The Great Naturalists

Eorrpo ny RosnRrHuxlny

With 198 illustrations .

{tY} Thamesa Hudson

- in associationwith the NaturalHistory Museum, London CONTENTS

.UNITY IN DIVERSITY' 6

THE ANCIENTS 20 Aristotle THEFIRSTPHILOSOPHER-NATURALIST 22 JULIABRITTAIN Tbeopbrastus THE FATHER OF BOTANY 28 CHRISTOPHERJ.HUMPHRIES & DAVID SUTTON

PedaniosDioscorides RECORDING THE MEDICINAL USE OF PLANTS 32 DAVIDSUTTON

Plinjttbe Elder COLLECTOROFKNOWLEDCE ]8 DAVIDSUTTON

Htlf-nrb Dcto l fq Knrud Gano't History of Animals. THE RENAISSANCE +4 Tith pgc Painriryof o danddin ard rugcr in tbc ncbilorqbnit of t tutb, Q Maria Sibjla Maian. LeonhartFuchs Endpapat Pagofmn tbcfuarnal of llillfun furtmn. THE VALUE OF ILLUSTRATIONS 48 BRIANW. OGILVIE

UlisseAldrooandi Any copy of this bmk issued by the publisher as a OBSERVATIONAT FIRST HAND 59 paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of $ade or otheruise be lent, resold, hired CIUSEPPEOLMI out or otheruise circulated without the publisher's prior conrcnt in any form ofbinding or cover other Andrea Cesalpino than that in which it is published and without a similar PHYSICIAN,PHILOSOPHER AND BOTANIST 63 condition including these words being imposed on ROBERTHUXLEY & CHRISTOPHERJ,HUMPHRIES a subsequentpurchaser

First published in the United Kingdom in 2007 by Pierre Belon Thames & Hudson Ltd, l8lA High Holborn, PIONEER OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY 66 London WCIV 7QX ALANCUTLER ww.thamsmdhudson.com Konrad Gesster O 2007 The Natural History Museum, London Layout O 2007 Thame & Hudson Ltd, London THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN ZOOLOGY 7I SACHIKOKUSUKAWA Atl Righa Rwned No part of this publication may be rcproduced or uansmined in any form or by any meanq electrcnic or mrchmical, including photcopy, raording THE ENLIGHTENMENT 76 or my other information stonge md rctrieval system, without prior permission in miting from the publisher. Nicolaus Steno British Librery Cataloguing-in-Publication Data UNLOCKING THE EARTH'S GEOLOGICAL PAST 86 A catalogue record for this bml is available from ALANCUTLtrR the British Library

lsBN 978-0-500-25139-3 fobn Ral THE ENGLISH ARISTOTLE 92 Printed md bound in China by C&C Offset Printing Co., Ltd. ROBERTHUXLEY BRI.{N W. OGILVIE LeonltartFuchs

THE VALUE OF ILLUSTRATIONS (l 501-l 566)

I donot need to expoundat lengtbtbe pleasure and deligbt tbat thehnowledge ofplants bingt sincethere is noone wbo doesnot hntw tbat tbereis notbingin life morepleasant and delightfultban t0 uanderthroagb tbe woods, and wer mountainsand meadows,gtrlanded and adorned witb tbese aaried,exqaisite blossoms and herbs, and to gzze at tbem with hemqtes. The pleasure and delight is increasednot a linle if nn understandingoftheir usefulnessand powersis added.For tbereis as mucbpleasare andmjoynmt in learningasin loohing.

Leonbart Fucbs,Notable Commentaries on the History of Plants, 1542

EoNHARTFucus TRAINEDAS A DocroR and wrore over 50 books,mostly on medicine.His mostimportant work of naruralhistory, NotableCommmtaies on theHistory of Plants(De Histoia Stirpiun Commmtaii Insignes),published in I 542,was also a medical text - in it, Fuchsdescribed plants, discussed their medicinal virtues according to the Classicaltradition and indicated the diseasesthey could cure.However, by paying closeattention to plant morphology and by including in his book some plants with no known medicinal value,Fuchs contributed to establishing botany asan independentdiscipline. Born into a comfortable bourgeois family in the Bavarian town of Wemding, Fuchsearned a bachelorof arts degreefrom the University of Erfurt when he was 16. After a year asa schoolmaster,he went to the University of Ingolstadt,where he was made masterof artsin l52l and doctor of medicine in l524.He held a few short posi- tions as a university lecturer and court physician before joining the faculty of the Lutheran University of Tiibingen in I 53 5, where he remained for the rest of his life.

