Busbecq brought from Constantinople a wonderful collection of Greek manuscripts, including Juliana Anicia’s copy of the Materia Medica of Dioscorides, now in the Vienna Library (see pp. 8 and 154). He discovered this great manuscript in the hands of a Jew, who required a hundred ducats for it. This price was almost prohibitive, but Busbecq was an enthusiast, and he successfully urged the Emperor, whose representative he was, “to redeem so illustrious an author from that servitude[15].” His purpose in buying the manuscript seems to have been largely in order to communicate it to Mattioli, who would thus be able to make use of it in preparing his Commentaries on Dioscorides.
The personal character of Mattioli does not appear to have been a pleasant one. He engaged in numerous controversies with his fellow botanists, and hurled the most abusive language at those who ventured to criticise him.
Another Italian herbalist, Castor Durante, slightly later in date than Mattioli, should perhaps be mentioned here, not because of the intrinsic value of his work, but because of its widespread popularity. At least two of his books appeared in many editions and translations.
Durante was a physician who issued a series of botanical compilations, bedizened with Latin verse. The best known of his works is the ‘Herbario Nuovo,’ published at Rome in 1585 (Text-figs. 45 and 103). A second book, the original version of which is seldom met with, has survived in the form of a German translation, by Peter Uffenbach. The German version was named ‘Hortulus Sanitatis.’ As an illustration of Durante’s charmingly unscientific manner, we may take the legend of the “Arbor tristis” which occurs in both these works. The figure which accompanies it (Text-fig. [45]) shows, beneath the moon and stars, a drawing of a tree whose trunk has a human form. The description, as it occurs in the ‘Hortulus Sanitatis,’ may be translated as follows:
“Of this tree the Indians say, there was once a very beautiful maiden, daughter of a mighty lord called Parisataccho. This maiden loved the Sun, but the Sun forsook her because he loved another. So, being scorned by the Sun, she slew herself, and when her body had been burned, according to the custom of that land, this tree sprang from her ashes. And this is the reason why the flowers of this tree shrink so intensely from the Sun, and never open in his presence. And thus it is a special delight to see this tree in the night time, adorned on all sides with its lovely flowers, since they give forth a delicious perfume, the like of which is not to be met with in any other plant, but no sooner does one touch the plant with one’s hand than its sweet scent vanishes away. And however beautiful the tree has appeared, and however sweetly it has bloomed at night, directly the Sun rises in the morning it not only fades but all its branches look as though they were withered and dead.”
Text-fig. 45. “Arbor Malenconico” or “Arbor tristis” = Tree of Sorrow [Durante, Herbario Nuovo, 1585].
