Category Archives: Galileo, Natural History, and the Americas

Edward Topsell, The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes (London, 1658) Topsell’s natural history includes both familiar and exotic creatures, drawn from sources both new and old. Topsell describes the horse, reindeer and chameleon. He portrays the magnificent appearance of the rhinoceros … Continue reading →

John Gerard, The Herball (London, 1597) Gerard directed the gardens of William Cecil (Lord Burghley), Queen Elizabeth’s chief executive.  In this capacity, Gerard maintained contacts with naturalists around the world who sent him both exotic plants and the soil to … Continue reading →

Leonhart Fuchs, De historia stirpium (Lyon, 1551) Herbals were sometimes hand colored in select copies.  They might be issued both in large folios and in small, economical, hand-sized formats like this one.  The small format was useful beyond the study … Continue reading →

Leonhart Fuchs, De historia stirpium (Basel, 1542) Fuchs extracted the best knowledge available from ancient sources, yet he gave each plant a German name as well as the traditional Latin. This work contains descriptions of 500 plants, 400 of which were native … Continue reading →

Pietro de’ Crescenzi, Ruralium commodorum (Augsburg, 1471) The Advantages of Country Living This is the earliest published work on agriculture, a manual for managing a feudal estate. It is an ancestor to the early printed herbals. It explains what plants … Continue reading →