In Relairance medicine,no sbarp line separatedfood fron simplemedicines. Fuclts wites that tbesboots of asparagas(in Latin Asparagusofficinalis; 'Spargn' in German),boiled in hrotlt and dresrcdwitb sah, ainegtr and oil, are considereda delicacy.According to Dioscoides,cooked sbooficalm tbe somach and promoteaination; SimeonSetb adds that tltey are tbe mo$ nutritious aegetableand can beconsidered intermediate bentseen plant and animal in tbeir nature.

48 . ASPARAGVS 6pcr4cn, u{.tico1rt ' THE RENAISSANCE t

Tbeseillustrations fron tbe ViennaCodex, Fuchsi unpablisbedsecond edition of tbeNotable Commentaries,show the subtle detail of bis artists' oiginal drawings.Tbe drawing of the mandrake(Mandragora officinarum; RIGHT')war tbebasb for thewoodcut in theNotable Commentaries;tbe red cabbage (Brassica oleracea aar. capitata;LEFT:) was an addition. In his text, Fuchswarrs hh readersagains counterfeitmandrake roots sculpted into baman j5). form (rcealso tbe illustration onp.

In Tiibingen, asone of two professorsof medicine,Fuchs taught theory,anatomy and medicalbotany. Fuchs'sapproach to botany wasinspired by a reform movementoriginating in northern Italy at this time. Niccold Leoniceno,a professorat the University of Ferrara,was convinced that the names used by ancient medical writers for plants were not the sameas those used by modern apothecaries.To pur medical botany on the right footing, Leoniceno compared ancient texts with acrualplants. His goal was to establishexactly which plant the ancientsmeant by eachname. Then, doctors and apothecariescould use ancientmedical recipescorrectly. Some of Leoniceno'sGerman studentsthen adopted this project as their own. Euricius Cordus wrote a short dialogue,Botanologicon (1534), describing an excursion into the German woods to hunt for plants in order to compare them with ancient

)U t LBolqHeRT FUcHs t

texts.Fuchs knew Cordus from his student days at Erfirrt, and he too wasconvinced that medical botany needed reform. His first medical publication, in 1530,on the errors of modern physicians,included an incisive critique of botanical mistakes, based on Leoniceno's method. His NotableCommmtaies were intended to provide a definitive guide to plant names,descriptions and medicinal uses. Fuchs wasnot alone in this aim. In Germany,he waspreceded by his contempo- rariesOtto Brunfels and Hieronymus Bock - the three of them havebeen called, with some justification, the 'German Fathers of Botany'. Each emphasizeda different aspectof botanical research,and it was Fuchs'swork that, more than the others, shapedthe later courseof Renaissancebotany.

