Text-fig. 32. “Cucumis turcicus” = Cucurbita maxima Duch., Giant Pumpkin [Fuchs, De historia stirpium, 1542]. Reduced.
Fuchs arranged his work alphabetically, making no attempt at a natural grouping of the plants, and his herbal is therefore without importance in the history of plant classification. His influence on methods of plant description was, however, considerable, as is shown by the fact that Dodoens, in his ‘Crǔÿdeboeck,’ took Fuchs’ herbal as a model for the order of description of each plant. Fuchs’ text, as well as his figures, may thus be said to have had an effect, even if an indirect one, on British botany, since the herbals of Lyte and of Gerard are based on the work of Dodoens, in which, as we have just shown, the influence of Fuchs is clearly felt.
The publisher Christian Egenolph of Frankfort, though not himself a botanical writer, must be mentioned at this stage, because he brought out, in 1533, a set of plant illustrations which became particularly well known (e.g. Text-figs. 33 and 85). They do not reflect any great credit on Egenolph, since they were mostly pirated from Brunfels. They were not even used to illustrate a new herbal, but merely a new edition of the old German Herbarius, enlarged and improved by Dr Eucharias Rhodion, and issued under the name of ‘Kreutterbůch von allem Erdtgewåchs].’
Egenolph was evidently a keen man of business, for he made his figures do duty over and over again. He used them not only as illustrations to the herbal, but as a separate publication, without any letter-press, and also in conjunction with an entirely unrelated text, such, for example, as a Latin version of Dioscorides. Many later editions of the Kreutterbůch appeared, and to these a number of figures were added, chiefly copies, on a reduced scale, from those of Bock, who had himself made considerable use of the drawings in the octavo edition of Fuchs’ herbal. The editions produced under the auspices of Adam Lonicer, the publisher’s son-in-law, are particularly well known. No other botanical works of the period had a success comparable to that of this long series of books, of which Rhodion’s ‘Kreutterbůch’ was the prototype. This success was, however, achieved in the teeth of much adverse contemporary criticism. Fuchs, in the preface of his ‘Historia stirpium’ (1542), referred with unsparing touch to Egenolph’s botanical mistakes. His trenchant indictment may be rendered into English as follows—“Among all the herbals which exist to-day, there are none which have more of the crassest errors than those which Egenolph, the printer, has already published again and again.” This statement Fuchs supports by means of actual examples.
It must nevertheless be admitted that, even if their quality was poor, the herbals published by Egenolph and his successors did good service in disseminating some knowledge of the plant world among a very wide public. There is, in the British Museum, a beautiful copy of the 1536 edition, with a binding stamped in gold and bearing the arms of Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, daughter of Henry VII. The duchess may perhaps have inherited a taste for herbals from her father, for the British Museum also possesses a copy of Vérard’s translation of the ‘Ortus Sanitatis,’ which is known to have been purchased by him.
