Other anatomists. 16. The best anatomists were found in Italy. But Francis I. invited one of these, Vidus Vidius, to his royal college at Paris; and from that time France had several of respectable name. Such were Charles Etienne, one of the great typographical family, Sylvius, and Gonthier.[857] A French writer about 1540, Levasseur, appears to have known, at least, the circulation of the blood through the lungs, as well as the valves of the arteries and veins, and their direction, and its purpose; treading closely on an anticipation of Harvey.[858] Portal has erroneously supposed the celebrated passage of Servetus on the circulation of the blood to be contained in his book de Trinitatis Erroribus, published in 1531,[859] whereas it is really found in the Christianismi Restitutio, which did not appear till 1553. This gives Levasseur a priority of some importance in anatomical history.
[857] Portal, i. 330 et post.
[858] Portal p. 373, quotes the passage, which seems to warrant this inference, but is rather obscurely worded. It contains, to my apprehension, a much nearer approximation to the theory of a general circulation than the more famous passage in Servetus; in which I can only perceive an acquaintance with that through the lungs.
[859] P. 300.
Imperfection of the science. 17. The practice of trusting to animal dissection, from which it was difficult for anatomists to extricate themselves, led some men of real merit into errors. They seem also not to have profited sufficiently by the writings of their predecessors. Massa of Venice, one of the greatest of this age, is ignorant of some things known to Berenger. Many proofs occur in Portal, how imperfectly the elder anatomists could yet demonstrate the more delicate parts of the human body.
Sect. III.
On Natural History.
Botany. 18. The progress of natural history, in all its departments, was very slow, and should of course be estimated by the additions made to the valuable materials collected by Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny. The few botanical treatises that had appeared before this time were too meagre and imperfect to require mention. Otto Brunfels of Strasburg was the first who published, in 1530, a superior work, Herbarum Vivæ Eicones in three volumes folio, with 238 wooden cuts of plants.[860] Euricius Cordus of Marburg, in his Botanilogicon, or dialogues on plants, displays, according to the Biographie Universelle, but little knowledge of Greek, and still less observation of nature. |Botanical gardens.| Cordus has deserved more praise (though this seems better due to Lorenzo de’ Medici), as the first who established a botanical garden. This was at Marburg, in 1530.[861] But the fortunes of private physicians were hardly equal to the cost of an useful collection. The university of Pisa led the way by establishing a public garden in 1545, according to the date which Tiraboschi has determined. That of Padua had founded a professorship of botany in 1533.[862]
[860] Biogr. Univ.
[861] Biogr. Univ. Andrès, xiii. 80. Eichhorn, iii. 304. See too Roscoe’s Leo. X., iv. 125, for some pleasing notices of the early studies in natural history. Pontanus was fond of it; and his poem on the cultivation of the lemon, orange, and citron (de Hortis Hesperidum) shows an acquaintance with some of the operations of horticulture. The garden of Bembo was also celebrated. Theophrastus and Dioscorides were published in Latin before 1500. But it was not till about the middle of the sixteenth century that botany, through the commentaries of Matthioli on Dioscorides, began to assume a distinct form, and to be studied as a separate branch.