Herbal facts and thoughts / by Arnold C. Klebs.

  • Arnold Klebs
Date:
[1925]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Herbal facts and thoughts / by Arnold C. Klebs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    eee Soke more and more for the right of fitting himself for and of partaking in intellectual endeavors. It is a narrow prejudice which denies to the popular book, the Volksbuch, its true historical significance in scientific evolution. Latin as an international language was a great convenience, but the vital thinking which made modern science was done in the mother’s tongue and here are the first beginnings of a literature which gradually became the rule. In another part of the preface of the “Gart” this aim is clearly expressed: that it may help all the world, learned and unlearned, have I had it made in German (‘das es aller welt gelerten und leyen zu nutzen komen mage, habe ich es in taiitsch laissen machen’’)*). The line of herbal evolution up to the appearance of the “Gart” of 1485, the chef d’ceuvre of all the early herbals and the real start- ing point for the future direction of scientific publications, is com- paratively simple. Lignamine, an influential and intelligent papal protégé, though not a physician as has been asserted, took an active part in the humanistic endeavors of the Roman intelligentsia. Clear- eyed he saw the possibilities and took advantage of the new art of printing which the two Germans, Schweinheim and Pannartz, had brought to Subiaco and Rome in the sixties. Like those other Roman nobles, the Massimi, who had opened the doors of their colonnaded palazzo to the northern printers and their presses, he also took them into his house, less generously, however, for he placed his own name into the books produced by their skill, posing for centuries as their printer which probably he never was. But in the furnishing of “‘copy” and historically interesting introductions he was a past master. Only the acquaintance with and the study of the manuscript literature, and a preference for classical and scientific subjects could have enabled him to furnish something new to the printers, who had flooded the market with theological literature. In his search among the treasures of the Benedictine Monastery of Monte Cassino he came upon an illustrated MS. of the Herbarium of Apuleius, a book which the herborizing monks of the day still held in high esteem though its origins can be traced hundreds of years further back. The idea of publishing the Apuleius suggested itself by similar work done in Rome. *) Under the mystic spell of Greek and Latin etymology, most historical writers have persisted in calling the “Gart der Gesundheit’: “Hortus sanitatis germanice”, which the preface of the book authorizes as well as that of “Herbarius”. The general absence of clear titles in the front of these books imposes upon us the necessity of making a choice, thus I have selected the brief terms “Herbarius”, “Gart” and “Hortus” to distinguish three different but well defined types of publications.
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