number of images. It seems inconceivable now that Herbals would only include descriptions of plants in order to identify them - particularly in a world which had no agreed system for how plants should be described. However the scope for including illustrations was very limited in terms of reproduction. |
Initially all images were painted and therefore unique. However they were sometimes copied
Block printing - using wood blocks - permitted limited reproduction of images. As printing became established, painted images from earlier books were then drawn (or redrawn) onto wood to create woodcut prints. Illustrated Herbals - ones with more than a few images - begin to emerge and become more significant after the invention of the printing press in the middle of the 15th century. However the earliest printed Herbals were copies of manuscript texts which did not have images. |
The Illustrated Herbal is an attractive introduction both in text and illustrations to a range of little-known but historically important works from which both modern botany and modern pharmacology have evolved.
William Stearn - review in Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, Nov//Dec. 1980
The book provides in-depth coverage of the development of the herbal and includes excellent illustrations of a number of them and the plants considered to be of medicinal interest.
It traces their development from early hand-decorated manuscripts and medieval woodcuts to the metal engravings and botanical prints of the early 18th and 19th centuries. This guide has been revised and updated to take into account the latest discoveries and developments. |
Hardcover: 191 pages
Publishers:
BUY THIS BOOK
The Illustrated Herbal
The Illustrated Herbal (Manuscripts)
|
"botanical works were originally handmaidens to science, and monks drew herbals for medicinal purposes"
Portrait of a Plant, New York Times (1997)
Exhibitions about Herbals
Online Exhibitions of Herbals
Articles about Herbals
|
Shénnóng Běn Cǎo Jīng (神农本草经, Shennong's Materia Medica) is considered as the oldest book on Chinese herbal medicine. This was produced by the mythical Emperor Shennong, the founder of Chinese herbal medicine who is thought to have lived around 2,800 BC.
However facts are sparse, most of the information about how the book came about relates to myth and legend. It's possible the book is a compilation of oral traditions developed over time. It is also known as The Divine Farmer's Materia Medica The book classifies 365 species of roots, grass, woods, furs, animals and stones into three volumes/categories of herbal medicine. These are:
|
It also introduced the notion that plant substances have five flavours: sour, sweet, salty, bitter and acrid; four conditions - cold, hot, warm and cook and are either toxic or non-toxic.
Images appear to have been added over time but are unlikely to have been associated with its original production. REFERENCE:
|
The Egyptians, Arabs and the people of the Graeco-Roman empire all produced Herbals.
|
The History of Herbalism | Wikipedia
|
Pliny's Naturalis Historia is written in Latin and is both:
Botany is covered in Books XII to XVIII. One of the main sources is Theophrastus Pliny the Elder b. Gaius Plinius Secundus, AD 23 (Como) – AD 79 (Pompeii) was a Roman Author and a naval commander. He enjoyed investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. Reference:
|
One of the earliest known Herbals is De Materia Medica by Dioscorides.
This book influenced very many of the herbals which came afterwards and was widely read for over 1,500 years. About the author - Discorides Pedanius Dioscorides c. 40 – 90 AD was a Greek physician, pharmacologist and botanist. He became became a surgeon to Emperor Nero's Roman Army and travelled with it across Western Europe Italy, France and Spain) and North Africa. His travels afforded him the opportunity to study the features, distribution, and medicinal properties of many plants and minerals. He collected and researched plants that he found on his travels, looking in particular for their medicinal value. (One can only guess he used Roman soldiers as his guinea pigs!) |
This pharmacopeia remained the standard medical text until the 17th century, undergoing many revisions and additions and greatly influencing both Western and Islamic cultures. It describes animal derivatives and minerals used therapeutically but is most important for the description of over 600 plants, including notes on their habitat and the methods of preparation and medicinal use of the drugs they contain. |
The "Vienna Discorides"
The “Vienna Dioscorides” is considered to be the oldest manuscript version of the original book. Its correct name is the Juliana Anicia Codex (ca. 512 A.D.) and it can be found in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. It's not clear whether the original manuscript by Discorides (which has never been found) ever had any illustrations. However the Vienna Dioscorides does have illustrations and 383 out of the original 435 illustrations are full-page illustrations of plants Translation to "De Materia Medica" The original text written by Dioscorides was written in Greek. De Materia Medica was a hugely influential book because of the Medieval translations that were made into Greek, Latin and Arabic and copies (by hand) that were made. The Dioscorides was originally written in five books which were published around the year 77 AD. It deals with approximately 1,000 simple drugs. In the 16th century, the text was translated into Italian, German, Spanish and French Finally, in 1655, it was translated into English. Images
Blunt indicates that there is a good copy of the illustrations in the Cambridge University Library dating back to c.1600. A volume called "Botanicum antiquum" comprises a series of coloured drawings of plants and (at the end) a few reptiles and insects, with their names in Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and, in some cases, Turkish. The versos of the pages are blank and there is no text, remarks or a commentary.
