Earlier this week I had the amazing experience of visiting the Rare Books Room in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of the New York Botanical Garden. With the help of the library staff, I got to examine some of the most important books in the past five or so centuries of botanical illustration in Europe. And so, I would like to introduce you to a first set of books, all from the 15th and 16th centuries--the age of the woodcut.

1) Peter Schoeffer's Gart der Gesundheit (Garden of Health)

Some interesting plant illustrations in the Gart der Gesundheit.The drawings were carved onto wood blocks for printing and colored in afterwards, sometimes not very neatly, as one can see here. The artist is unknown.

Photo taken by me in the library of the NYBG.

Published in 1485, this tome was one of the "incunabula" produced during the early years of printing. ("Incunabulum" is the term used for a book or pamphlet printed before the 16th century). This book was a guide to medicinal plants. Books like these, called herbals, were not uncommon throughout the Middle Ages or at the time that this one was printed. This herbal is especially well known today for its attempts at scientific accuracy in botanical illustrations at a time when most botanical illustrations were crude copies of drawings from classical texts. In the preface, the author mentions that since many of the plants he wished to describe were not found in Germany, he brought an illustrator with him to the Middle East to document these plants as he found them. Indeed, it does appear that many of the illustrations in the herbal were drawn from firsthand observation of the plant. However, there were still many that obviously were not.

This book was produced at an interesting time in history, when printing itself was new technology and people were only beginning to realize the scientific inadequacy of the way botanical illustrations were being made. In this practice, images were passed down through the centuries by copying until the pictures showed little resemblance to the original living plant, the result of a very long game of illustrative telephone.

I have no idea what these could be. Seeds? This may be one of those examples of an illustration whose original intentions were lost. I just enjoy the calligraphy tongues on these little creatures. Peter Schoeffer was trained as a calligrapher before becoming a printer, and this book clearly demonstrates his continued interest in calligraphy.
Photo taken by me at the NYBG.

2) Otto Brunfels' Herbarum vivae eicones

The title page of Herbarum vivae eicones.

Image taken by me at the NYBG.

This herbal was created by botanist (among other things) Otto Brunfels from 1530 to 1536. It focuses on German plants. It wasn't until this herbal that the scientific accuracy of the Schoeffer illustrations was surpassed, and indeed, the success and fame of Herbarum vivae eicones to this day relies much more on the wonderfully detailed and realistic botanical illustrations of its illustrator, Hans Weiditz, than the text itself. Weiditz's drawings were created using live plant models, which makes a huge difference when it comes to accuracy.

Illustration by Hans Weiditz. Notice that this image is much more detailed and realistic than the more diagram-like images of Shoeffer's Gart der Gesundheit.
Image taken by me at the NYBG.

Weiditz was a very versatile illustrator, producing images for books about religion, medicine, science, law, wrestling, politics, and more. Petrarch, Erasmus, and Virgil are just a few of the authors whose texts he adorned. Unlike most other woodcut artists at the time, Weiditz rarely signed any of his work. As a result, though his work was well admired and reproduced during his life and after his death, it did not take long for his name to be lost. For centuries, people mis-attributed his art to others. Only in Brunfels' Herbal was Weiditz stated by name as the illustrator, and because of this someone was able to assign a name to Weiditz's large body of work.

3) Leonhart Fuch's De historia stirpium

Illustration of Leonhart Fuch in his book, De historia stirpium.
Photo taken by me at the NYBG.

Fuchs was born in Bavaria and lived as a physician in Munich. His De Historia Stirpium (1542), was the second botanical work after Brunfels' to really use scientifically accurate illustrations. Importantly, the text is much more accurate and scientifically informative than Brunfels'. Albrecht Mayer created the illustrations from observing living plants, Heinrich Fullmaurer transferred the drawings to wood blocks, and Veit Speckle carved out the woodcuts.

Illustration of Heinrich Fullmaurer and Albrecht Mayer hard at

work, making botanical illustrations.

Credit: DR JEREMY BURGESS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

The illustrations of both Brunfels' and Fuchs' herbals were great works of botanical art in woodcut, though their artists' approaches to their subjects were often different. Mayer's art was typically more idealized, while Weiditz would faithfully render plants that were clearly wilted. Which is better, to accurately portray the appearance of your plant subject, or to show the plant as you think it should look? These are two different approaches, and with each approach certain information about the plant species may be gained and lost.

Image from De historia stirpium.
Photo taken by me at the NYBG.

4) Hieronymus Bock's Kreutterbuch

Woodcut illustration by David Kandel. You can see his initials on the rock in the foreground. Kandel's illustrations were known for being detailed, though it looks like he put more detail into the people than the tree in this image!

Photo by me, taken at the NYBG.

Hieronymus Bock was a physician and botanist. He published this herbal in 1546. This herbal is known for its clear and detailed descriptions of plants, including some plants that had never been described before. Artist David Kandel completed hundreds of detailed and realistic illustrations for this edition.

Drawing of a strawberry plant by David Kandel
for the Kreutterbuch.
Image in the public domain.

5) Pietro Andrea Mattioli's Herbarz

Woodcut from Mattioli's Herbarz. Look at the detail in those leaves!
Photo taken by me at the NYBG.

Pietro Andrea Mattioli's Herbarz (1562) was a commentary on Dioscorides (the classical physician mentioned in blogpost #1). The book was an herbal for physicians to consult. This edition of Herbarz was accompanied by very large and extremely detailed illustrations by Giorgio Liberale. The artists and craftspeople of book illustration in the 1500s were typically not credited, but Mattioli did credit Liberale in this work, along with Wolfgang Meyerpeck, who did the woodcutting.

Woodcut from Mattioli's Herbarz.

Photo taken by me at the NYBG.

Sources

Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Volume 17, number 7. By Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). "Hans Weiditz: A Study in Personality."

Blunt, Wilfrid and William T. Stearn. "Appendix A: Botanical drawing. Eight articles by Walter Hood Fitch, reprinted from 'The Gardeners' Chronicle', 1869." In The Art of Botanical Illustration. London, the Antique Collectors' Club Ltd.

Garden of Health. http://www.medievalportland.pdx.edu/?q=garden-of-health-0

Hieronymus Bock, 1498-1554. http://library.cincymuseum.org/bot/bock.htm

Otto Brunfels. http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2241.htm