AccunRrE ILLUSTRATIoNS

The invention of printing in the mid-l5th century revolutionized natural history illustrations.In Classicalantiquity and the Middle Ages,every drawing of a plant or animal wasunique. Each time a drawing wascopied, it lost someof its original detail, becoming increasingly stylized. The woodcut, also invented in the l5th century offered the possibility of making exactly reproducible copies of drawings. But naturalistswere slow to pick up on its potential.Woodcuts of plants in early printed herbalsimitated the crude, stylized picturesfound in late medievalmanuscripts. The potential of the woodcut wasfinally realizedin 1530.Brunfels, inhis Liaing Imagesof Planr (HerbaramViaae Eicones,l530-32), placed short descriptions taken from ancient texts next to woodcuts by Hans Weiditz, a pupil of Albrecht Diirer. Weiditz's illustrations were stunningly different from anything that had been seen before. Working from original specimens,Weiditz produced bold, accurate drawings that could be easily transferredto wood blocks,allowing hundreds of identical copiesto be made.The book's very title testifiesto the effect that both author and publisher expectedit to have on their audience.Indeed, the book appearsto owe as much to Weiditz and to its publisher,Johann Schott of Strasbourg,as to Brunfels himself, whose earlier publications were on religion and education. Brunfels complained that Weiditz had depicted 'naked plants', those that had not been described by the ancients,whose medicinal properties were unknown. Yet Brunfels was a dedi- cated naturalist, as Bock testified in the preface to his own book, the New Herbal(New KreiitterBacb,1539). Bock's approachto natural history was diametrically opposedto Brunfels's.He decided not to include illustrations in his herbal at all. Instead,he wrote his own descriptionsofplants, basedon carefrrl,repeated observations in the field and in his

51 $

PAPAVER ER RATICVM PRITTV,L &qprr;ofc* rj &7::r,*/ JJ v-s,.t2..--

Cornorfeld poppl (Papaverrhoeas). The bright colours in tltis uoodcutuere added fu hand aJierthe book was printed - manJcopies of FuchsiNotable Commentaries wereband- coloured.Altbough the worh was oftendone b7 womenand children,who could be paid lower waget tban men,a hand-colouredbooh cost manl timesmore than tbemme one uitbout colourinp.

52 PICTORES OPERIS, $crrrricnofr nll ffriuvcv. llloe*usfficix.

scvtPTOR Eft ro$o0oipf2. Spccfle,

under thetitle'Painters of tbe ltrlork',Fuchs included this portrait of draughtsmenHeinrich Fiillmaurerand Albrecht Me1er, and woodcar-uer y'eit Rudolf Speckh, at theend of hr Notable Commentaries.It wasunusual for illustratedRenairance boofu to includeportraits of the artists,but Fuchsknew tltat hb boohuould owemucb of itsluccers t0 their talenrs

.).t t rsn RENATSSANCE t

own garden.Only after describingthe plant asit appearedto him did he try to work out which ancientdescription applied to it. Insteadofarranging plantsalphabetically, asBrunfels had done,Bock organizedthem into groupsbased on similariry though he did not adopt a systemaricclassification, and he separated'foreign' plants, those introduced by merchants,from thoserhat were nariveto Germany. lnthe NotableCommmtaies, Fuchs combined what he saw asthe bestelements of both Brunfels'sand Bock'sherbals. Alongside elegant,full-page woodcuts of plants, Fuchs gave their names in severalancient and modern languages,a description of their form, notes on when and where they grew, their remperament(a Renaissance medicalconcept) and their medicinal virrues accordingto severalancient authorides. Each part ofthis taskinvolved innovativechoices. Unlike Bock, Fuchs wasconvinced that pictures were essendalfor his book. But Fuchs was not happy with Weiditz's approacheither. Weiditz had used the artisric techniquesof foreshorteningand shadowingto increasethe realism of his picrures. And he had depicted torn and wilted leaves,withered flowers and other characteris- tics of the actual specimen before his eyes.Fuchs thought that would not do. His contemporary SebastianMonruus, along with other philosophers, believed that picturescould tell a scholarnothing about the essentialnature ofa plant; ar most,they could depict the peculiarities of individual specimens.Fuchs disagreed,but he saw the dangerin Weiditz'sapproach. To overcomeit, Fuchs insistedon carefully super- vising the production of his pictures. Fuchs employed a team of three artisrs;unusually, the book includes their group portrait at the end.Albrecht Meyer made the original drawingsof the plant. Heinrich Fiillmaurer copied each drawing on to a wood block, checking it againstthe plant itself as he worked. Finally, Veit Rudolf Specklecut away the blank spacefrom the block, leaving the raisedsurface that, inked and pressedon damp paper,would repro- duce the image. As the artistsworked, Fuchs inspected the results.He correctedinaccuracies, but he alsoamended any part of the drawing that representeda peculiarity of the individ- ual specimenthat wasnot found in other plants of the samespecies. The result wasa drawing that representedwhat a rypical individual of the speciesmight look like, but not necessarilywhat any individual plant did look like. In some cases,Fuchs showed flowers and fruits on the sameplanr, even when the two never occurred simultane- ously in nanrre,so rhar the naturalist equipped with his book could recognizeboth. Despitethe limitations of the medium, Brunfels'sand Fuchs'sexample prevailed over Bock's:most l6th-cenrury botanicalbooks were lavishly illustrated.

