NOTABLE COMMENTARIES ON THE

HISTORY OF PLANTS, ELABORATED

WITH THE GREATEST EXPENSE AND VIGILANCE,

WITH THE ADDITION OF MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED

lifelike images of the plants, never before more artistically fashioned

and expressed in imitation of nature, by LEONHART FUCHS,

the most famous physician of our age, as author.

Many people have traveled to foreign lands, some here and others there, with enormous expense,

unwearying zeal, and sometimes not without danger to life, so that they might acquire for

themselves the ability to recognize the substances of simplesA 'simple' is a medicinal herb or a medicine made from a single natural ingredient, as opposed to a 'compound' drug.:

from this book, you may learn all that material with the greatest saving of both expense and time,

far from all danger, as if in a living and most pleasant pleasure garden,

and with great delight.

Added to these is a very succinct explanation of the difficult and obscure words

occurring everywhere in this work,

Together with a fourfold Index, of which the first contains the Greek nomenclature

of the plants, the second the Latin, the third the names used in the shops of

apothecariesThe original Latin 'seplasiariorum' refers to sellers of perfumes and medicines. and herbalists, and the fourth the German.

The printer’s mark of Michael Isengrin features a woodcut of a palm tree. A heavy rectangular block or press weight is placed among its upper branches, illustrating the motto "I rise against weights," symbolizing resilience. The roots of the tree are detailed and spread across the ground. Flanking the trunk of the tree is the text "PALMA" (Palm) on the left and "ISING" (short for Isengrin) on the right, followed by a small manicula (a pointing hand symbol).

Furthermore, it is cautioned by a decree of the most invincible Emperor CHARLESoriginal: "CAROLI Imperatoris," referring to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. that no one

else anywhere may with impunity print these commentaries on the history of plants,

according to the tenor of the privilege

previously published by us.

BASEL, IN THE ISENGRIN PRINTING HOUSE,

IN THE YEAR OF CHRIST 1542.