Professor Treviranus, whose work on the use of wood-engravings as botanical illustrations is so well known, considered that some of the drawings published by Camerarius in connection with his last work (‘Hortus medicus et philosophicus,’ 1588) were among the best ever produced. Examples are shown in Text-figs. [34], [35], [71], [100]. Treviranus pointed out that one of their great merits lay in the selection of good, typical specimens as models. These figures are very much more botanical than those of any previous author; in fact—as Hatton has pointed out in ‘The Craftsman’s Plant-Book’—they are beginning to become too botanical for the artist! Camerarius often gives detailed analyses of the flowers and fruit on an enlarged scale (Text-fig. [99]). Among the illustrations here reproduced will be seen one (Text-fig. [100]) in which the seedling of the Rose of Jericho is drawn side by side with the mature plant, and another (Text-fig. [35]) in which the structure of a germinating Date is shown with great clearness. This interest in seedlings gives a modern touch to the work of Camerarius.
Text-fig. 102. “Cedrus” = Cedar [Belon, De arboribus, 1553].
A number of wood-blocks were cut at Lyons to illustrate d’Aléchamps’ great work, the ‘Historia generalis plantarum,’ 1586-7. Many of these figures were taken from the herbals of Fuchs, Mattioli and Dodoens, but they were often embellished with representations of insects, and detached leaves and flowers, scattered over the block with no apparent object except to fill the space. This peculiarity, which is shown in the engraving of Ornithogalum reproduced in Text-fig. [51], appears also in the illustrations of a book on Simples, by Joannes Mesua, published in Venice in 1581. In certain other wood-cuts in d’Aléchamps’ herbal, solid black is used in an effective fashion. This is the case for instance in Text-fig. [101], which is also interesting since two of the leaves bear the initials “M” and “H,” which were possibly those of the artist.
Among less important botanical wood-engravings of the sixteenth century we may mention those in the works of Pierre Belon, such as ‘De arboribus’ (1553). In this book there are some graceful wood-cuts of trees, one of which is reproduced in Text-fig. [102]. The initial letters used in the present volume are taken from another of Belon’s books[35].
Some specimens of the quaint little illustrations to Castor Durantes ‘Herbario Nuovo’ of 1585 are shown in Text-figs. [45], [68] and [103]. It is interesting to compare his drawing of the Waterlily (Text-fig. [68]) with those of the Venetian edition of the Latin ‘Herbarius’ of 1499 (Text-fig. [65]), ‘The Grete Herball’ (Text-fig. [21]), Brunfels’ ‘Herbarum vivæ eicones’ of 1530 (Text-fig. [66]) and de l’Obel’s ‘Kruydtbœck’ of 1581 (Text-fig. [67]).
The engravings in Porta’s ‘Phytognomonica’ (1588) and in Prospero Alpino’s little book on Egyptian plants (1592) are of good quality. Some curious examples of the former, which will be discussed at greater length in the next chapter, are shown in Text-figs. [109] and [110], and the Glasswort, one of the best wood-cuts among the latter, is reproduced in Text-fig. [47].
Passing on to the seventeenth century, we find that the ‘Prodromos’ of Gaspard Bauhin (1620) contains a number of original illustrations, but they are not very remarkable, and often have rather the appearance of having been drawn from pressed specimens. Two examples of these wood-cuts will be found in Text-figs. 49 and 62. The former is interesting as being an early representation of the Potato.