54 r,.

CERASVS

In this woodcutFuchs placed three aaieties of cherryin oneillustratioz (Prunus cerususand P. avium); thehand-colouing clearly distinguishes befwem tl:em. The illuttration showsthe flowers andfruit at thesame time, to aid in identtfyingtbe plant.

55 t rse RENATSSANcE t

NnurNc rHE PLANTS

Fuchs'sillustrations were striking, but they would havebeen uselessto medical readers without the text that accompaniedthem. Following Leoniceno, Brunfels and Bock, Fuchs stroveto establishthe ancient Greek and Latin names of plants. Renaissance pharmacistsoften used ancient names for plants that were completely different from what the ancientsmeant. Such mistakesled to medicinesthat were weak,ineffective - or worse,harmful. Because Fuchs indicated the medicinal virtues of plants according to Galen, Dioscorides(p. 33) and other ancient sources,he had to ensure that he got the namesright. Fuchs was not always successfirlat this task.Plant geographywas only iust beginning EVPATORIVM Safisancftlq4;c to be studied, and he had never travelled ADVLTERTNVI (,r'"1"' beyond Germany. Unlike Euricius Cordus, who had srudied in ltaly, Fuchs had no first- hand knowledgeof the differencesbetween Mediterranean and German floras. None- theless, with effort and some luck, he successfullyidentified many of the plants

Hempagrimonl (Eupatorium cannabinum).' known to the ancients.Even his failures Fuchshad no idea whethertbe ancientr knezt: tbis spurredfu rther research. plant, and if so,what they called it. He complained He began each chapter of the l,lotable that tbepharmacists of bis day mistoohitfor true Commentaieswith a sectionon'names': Greek, agrinony. Germanscalled it St Cunegund'twort. ancient Latin, modern Latin and German. Purple violet, for instance,was' Ion porphuron to the Greeks, Violamuraia or parpurea to the Latins, blaa l/eielor Merzet aiolento the Germans;the pharmacistsiust call it Viola.'Coltsfoot,on the other hand, was known as'Tussilago'inClassical Latin, but 'Ungulacaballina'(literally,'little horsehoof') to Renaissancepharmacists. Occasion- ally he included synonymsfrom other languages.

56 t rBoxHnRT FUcHs t

Fuchsorganized his herbalin alphabeticalorder - accordingto the first letter of the plant'sGreek name,or its Latin name when it wasunknown to the ancients. But he prefixedthe descriptionswith four indexesof names:Greek, ancientLatin, pharmacists'Latinand German.That way,readers could go from any of the names to the plant itself.Sometimes, in the caseof newly introducedplants with no ancient Greek or Latin name,Fuchs placed them nearother, botanically related plants. He basedhis iudgmentsof affinity on taste and smell, which were clues to a plant's medicinalvirtues.

DEScRTBTNGPr-.lxrs

Fuchs often referred readersto his picrures for an accuratedescription of a plant's form andshape. His verbaldescriptions, unlike thoseof Bockand of ValeriusCordus

