The first Belgian botanist of world-wide renown was Rembert Dodoens [or Dodonæus] (Text-fig. [36]). He was a contemporary of Plantin, having been born at Malines in 1517[11]. He studied at Louvain, and visited the universities and medical schools of France, Italy and Germany, eventually qualifying as a doctor. He was successful in his profession, being physician to the Emperors Maximilian II and Rudolph II, and finally becoming Professor of Medicine at Leyden, where he died in 1585. His interest in the medical aspect of botany led him to write a herbal, and, in order to illustrate it, he obtained the use of the wood-blocks which had been employed in the octavo edition of Fuchs’ work. To these a number of new engravings were added. The book was published in Dutch in the year 1554 by Vanderloe, under the title ‘Crǔÿdeboeck.’ The text is not a translation of Fuchs, as is sometimes supposed, although Dodoens took Fuchs as his model for the order of description of each plant. The method of arrangement is his own, and he indicates localities and times of flowering in the Low Countries, information which clearly could not have been derived from the earlier writer. Almost simultaneously with the first Dutch edition, a French issue appeared under the title of ‘Histoire des Plantes.’ The translation was carried out by Charles de l’Écluse, with whose own work we shall shortly deal. Dodoens supervised the production of the book, and took the opportunity to make some additions. It became known in England through Lyte’s translation, which will be discussed in a later section of this chapter.
Text-fig. 37. “Capparis” = Capparis ovata L. [Dodoens, Pemptades, 1583].
The last Dutch edition of the herbal, for which the author himself was responsible, was printed by Vanderloe in 1563. The publisher then parted with Fuchs’ blocks, which were probably acquired by the printer of Lyte’s Dodoens in England. This circumstance put great difficulties in the way of Dodoens’ wish to reproduce his herbal in Latin. However it proved a blessing in disguise, for he had the good fortune to meet, in Christophe Plantin, “un homme qui ne reculait devant aucune dépense, pour donner aux ouvrages qui sortaient de ses presses toute la perfection et le mérite dont ils étaient susceptibles.” Plantin undertook to produce a much modified Latin translation of the herbal, and to have new blocks engraved for it, whilst Dodoens, on his side, engaged to supply the artists with fresh plants, and to superintend their labours. The work proceeded slowly, and was published in parts. It was finally completed in 1583, and was produced in one volume, under the name of ‘Stirpium historiæ pemptades sex sive libri triginta.’ In this work, by far the larger number of the figures are original (see Text-figs. [37], [38], [96] and [97]); some, however, were borrowed from de l’Écluse and de l’Obel. This arose from the fact that Plantin was also the publisher for both these writers, and as he bore the expense of their blocks, he had an agreement with the three authors that their illustrations should be treated as common property. A few of Dodoens’ figures were based upon those in the famous manuscript of Dioscorides, now at Vienna (see pp. [8], [85], [154]).
In the ‘Pemptades,’ the botanist in Dodoens was more to the fore, and the physician less in evidence than in his earlier work. It is particularly difficult to appraise with any exactness the services which Dodoens rendered to botany. Between him and his two younger countrymen, de l’Écluse and de l’Obel, there was so intimate a friendship that they freely imparted their observations to one another, and permitted the use of them, and also of their figures, in one another’s books. To attempt to ascertain exactly what degree of merit should be attributed to each of the three, would be a task equally difficult and thankless.
Plate VII
CHARLES DE L’ÉCLUSE (1526-1609).
[Print in the Botany School, Cambridge.]