|
REFERENCE:
|
the first illustrated book devoted to plants and flowers and their medicinal uses, and its illustrations were the first prints that reproduced ancient works of art. An ancient illuminated manuscript of a herbal was discovered in the monastery at Monte Cassino.
An 11th century version of it is held by the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Eton College has a 12th century copy. REFERENCE:
|
Compiled by Benedetto Rinio an Italian Herbalist. It was written in Latin and first published in Venice in 1410. It contained 440 illustrations by a Venetian artist called Andrea Amadio about which very little is known.
The book discussed 450 domestic and 111 foreign varieties of herb, and included each plant's name in Latin, Greek, German, Arabic, several dialects of Italian, and Slavonic. REFERENCE:
...no corpus of illustrations of plants of comparable merit to the Codex Vindobonensis is found until Andrea Amadio made his exquisite drawings for Benedetto Rinon in 1419 |
|
The Hortus Sanitatis, sometimes known as the Ortus Sanitatis (the origin of health) is in the tradition of the medieval herbals. It's thought to be stem from Der Gart der Gesundheit (Garden of Health). Apparently many of the entries are 'fantastical' and the plants do not exist. Many editions were produced in the 15th and 16th centuries and it was also translated into It was translated, in its entirety or in part, into French, English, German and Dutch.
|
Pharmaceutical science improved markedly in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1546 the first pharmacopoeia, or collected list of drugs and medicinal chemicals with directions for making pharmaceutical preparations, appeared in Nürnberg, Germany.
Pharmaceutical industry | Encyclopedia Britannica
The Three German fathers of Botany are: Otto Brunfels (c. 1489-1534), Hieronymus Bock (1498-1554) and Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566). You can see the three Herbals they are associated with in the middle column.
|
Otto Brunfels is the author of Herbarum vivae eicones, written in Latin and printed by Johann Schott, Strassburg, 1530. This Herbal about medicinal plants and herbs is important for two reasons:
|
Bock's herbal of 1539 was not illustrated but later editions were.
|
De historia stirpium commentarii insignes by Leonhart Fuchs was published in Basel in 1542. The Herbal was illustrated - using woodcuts in 1552. Unusually for the time, full recognition was given to the three artists involved in producing the work. Such was their importance that their group portrait is included at the end of the book. Fuchs employed three professional artists to help him by producing illustrations.
Carefully observed, the illustrations are largely true to nature and allow for plant identifcation. According to Meyer, the illustrations ‘command universal recognition and praise for their simple elegance and naturalness of form, traits that place this herbal among the landmarks of the history of botanical iconography’. |
He is said to have described he described 100 new plants and coordinated the medical botany of his time in his Discorsi ("Commentaries") on the Materia Medica of Dioscorides.
The first folio edition with large woodcut illustrations (and Czech text) was published in Prague in 1562. There were various translations into German (1563), Latin (1564) and Italian and 45 editions/prints in all. Many of his comments on the text of Discorides are extremely lengthy. The artists used for the woodcuts were:
It's thought that Liberale was the draughtsman and Meyerpeck the engraver. The latter used wood blocks for engraving made out of pear wood. These are large illustrations and Blunt notes that shading is extensively employed. Some of the early copies of the book were also coloured (see above image). Blunt considers that the book works better in black and white. The illustrations confine themselves to the rectangular wood block which sometimes makes the portrayal of the plant equally rectangular. REFERENCE:
|
Here begynneth a newe mater, the whiche sheweth and treateth of ye vertues and proprytes of herbes, the whiche is called an Herball.
