Image from De herbarum virtutibus

In the Middle Ages, information about the virtues of plants was transmitted orally or through "secret", often crude manuscripts, herbals and horti sanitatis, with, repetitive, stylised images.

During the Humanistic age, there was a resurgence of interest in the natural world, which led to the publication (printed) of texts of auctores (Pliny, Dioscorides...) and their critical analysis, but also a practical, utilitarian study of plants. One of the first printed works is the Naturalis Historia by Pliny the Elder (the first printed edition was published in Venice in 1469 by Giovanni da Spira).

In the incunabula of illustrated herbals, the written text was still put together as a manual of medieval medicine, with a more or less detailed pharmacopoeia (usually in alphabetical order) accompanied by a series of secrets about the therapeutic uses of plants.

Even the illustrations are still based in the medieval tradition, with rigid and stereotyped images, hardly reflecting reality. The sources the illustrators used to make them were not, in fact, the real plants, but the images from previous books, or even based only textual description.

Works presented:

Pseudo Apuleius, De herbarum virtutibus

Pseudo Apuleius, Incipit Herbarium Apulei ad Marcum Agrippam

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