Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution. A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670

Arber, Agnes

Published by Cambridge University Press, 1938

About this Item

8vo (24 cm), frontispiece, XXIV, 328 pp., 26 plates and 151 illustrations in the text. Publisher's cloth (spine and boards sunned, occasional foxing). A New Edition, Rewritten and Enlarged (originally published 1912). The standard scholarly study of the printed herbal tradition, tracing the botanical, artistic, and intellectual development of European herbals over two centuries. Arber's nine chapters proceed from the early history of botany and Aristotelian and medicinal traditions through the earliest printed herbals of the fifteenth century, the English herbal tradition, and the botanical renaissance of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, surveying the development country by country across Germany, the Low Countries, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, France, and England. The study then turns to the evolution of plant description, classification, and botanical illustration, and concludes with discussions of the Doctrine of Signatures and astrological botany. Three appendices provide a chronological list of principal herbals published between 1470 and 1670, an alphabetical list of historical and critical works consulted, and a subject index. A work of lasting importance to historians of botany, natural history, and the book arts.

Seller Inventory # 009806

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution. A Chapter in the History of Botany, 1470-1670
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 1938
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • BIBLIOGRAPHY
  • History of books
  • Natural history