...Imprynted by me Rycharde Banckes, dwellynge in London, a lytel fro ye Stockes in ye Pultry.
The grete herball : whiche gyueth parfyt knowlege and vnderstandyng of all maner of herbes [and] theyr gracyous vertues whiche god hath ordeyned for our prosperous welfare and helth, for they hele [and] cure all maner of dyseases and sekenesses that fall or mysfortune to all maner of creatures of god created practysed by many expert and wyse maysters, as Auicenna [and] other. [et]c. Also it gyueth parfyte vnderstandynge of the booke lately prynted by me (Peter treueris) named the noble experie[n]ce of vertuous handwarke of surgery.
The Grete Herball is a very rare book and the very first illustrated Herbal in English. It is a single printed volume which is an illustrated encyclopaedia of the properties of plants.
It contains 477 woodcuts. As with many herbals the content is borrowed from other books.
It is a very rare book. Only three complete and perfect copies of the first edition are known, in addition to several incomplete copies and fragments. First Edition (1526): There are three complete copies in the USA. The Yale Medical Library and the Marshall Collection have incomplete copies. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a made-up copy - assembled from different sources. Second Edition (1529): Cambridge University has a copy of very rare second edition of the Grete Herball in its Special Plant Science Collection of Books. The book was printed in Southwark by Peter Treveris on 17 March 1529 According to Christies, only one complete copy (sold Sotheby's New York 11 December 2008) has sold at auction in the past 30 years. |
John Gerard (b. 1545 at Nantwich, Cheshire) was a botanist and herbalist who lived in Holborn, London in the 16th century. He had a garden which contained over a 1,000 plants in what is now Fetter Lane.
See Old Botanic Gardens in London in the Gardens section His claim to fame in the history of botanical art is as follows"
In 1596 Gerard published a catalogue of twenty-four pages of the plants in this garden—the first complete catalogue of the plants in any garden, public or private. Gerard's Herbal is not unique. It's very largely an English translation of Rembert Dodoens's Herbal of 1554 with the addition of plants from Gerard's own garden. It contains some 1800 illustrations, most of them taken from the same wood-blocks that Tabernæmontanus (Bergzabern) used for his Eicones(1590). There were major rows associated with its publication and linked to accusations of plagiarism. It seems clear that Gerard wanted the Herball to be thought of as a new book when clearly it wasn't as such. Formerly it was generally supposed that Gerard’s garden was on the northern side of Holborn, but this is unlikely, for during the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign the part which is now known as Ely Place and Hatton Garden was an estate of forty acres belonging to the Bishopric of Ely. Holborn was almost a village then, and Gerard tells us in his Herball that in Gray’s Inn Lane he gathered mallow, shepherd’s purse, sweet woodruff, bugle and Paul’s betony, and in the meadows near red-flowered clary, white saxifrage, the sad-coloured rocket, yarrow, lesser hawkweed and the curious strawberry-headed trefoil. Wallflower and golden stonecrop grew on the houses. |
READ:
REFERENCE:
|
Theatricum Botanicum was the most complete and beautifully presented English treatise on plants of its time.
It was created by John Parkinson (1567-1650) , who has been variously described as:
He published the monumental Theatrum Botanicum (The Botanical Theatre or Theatre of Plants) age 73 in 1640. It measures 34.5 x 10.5 cm x ?cm. It includes
REFERENCE: ONLINE VERSIONS: |
The English Physician was first published in 1652. It was deliberately written in vernacular English and sold cheaply to make it accessible to the masses. It was later titled "The Complete Herbal" and is now referred to as Culpeper's Complete Herbal. Over forty editions of Culpeper’s The English Physician have been printed since its original publication.
