Text-fig. 90. “Wintergrün” = Pyrola, Wintergreen [Bock, Kreuter Bůch, 1546].
Text-fig. 91. “Rautten” = Botrychium, Moonwort [Bock, Kreuter Bůch, 1546]. Fuchs’ gratitude to his assistants is expressed in the preface to ‘De historia stirpium,’ where he makes some remarks upon the illustrations, which may be translated as follows:—
“As far as concerns the pictures themselves, each of which is positively delineated according to the features and likeness of the living plants, we have taken peculiar care that they should be most perfect, and, moreover, we have devoted the greatest diligence to secure that every plant should be depicted with its own roots, stalks, leaves, flowers, seeds and fruits. Furthermore we have purposely and deliberately avoided the obliteration of the natural form of the plants by shadows, and other less necessary things, by which the delineators sometimes try to win artistic glory: and we have not allowed the craftsmen so to indulge their whims as to cause the drawing not to correspond accurately to the truth. Vitus Rudolphus Specklin, by far the best engraver of Strasburg, has admirably copied the wonderful industry of the draughtsmen, and has with such excellent craft expressed in his engraving the features of each drawing, that he seems to have contended with the draughtsman for glory and victory.”
How dull and colourless the phrases of modern scientific writers appear, beside the hot-blooded, arrogant enthusiasm of the sixteenth century!
