Text in Latin, published in three editions in Strasbourg from 1532, which presents its peculiarities as early as the frontispiece (seen at bottom of the page), full of mythological references.

The title, in itself, is significant, Herbarum vivae eicones ad naturae imitationem, summa cum diligentia & artificio effigiatae... (Herbarium of life-like images in imitation of nature, portrayed with great diligence and artifice...) appearing surrounded by classical representations both in style and subject.

The author, Otto Brunfels, albeit defined by Linnaeus as “the father of modern botany”, was actually not a botanist but a theologian and the Latin text is just a replication of the works by Dioscorides.

The quality instead of xylographic illustrations by Hans Weiditz is very high. They are inspired from live observation of plants, and are of great realism to the point that the specimens are illustrated exactly as they appeared to the illustrator: with broken and wilted leaves, damaged by parasites.

Two images from the copy kept at the Botanical Garden of Padua (1532 edition), where you can see the extreme realism of the illustrations, especially evident in the second figure, the plant with leaves which are broken and eaten by insects.

Go to the catalogue entry.

You can view the entire volume in the Internet Archive (digitised copy from Missouri Botanical Garden).

  »  Primi de stirpium historia

Frontispiece of the 1532 edition of Brunfels’ work (from the copy kept at the Library of the Botanical Garden), with some details highlighted: