
These wonderful full-page watercolor illustrations are from a 16th-century edition of Pedanius Dioscorides’s work on herbal medicine, De Materia Medica. Dioscorides (ca. 40–90 AD), a Greek physician and botanist, is considered to be the father of pharmacology. With this five-volume book, he was hailed as the forerunner of modern pharmacopoeias – books that record medicines along with their effects and directions for their use.
The book was translated from the original Greek to Latin, Arabic, and Spanish, and continued to be in use with additions and commentaries written by various authors, one of who whom was the 16th century Italian doctor Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501–1577). Describing one hundred new plants not included by Dioscorides, Mattioli’s expansion of the book first appeared in Italian and was later translated into Latin, French, Czech, and German.
These illustrations, found in Mattioli’s version of the book, are dated between 1564–1584 and are the creation of the Italian artist and botanist Gherardo Cibo (1512–1600). The images, in which the plants take center stage before a landscaped backdrop, seem to bear an uncanny resemblance to the images found in Robert Thornton’s Temple of Flora.
1. Crocus Sativus

2. Origanum

3. Fumaria

4. Viola Odorata

5. Olea Europaea

6. Callystegia Soldanella

7. Iris

8. Phyllitis Hemionitis

9. Gladiolus Italicus

10. Mercurialis Annua

11. Plantago Maior

12. Abronia Arenaria and Solidago Virga-Aurea

13. Daphnoides

14. Galanthus and Ipheion

15. Asplenium Scolopendrium

16. Asarum Europaeum

17. Helleboris Viridis

18. Euphrasia Officinalis

19. Paeonia Mascula

20. Polygonatum

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