Herbals : their origin and evolution : a chapter in the history of botany, 1470-1670 / Agnes Arber.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Arber, Agnes, 1879-1960.

Series:

Cambridge science classics

Cambridge science classics.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Herbals--Europe--History.

Herbals.

Botany--Europe--History.

Botany.

History.

Europe.

Physical Description:

xxxii, 358 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 23 cm.

Edition:

Third edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Summary:

Herbals deal primarily with medicinal and culinary herbs, their real and supposed properties and virtues, and in origin they go back at least to the Ancient Greeks. During the 16th and 17th centuries they developed into attractively illustrated printed books, the forerunners of modern botanical and pharmaceutical textbooks. Agnes Arber's Herbals (first published in 1912, much revised in 1938) stands as the major survey of the period 1470 to 1670 when botany evolved into a scientific discipline separate from herbalism, a development reflected in contemporary herbals. Every work on herbals since 1912 has been indebted to Arber's classic.

The present volume in the Cambridge Science Classics series, while retaining her main text unaltered, supplements this with two of her later writings on herbals, provides a biographical introduction, greatly extends the bibliography and has annotations modifying the original text through later enquiry.

This added material will make this re-issue invaluable to librarians, historians of science, book-lovers and all with an interest in the early development of botany, pharmacy and book production, even if they already possess the long-unobtainable 1938 edition.

Contents:

Introduction, 'Agnes Arber's Herbals' / William T. Stearn xxv

Chapter I. The Early History of Botany

2. Aristotelian Botany 2

3. Medicinal Botany 6

Chapter II. The Earliest Printed Herbals (Fifteenth Century)

1. The Encyclopaedia of Bartholomaeus Anglicus and The Book of Nature 13

2. The Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus 14

3. The Latin Herbarius 20

4. The German Herbarius and related works 22

5. The Hortus (Ortus) sanitatis 28

Chapter III. The Early History of the Herbal in England

1. The Herbarium of Apuleius Platonicus 38

2. Banckes' Herball 41

3. The grete herball 44

Chapter IV. The Botanical Renaissance of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

1. The Herbal in Germany 52

2. The Herbal in the Low Countries 79

3. The Herbal in Italy 92

4. The Herbal in Spain and Portugal 104

5. The Herbal in Switzerland 110

6. The Herbal in France 116

7. The Herbal in England 119

8. The Origin of Herbaria 138

9. The Revival of Aristotelian Botany 143

Chapter V. The Evolution of the Art of Plant Description 146

Chapter VI. The Evolution of Plant Classification 163

Chapter VII. The Evolution of the Art of Botanical Illustration 185

Chapter VIII. The Doctrine of Signatures, and Astrological Botany 247

Appendix I A chronological list of the principal herbals and related botanical works published between 1470 and 1670 271

Appendix II An alphabetical list of the historical and critical works consulted during the preparation of this book (1938) with additional references marked / W. T. Stearn 286

Appendix IV Annotations / W. T. Stearn 308

Offprint: The colouring of sixteenth-century herbals / Agnes Arber 315

Reprint: From medieval herbalism to the birth of modern botany / Agnes Arber 319.

Notes:

Reprint. Originally published: 2nd ed. Darien : Hafner, 1938. With new introd, and annotations by William T. Stearn.

Includes index.

Bibliography: pages 286-307.

ISBN:

0521338794

OCLC:

13455650