Publication date 1485 Country Germany | Originally published 23 June 1491 | |
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Publisher Jacob Meydenbach, Mainz Similar Tacuinum Sanitatis, Grete Herball, De Historia Stirpium Comment, Tractatus de Herbis, Nuremberg Chronicle | ||
The Hortus Sanitatis (also written Ortus) (Latin for The Garden of Health), the first natural history encyclopaedia, was published by Jacob Meydenbach in Mainz, Germany in 1485.
Contents
It describes species in the natural world along with their medicinal uses and modes of preparation. It is in part an extended Latin translation of the German Herbarius published in 1485 but, unlike that earlier work, also deals with animals, birds, fish and stones. The author does not restrict himself to dealing only with real creatures, but also includes accounts of mythical animals such as the dragon, harpy, hydra, myrmecoleon, phoenix, and zitiron.
Context
The Hortus Sanitatis was the third important herbal to be printed in Mainz before 1500. The first two were by Peter Schoeffer, his Latin Herbarius in 1484, followed by an updated and enlarged German version in 1485.
Publication history
The first edition of Hortus Sanitatis was printed by Jacob Meydenbach in Mainz, Germany in 1485, with a second edition in 1491 and a third in 1497. A French edition by Antoine Vérard was printed in Paris in about 1500, under the title Ortus sanitatis translate de latin en francois. The last complete copy of Hortus Sanitatis appeared in about 1539, printed by Phillipe le Noir and sold in Paris under the title of Le jardin de sante.
An English version of extracts from the Hortus, the Noble lyfe & natures of man, of bestes, serpentys, fowles & fisshes, was produced in 1491 by Laurence Andrew (fl. 1510–1537). A facsimile edition of this was published in London in 1954 by B. Quaritch.
Contents
The book is divided up into sections as follows:
Illustrations
The woodcut illustrations are stylised but often easily recognizable, and many were re-used in other works. In addition to the representations of simples, pictures show their use by humans, and scenes in which figures are surrounded by the subjects in their natural environment, such as standing by a river with fish and mermaids. Unusually for the period, many of the woodcuts are coloured.
In culture
The University of Sydney comments that "The rich variety of the woodcuts makes this a very attractive book. The engraver was a skilled craftsman, but there is some botanical retrogression, since he did not always fully understand the plants he was copying from previous cuts."
A copy once owned by the apothecary George Peacock of Aberdeen is held by the University of Aberdeen. It was described as a "rare medieval book" which gave "an insight into the bizarre medical practices used 500 years ago."