Text printed in Basel in 1549 with xylographic images of plants which occupy almost the entire surface of the page.

The written text, the work of the German physician and botanist Leonhart Fuchs, is very important: after an introduction and the index of represented plants, most space is left for the images, while the words are limited to the Latin name of the species.

These are images which were made by observing the actual plant, in which realism is combined with a certain degree of typification: the choice, in fact, was to not accurately depict the actual specimen, but to try to portray the typical characteristics of the entire species.

The focus was on creating a portrayal as close as possible to the real plant, in all its aspects (in fact, flowers and fruits are often simultaneously displayed): “We were careful that in the execution of the work, the natural form of the plants should not be masked by shadows or other unnecessary things” (Fuchs).

It was the typification which differentiated the images of this work, carried out by Albrecht Meyer, from those of Brunfels' volume where the intention was instead to reproduce the single specimen, in all its characteristics.

More than 100 plants were illustrated for the first time in this volume, including 12 species coming from the “New World” such as coffee, tobacco, and chilli pepper.

As always happened at the time, the text left the publisher's shop in loose sheets and images in black and white: the choice of binding and whether to hand paint the figures was up to the purchaser, thus creating copies different from one another.

Browse the on line copy digitised by Penn Libraries

Go to the catalogue entry.

  »  I discorsi di M. Pietro Andrea Matthioli