(Euricius's son), were brief, sometimes too . ,r J, ,:., |,r..ni:4,t.,:)ra,Jtrrtl brief, and often copied from Dioscorides. DE HISTORIA STIR He contributed to standardizingbotanical PIVM COMMENTARII INSIGNES' MA XIMIS IMPENSIS ET VIGILIIS ELA BOrrr( ADrECtlt EIRvN-DEr-VrVt! tLVtqVM terminology by providing a list of difficult ouoe6&'drqnblt, truqud.ntd rddNr 6r@dm ' - a*i**6". reoNHr^To !vcEtto D.dioh:. - mn'r&r.lo'8ltuG4dor. terms with their definitions.Even though many of Fuchs'sterms are no longerused or

l'dd diftad&tu have changedtheir meaning,the list wasthe ^d.,ifud^&6dodFhiobg.ffidC4 Ydoc @&dh Indic@r@stutuItun@ ora g''i!. rrc un#tmoiotud kPtud& . + first botanicalglossary and helpedcontempo- hdkirufidr,qurturS:d6nti@ rariessenle on namesfor the differentparts of a plant. Fuchs was more original in describing the placesand times whereplants grew and flowered, information that was essentialfor gatheringmedicinal plants and could alsobe usedto help identify an unknown plant.He also described a plant's 'temperament', its balanceof the ancientelemental qualities of hot, cold, moist and dry, that in Galenic medicine gave clues to how a plant would act as a drug. Followingits temperament, Fuchs indicated the plant's actual medical Title-pageo/r/e Notable Commentaries.l"/e lengtbytttle empbaizet the exertionand expensetbat powers by quoting liberallyfrom Dioscorides, the bookclst Filcht.As a piuilege, EmperorCbarles V Galen,Pliny and occasionallyother medical grantedan earfuforn of copyight (at tbe bonom),but authorities. thebook wai roonpirated in France,

57 ! rxn nENArssANcE t

In describingplants, Fuchs aimed to reformpharmaceutical botany. Morphology wasonly a parg andnot the mostimportant part, of his descriptions.But throughhis picnrres,and his attempsto distinguishdifferentvarieties of the samespecies, he also contributed to a growing interest in plant morphology in the l5,l0s and 1550s. Sparkedin pan by criticism of Fuchsand his contemporaries,this growinginterest would leadthe next generationof botaniststo downplaymedicinal botany in favour of the study of morphologyand distribution.In this regard,Fuchs's book playedan imponant role in establishingbotany as an independent discipline.

Aprnn rHE NITABLE CIMMENTARTES

After the Noubb Commanuies,Fuchs continued to gatherillustrations and descrip- tions of plants.He and his publisherissued German and Frenchtranslations of the Commantaier,as well as a volume containing the illustrationswith minimal text for the use of students.By 1557,he had preparedtwo volumes for a new, expandededition of the Commantaie4each with 400 illustrations and more accuratedescriptions, and he wasat work on a third. But his publisherdied and he could not find anotherwilling to take on the risk of publishingan expensivebotanical book. At his death in 1566,it remained in manuscript. Fuchs'sremarks in his new prefacg and in his correspondence,reveal a men jealousof his reputation and suspiciousof rivals,unlike the 1542 preface,in which he had been quite generousto his predecessors.He remained in Tiibingen, where he continued to teach medicine.In his last three yearshe suffered from chronicillness. He died a disappointed man, frusuated in his ambition to revise and correc his great work of nanrral history.But Tomato(Solanum lycopersicum):tbis drawing his NotabbCommetttaieq flawed asthey were in tbc Vinna Codexma1 bc tbe earlicst fmn his own hindsight, marked an epoch in the Earcpeanillustration of a tonan plant Dcspitc its ermrc,it sbottsbw Facbscwtinrcd to rcel oat developmentof Renaissancenanrral history. describeand dcpictnaD plontt

