MATTIOLI’S HERBAL

MATTIOLI’S HERBAL

Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1500–1577 or 1578) was born into a family of physicians in Sienna, Italy. Following the family tradition, he decided to study medicine in Padua. Later, in about 1555–1570, he worked in Prague was the personal physician of Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol (1529–1595), the governor of Bohemia in 1547–1567.

In 1544, Mattioli published a commented translation of Dioscorides’s De materia medica in Italian. This edition, which was supplemented by current floristic knowledge, secured his place among respected botanists of the day but also the general public. It was translated into many European languages. In 1562, its Czech translation by Thaddeus Hagecius (1525–1600) was printed under the name Herbář jinak bylinář, velmi užitečný… by the famous printer Jiří Melantrich of Aventino (1511–1580). Hagecius not only translated the text but also creatively adapted it to the environment of Central Europe, in many places also capturing local customs, traditions, and daily life. On top of its other functions, this herbal thus became an interesting ethnographic source for the Czech Lands. The artistic aspect of this publication, which included 589 woodcuts, had overshadowed even contemporary German production (Brunfels, Fuchs).

The second Czech edition of Mattioli’s herbal, based on a translation of Adam Huber of Riesenpach (app. 1545–1613), was published in 1596 by Daniel Adam of Veleslavín (1546–1599). It was inspired by a highly appreciated innovative German edition of Mattioli’s herbal from 1586, which was published in Frankfurt am Main by the Nuremberg physician and botanist Joachim Camerarius (1534–1598). Authors of the second Czech edition supplemented the text with new botanical findings and explored in more depth the effects of particular parts of the plants. On top of that, this edition was accompanied by several new, in some cases more detailed, illustrations of entire plants.