Image from I discorsi (Commentaries) by M. Pietro Andrea Mattioli

The sixteenth century was a turning point in the study of botany, which was no longer a science relegated to the continual repetition of what had been said by the ancient scholars, rather a “live” science where research is carried out directly on plants, not simply through their descriptions.

The most striking example of this change was the emergence of botanical gardens, which were founded precisely to allow students to observe and study live plants beginning in the 1540s (the first to be founded was in Pisa, in 1543; a year later the one in Padua, still today in the same place where it was founded, unlike the garden in Pisa, and it is therefore considered the oldest botanical garden in the world).

This new mentality also relates to books, where since the sixteenth century and for the following centuries, botanical illustrations were made by observing real plants, flowers, fruits, leaves...

In particular, the publication of texts by Brunfels and Fuchs marks the moment when botany begins to focus on observation of the natural world in an innovative approach, stripping away imaginative interpretations and basing itself on real observation, while the Mattioli text represents an admirable example of revision of the classical authors.

Beginning in the late fifteenth century, moreover, “natural print” methods were developed and used in which the matrices are based on the plant itself and not from one of its drawings, as in the case of the volumes by Crasso and the Perini brothers: the fidelity to nature was brought to its highest level.

Works presented:

Otto Brunfels, Herbarum vivae eicones ad naturae imitationem

Leonhart Fuchs, Primi de stirpium historia commentariorum tomi viuae imagines

Pier Andrea Mattioli, I discorsi di M. Pietro Andrea Matthioli ... nelli sei libri di Pedacio Discoride

Giovanni Crasso, Stirpe specimina calcata

Carlo e Agostino Perini, Flora dell'Italia settentrionale rappresentata colla fisiotipia

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