The herball, or generall historie of plantes
Description: The history of the production of Gerarde's Herball has not been entirely elucidated. It seems that the publisher had commissioned Dr. Robert Priest to translate into English Dodoens' Historiae pemptades sex (1583), but that Priest died before completing the task. Gerarde was then brought in, and finished the translation, while changing the system of classification from that of Dodoens (a pharmacological one) to that of Lobel (an attempt at a natural system), and adding notes and observations of his own. The woodcuts were hired from the Frankfurt publisher of Tabernaemontanus, and were somewhat haphazardly wedded to the text. At one point Norton brought in Lobel to correct some of Gerarde's more egregious errors (Lobel claimed to have discovered over 1000). Gerarde's own contribution may be no more than his appealing Elizabethan prose style and his description of the 'Virginian potato'. One of the few woodcuts that is original to this work is in fact the first illustration of the potato.The Tabernaemontanus cuts were based on the images of Fuchs, Brunfels, Mattioli, and the Flemish botanists published by Plantin (Dodoens, L'╔cluse, et al.). Interestingly, the portrait of Gerarde, who is depicted aged 53 holding a potato flower, is dated 1598.
Collection: DOCUMENTARY HERITAGEDescription: The history of the production of Gerarde's Herball has not been entirely elucidated. It seems that the publisher had commissioned Dr. Robert Priest to translate into English…