To add a volume such as the present to the existing multitude of books about books calls for some apology. My excuse must be that many of the best herbals, especially the earlier ones, are not easily accessible, and after experiencing keen delight from them myself, I have felt that some account of these works, in connection with reproductions of typical illustrations, might be of interest to others. In the words of Henry Lyte, the translator of Dodoens, “I thinke it sufficient for any, whom reason may satisfie, by way of answeare to alleage this action and sententious position: Bonum, quo communius, eo melius et prÆstantius: a good thing the more common it is, the better it is.”

The main object of the present book is to trace in outline the evolution of the printed herbal in Europe between the years 1470 and 1670, primarily from a botanical, and secondarily from an artistic standpoint. The medical aspect, which could only be dealt with satisfactorily by a specialist in that science, I have practically left untouched, as also the gardening literature of the period. Bibliographical information is not given in detail, except in so far as it subserves the main objects of the book. Even within these limitations, the present account is far from being an exhaustive monograph. It aims merely at presenting a general sketch of the history of the herbal during a period of two hundred years. The titles of the principal botanical works, which were published between 1470 and 1670, are given in Appendix I.

The book is founded mainly upon a study of the herbals themselves. My attention was first directed to these works by reading a copy of Lyte’s translation of Dodoens’ Herbal, which happened to come into my hands in 1894, and at once aroused my interest in the subject. I have also drawn freely upon the historical and critical literature dealing with the period under consideration, to which full references will be found in Appendix II. The materials for this work have chiefly been obtained in the Printed Books Department of the British Museum, but I have also made use of a number of other libraries. I owe many thanks to Prof. Seward, F.R.S., who suggested that I should undertake this book, and gave me special facilities for the study of the fine collection of old botanical works in the Botany School, Cambridge. In addition I must record my gratitude to the University Librarian, Mr F. J. H. Jenkinson, M.A., and Mr C. E. Sayle, M.A., of the Cambridge University Library, and also to Dr Stapf, Keeper of the Kew Herbarium and Library. By the kindness of Dr Norman Moore, Harveian Librarian to the Royal College of Physicians, I have had access to that splendid library, and my best thanks are due to him, and to the Assistant-Librarian, Mr Barlow. To the latter I am especially indebted for information on bibliographical points. I have also to thank Mr Knapman of the Pharmaceutical Society, Dr Molhuizen, Keeper of the Manuscripts, University Library, Leyden, and the Librarian of the Teyler Institute, Haarlem, for giving me opportunities for examining the books under their charge.

The great majority of the illustrations are reproduced from photographs taken directly from the originals by Mr W. Tams of Cambridge, to whom I am greatly indebted for the skill and care with which he has overcome the difficulties incidental to photographing from old books, the pages of which are so often wrinkled, discoloured or worm-eaten. For the use of Plate XVIII, which appeared in Leonardo da Vinci’s Note-Books, I am under obligations to the author, Mr Edward M^cCurdy, M.A., and to Messrs Duckworth & Co. Text-figs. 7, 18, 77, 78 and 112 are reproduced by the courtesy of the Council of the Bibliographical Society, from papers by the late Dr Payne, to which the references will be found in Appendix II, while, for the use of Text-fig. 108, I am indebted to the Royal Numismatic Society. For permission to utilise the modern facsimile of the famous Dioscorides manuscript of Juliana Anicia, from which Plates I, II, and XV are derived, I have to thank Prof. Dr Josef Ritter von Karabacek, of the k. k. Hofbibliothek at Vienna. In connection with the portraits of herbalists here reproduced, I wish to acknowledge the generous assistance which I have received from Sir Sidney Colvin, formerly Keeper of Prints and Drawings, British Museum.

I would also record my thanks to Mr A. W. Pollard, Secretary of the Bibliographical Society, Prof. Killermann of Regensburg, Signorina Adelaide Marchi of Florence, Mr C. D. Sherborn of the British Museum (Natural History) and Dr B. Daydon Jackson, General Secretary of the Linnean Society, all of whom have kindly given me information of great value. For help in the translation of certain German and Latin texts, I am indebted to Mr E. G. Tucker, B.A., Mr F. A. Scholfield, M.A., and to my brother, Mr D. S. Robertson, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

I wish, further, to express my gratitude to my father for advice and suggestions. Without his help, I should scarcely have felt myself competent to discuss the subject from the artistic standpoint. To my husband, also, I owe many thanks for assistance in various directions, more particularly in criticising the manuscript, and in seeing the volume through the press. I am indebted to my sister, Miss Janet Robertson, for the cover, the design for which is based upon a wood-cut in the Ortus Sanitatis of 1491.

A book of this kind, in the preparation of which many previous works have been laid under contribution, is doubtless open to a certain criticism which William Turner, “the Father of British Botany,” anticipated in the case of his own writings. I think I cannot do better than proffer my excuse in the very words of this sixteenth-century herbalist:

“For some of them will saye, seynge that I graunte that I have gathered this booke of so manye writers, that I offer unto you an heape of other mennis laboures, and nothinge of myne owne,... To whom I aunswere, that if the honye that the bees gather out of so manye floure of herbes, shrubbes, and trees, that are growing in other mennis medowes, feldes and closes: maye justelye be called the bees honye:... So maye I call it that I have learned and gathered of manye good autoures ... my booke.”

AGNES ARBER.

Balfour Laboratory, Cambridge,

26th July, 1912.