58 FURTHER READING

THE ANCIENTS Monon, A. G, Hittoryof BounicalScinee (London: AcademicPress, l98l) Aristotle Green,E. L, Landmarbof BotaricalHistory (Stanford: Aristotle, Tbe ConploeWorb of Aittotle, edited byJ StanfordUniversiry Press, 1 983), vol. 1, 223-28 Barnes(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) Pliny the Eldet, Nanral History,rans. and Barnes,Jonathan,Aittotle: A VerySbort Intodrcion introductionbyJohn Healy (London:Penguin, (Oxford and New York:Oxford UniversiryPress, leel) 2000) Barnes,Jonathan,Schofield, M. andSorabji, R., THE RENAISSANCE Artieleson Aistotle, vol. I Scince(London: Duckworth,1975) Leonhart Fuchs Gilfispie, C. C. (ed.),Dictionary of Scintifc Bngraply, Arber, Agnes,Herbals: Their Oigin and Eaoluiol; vol. I (New York:Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970) a Cbapterin tbeHistorl of Boury, 1470-1670 Gonhelfl Allan, 'Darwin on Aristotle',/oarnal of the (Carnbridge:Cambridge University Press, Himry of Biology,vol. 32,no. I (1999),3-30 3rded., 1986) Greene,E. L., Landmartsof BotanicalHittoT edited Theophrastus by FrankN. Egenon (Stanford:Stanford University Sharples,R.W' Tbeopbrasnsof Ererus,Commmtary Press,1983) Volune5: Sourceson Biohgl (Junat Plysiohgy,Liaing Kusukawa,Sachiko,'Leonhart Fuchs on the CreataretBouny: Textt 328-4j5) (Leid,en:Brill, 1994) importanceof pictures',/oznal of tbeHistory of Monon, A. G, Historyof BotanicalScierce (London: Ideu 58 (1997),/tO3-27 AcademicPress, 1981) Meyer,Frederick G., Emmart Trueblood,Emily and Theophrasrus,Enqiry intoPlants, trans. Sir Anhur Heller,John L, Tbe GreatHerbal of LeonhartFrcbs: Holt (London:W Heinemann;New York:G. P. De bisoia tirpirm commantaiiinsignet, 1542 Q''lotablc Putnamt Sons,1916) Commentaieton tbeHistory of Plazrr) (Stanford: Theophrasrus,De CautisPlanwrrz, trans.Robert StanfordUniversity Press, 1999) E. Denger(Philadelphia: Westbrook Pub. Co., Ogilvie, Brian W, TbeScimce of Denibing.Nanral re27) Hittory in Rnairance Euope(Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 2006) PedaniosDioscorides Reeds,Karen M., Bonny in Medieualand Retaissance Brubaker.L..'The ViennaDioskorides and Anicia Uniaersitiet(New York and London:Garland Juliana',in A. Littlewood,H. Maguire and Publishing,Inc., l99l) Wolschke-Bulmahn(eds), B3tzantine Gard an C iltu re (Washington,DC: DumbanonOaks Research Ulisse Aldrovandi Libraryand Collection, 2002) Findlen, P., PossessingNature. Musetms, Colbcting and Downs,R. B.,'Firstherbalisc Dioscorides (r. 40-80)' Seienife Cultareit Earl Moderr ltall (Berkeley,Los in R. B. Downs(ed.), Landna*s in Sciance: Angeles,London: University of California Press, Hippocratesto Carson(Litieton: Libraries Unlimited, 1994) 1982),52-s4 Il teatrodella natura di Ulise Aldrwandi, Bologna Greene,E. L., Lardna*s of BotanicalHittory (Stanford: (Editrice Compositori:Bologna, 2001) StanfordUniversity Press, 1983), vol. 1, 218-23 Olmi, G.,'Science-Honour-Metaphor:Italian Monon, A. G., Historyof BownicalSciewe (London: Cabinetsofthe Sixteenthand Seventeenth AcademicPress, l98l), 70-71 Centuries',in O. Impey and A. MacGregor(eds), Riddle,John, Dioscoideson PbarmaEand Medicine TbeOigins of Mueamt (Oxford, ClarendonPress, (Austin:University ofTexas Press,1985) 1985),5-16 Olmi, G., L'inae*aio del mondo.Cetalogzzione delh Pliny the Elder naturae laoghidel rcpete nella pima eti moderna Downs,R. B.,'Thegreat compiler: Pliny the Elder: (Bologna:Il Mulino, 1992) NaturalHistory (23-79), in R. B. Downs(ed.), Olmi, G. and Tongiorgi Tomasi,L., Depitcihat. La Landmarb in Scince:Hippocratet to Carson(Linleton: bottegaartisica di Ulire Aldrnandi e l'inmagine LibrariesUnlimited, 1982), 48-51 naturalisica(Rome: Edizioni dell'Elefante,1993)

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