Commentaries on the Six Books of Dioscorides on Medical Matter

...will, and that I might increase it, and assist the study of all foreigners if I could, and so that I might repay them some gratitude and enter into communion with all others, no more convenient means appeared to me than that I should translate our Italian commentaries into the Latin language. Therefore, as soon as I was able, I rendered these into Latin, in which nevertheless I changed many things (as the great difficulty of the subject required), expanded many things, and in some measure clarified everything. Moreover, we added as many images as possible of plants and animals, expressed with the utmost possible diligence in imitation of nature, and with great labor and expense: for no other reason, by Hercules, than to provide as it were a little garden for those who cannot travel through various lands or do not have teachers, wherein they might behold at any time, without the need for cultivation, what are almost living likenesses of plants. Furthermore, to this second edition we have added a great many images, which represent in part plants, and in part certain animals: concerning which, beyond those things handed down by Dioscorides, we have specifically discoursed in these commentaries. Indeed, the commentaries themselves have been enlarged in almost innumerable places, as those who have diligently read the previous edition will easily perceive. Truly, Most Serene King FERDINAND, I have always been fired with such a great desire for understanding materia medica and for benefiting posterity, that I was easily impelled to travel through various wildernesses, to survey places both pleasant and forbidding, and to scrutinize the hidden fibers of the earth, so that I might know these things by the evidence of my own eyes. These I sought, sometimes even at the peril of my life, in the steep places of mountains, sometimes in dense and rugged forests, sometimes in shaded valleys, sometimes on sunny hills, now in marshes and lakes, now on the banks of springs and rivers, now on the shores of the sea; at other times in plains, plowed fields, meadows, and vineyards, at other times in the pleasure gardens of the most celebrated cities, at other times among ruins and collapsed buildings, at other times in caves and long passages of the earth, and at other times in subterranean mines and their furnaces. From these places indeed I brought back with me many simple medicines, which differ greatly from the adulterated ones commonly used in the apothecaries' shops. Nor indeed would labors or dangers have deterred me from great and long journeys—for, following the example of Galen, I would have crossed the sea and traversed Cyprus, Crete, Lemnos, Syria, Egypt, and other regions, so that I might have obtained many excellent simple medicines which are today lacking, to be brought to the knowledge and use of mortals—had not domestic business, the duty of caring for the sick, and a rather weak constitution of body opposed my inclination of mind; for my health would not have long permitted me to endure the hardships of the sea and of lengthy travel. To these our second endeavors, however, several most renowned physicians of this age, and those most skilled in botanical matters, have brought great assistance (for I am not ashamed to openly confess the truth), of whom some by the sending of plants, others by counsel, and others by the communication of their discoveries, have been of much benefit to me. Among these especially, I shall not be loath to mention in this place—if by the commemoration of the benefit received I might return some gratitude to them—Luca Ghini of Imola, a physician of singular genius and learning, who teaches botany at Pisa to the great acclaim of all; likewise Gabriele Falloppio of Modena, a physician of erudition and
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