The book had to wait until 1789 before it acquired illustrations. Dr Ebenezer Sibley (1751-1800) added engravings of plants. In 1789, the book was enlarged in size and first described as a "complete herball". An underlying story relates to his disputes with and challenges to the College of Surgeons His book A Physical Directory, or a Translation of the London Directory (1649) was a translation of the Pharmacopoeia Londonesis of the Royal College of Physicians Nicholas Culpeper’s "A Physicall Directory" (1649), which was a pseudoscientific pharmacopoeia
Herbal | Encyclopedia Britannica |
REFERENCE:
|
The story of Elizabeth Blackwell's 'A Curious Herbal' is unique. She was the first British woman to produce a herbal and the first woman to engrave as well as draw plants. She also created it between 1737-1739 to raise enough funds to release her husband from debtors' prison. The original Herbal was issued in weekly parts - containing four plates and associated text.
A curious herbal, containing five hundred cuts, of the most useful plants, which are now used in the practice of physick : engraved on folio copper plates, after drawings taken from the life. |
These are herbals connected to the colonisation of the Americas by the Spaniards, Portuguese and English either in terms of:
|
REFERENCE:
World Trade in Medicinal Plants from Spanish America, 1717–1815 Stefanie Gänger | US National Library of Medicine |
This is the oldest known herbal which originated from the Americas - but is of unknown age. The "Little Book of the Medicinal Herbs of the Indians" is an Aztec herbal manuscript.
The indigenous populations of the Americas had already developed very considerable botanical and medical knowledge by the time they were 'discovered' by Europeans. The gardens of the Aztec Emperor Montezuma also had "many varieties of flowers and sweet-scented trees” and included a special section for herbs. The Herbal was translated - in 1552 - into Latin for the son of the the Viceroy of "New Spain" (which covered Mexico, Central America, much of the Southwestern and Central United States, the Spanish West Indies and Spanish Florida). The Maya Society of Baltimore, Maryland published a colour version of the herbal in 1939. |
Historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales was published in three parts under varying titles (in 1565, 1569 and completed in 1574; unchanged reprint in 1580).
This is a survey by Nicolás Monardes (1493–1588) of plants and medicines brought from the West Indies to Spain. Monardes was a Spanish physician and botanist. In 1577 a version of the book translated into English by John Frampton was published titled Ioyfull newes out of the newe founde worlde, wherein is declared the rare and singular vertues of diuerse and sundrie hearbes, trees, oyles, plantes, and stones, with their applications, as well for phisicke as chirurgerie. John Frampton was a 16th-century English merchant from the West Country, who settled in Spain, was imprisoned and tortured by the Inquisition, and escaped from Cádiz in 1567. He became a translator from Spanish. The book is notable for:
|
This book covers the medicinal properties of plants in Kerala in India.
The project took nearly 30 years to complete. It was published in Amsterdam between 1678 and 1693. It has 12 volumes covering 742 plants. Each of the volumes contains about 200 pages. Altogether there are 794 copper plate engravings. |
REFERENCE:
|
NEXT:
|
MORE:
Past Masters - plus individual pages for leading botanical artists of the past (see below)
|
NEWS
News Blog about artists, awards, exhibitions etc. |
EXHIBITIONS
- Calls for Entries - Exhibitions around the world - Online Exhibitions - RHS Exhibitions - Hunt Exhibitions ORGANISATIONS
- Botanical Art Societies - national / regional / local - Florilegium & Groups - Botanical Art Groups on Facebook |
EDUCATION
- Tips and Techniques - Best Botanical Art Instruction Books - Directory of Teachers - Directory of Courses - Online Botanical Art Courses - Diplomas and Certificates - Talks, Lectures and Tours ART MATERIALS (Paper / Vellum) BOTANY FOR ARTISTS - Scientific Botanical Illustration - Best Botany Books for Artists - Plant Names & Botanical Latin BOTANIC GARDENS & Herbaria |
FEEDBACK
Please send me . - news to share - info. about exhibitions - any suggestions for what you'd like to see on this website ADVERTISE Contact me if you'd like to promote workshops and courses on this site. AFFILIATION This website is free to you but not for me! (See Affiliate Income below) |
Cookies, Personal Data & Privacy tells you how this site relates to and impacts on you and your privacy - and your choices.
Product & company names may be trademarks of their respective owners |
About Affiliate Income: This website has been created to share information not to make a profit. I am an Amazon Associate and earn from qualifying purchases (e.g. books from Amazon) which helps offset costs associated with maintaining this very large website.
|