Living Images of Plants

I stretch my pen to make the riches of others our own. In these opinions of authors, we have rejected the sentiments of no one; mindful of that saying, that no book is so bad that it does not confer some benefit A reference to Pliny the Younger’s famous quote: "nullum esse librum tam malum ut non aliqua parte prodesset.". We have given each their due honor, even to the most unrefined. We have not even set aside the author of the Pandects original: "Pandectarum"; likely referring to Matthaeus Silvaticus, author of the Pandectae Medicinae or that Genoese, Simon Simon of Genoa, a 13th-century medical lexicographer, authors who are as corrupt and speechless as they are beautifully equipped for ruin if one does not read them attentively and with judgment. Concerning them, however, we frankly admit that we have sometimes been greatly helped, and they have contributed at least to this: that we might more easily detect blemishes and faults.

We have also added the Corollaries and annotations of Hermolaus Barbarus A 15th-century Italian scholar who corrected many errors in Pliny’s natural history throughout, because we believe that today the knowledge of herbs must be sought from these alone. Sometimes, where the matter required it and there was a controversy regarding a certain herb, we have introduced two most powerful prize-fighters—one a Dares, the other an Entellus Legendary boxers from Virgil's Aeneid, used here as a metaphor for intellectual combatants—namely Niccolò Leoniceno and Pandolfo Collenuccio. The former is the greatest and foremost physician of our time, the latter a most eloquent jurist, but one so well-versed in herbs that he has left the whole common crowd of physicians behind him by many "parasangs" term: parasang; an ancient Persian unit of distance, used here to mean "by a long shot", as they say. We have set them together, clashing with mutual blows as if fighting in a duel in the arena.

In this tragedy, we are sometimes the spectators and admirers, now congratulating this side, now that; in most cases, we settle the dispute ourselves, and in many, we close our eyes to it. For we preferred to leave certain things unexamined and to the judgment of others, rather than to pronounce rashly on a matter about which so many most learned men were in doubt. Nevertheless, in some places, we confidently put forward our own views; we wish these to have strength only until someone else brings forth firmer evidence, a point we testify to everywhere else as well.

We cite no fewer than forty authors from whom we have stitched together these "patchworks" original: "centones"; a literary work made up of quotations from other authors. Nor do we cite them randomly or everywhere, but only where the matter demanded it. Where all said similar things, we chose the better ones; where they said contrary things, we placed them side by side so the conflict would be out in the open. Although Aetius, Oribasius, and Paulus Paulus Aegineta are otherwise excellent authors, we have cited them more rarely because we lacked them in Greek, and the Latin translations were of bad faith i.e., unreliable or inaccurate. We did the same with Galen’s On Simples from the old translation. We are now entirely occupied in searching these out, and we will not add the finishing touch original: "coronidem" to the second volume of this work unless it be from these Greek sources; or, if that does not succeed, we shall entrust that province to another.

In all these things, therefore, if any worthy sweat has been spent by us, it is all owed to you, my Patrons, and I credit it all to your Highnesses, the foster-fathers of our studies. We do not wish for a longer span of life than that in which we shall be fit for performing these kinds of public duties and literary services, and for deserving well of your Highnesses and your state, both publicly and privately.

From free Strasbourg, on the Nones of March March 7th, in the year of the redeemed world