PIETRO ANDREA MATTIOLI’S

PREFACE

TO STUDENTS OF MEDICAL MATTER.

A large ornamental historiated drop cap 'S' depicts a scholarly or saintly figure seated in a study with an open book on a lectern. A window in the background looks out onto a landscape with trees and a building.

The Author first published the Italian Commentaries.

If I WISHED to follow the custom of those who, before they begin their work, first profess that nothing is of greater care or concern to them than to consult the life and utility of mortals, I could also do so quite naturally. For with that same inclination of mind from my very youth, as much leisure as I could obtain from treating the sick and from family cares, I devoted entirely to unfolding the books of good authors, to attaining knowledge of simples Medicinal plants or drugs consisting of only one ingredient, as opposed to compounds., and finally to writing. In this matter, I wanted to leave a testament to everyone that I have labored with this mind and spirit: to benefit human life and be considered highly deserving of it, as much as I could achieve through study, labor, and industry. I have applied all my effort and diligence to Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides (c. 40–90 AD), the Greek physician whose "De Materia Medica" was the primary botanical manual for 1,500 years. so that, as far as it lay in my power, he might be rendered more illustrious and held in the hands of everyone. To this end, the most convenient method seemed to be to translate Dioscorides himself into our Italian language, and to add to it commentaries likewise written by us in Italian. At that time, a more private zeal and a greater care came upon us to help the Italians specifically rather than others. Indeed, there are very few Pharmacopolæ original: "Pharmacopolæ"; pharmacists or apothecaries. in Italy—to whom this treatise on medical matter especially pertains—who know the Latin language accurately. When I had finished this work, which I had undertaken with the greatest alacrity of mind, I published it, even at the urging of friends, so that the fruit I had previously proposed for myself from my labors might afterwards be exhibited for mortals to perceive and for everyone to value. Truly, whether it was such as I had striven for it to be, I would prefer the judgment to be that of others rather than my own. This I know for certain (if indeed it is permitted for us to testify to this without fault) that our writings were esteemed and commended with the same candor of mind with which we wrote them by many in Italy—whose judgment I prefer above the rest—and that they were found neither useless nor unpleasant to the Italians. By their example and judgment of our commentaries, I could not help but congratulate myself and all to whom we handed them for reading.

Why the Italian Commentaries were translated into the Latin language by the Author.

In the meantime, a no less great desire came upon me to deserve well of foreigners too, and that desire was increased by the fact that I understood it would be very pleasing to them if our commentaries were made into Latin. Moved by this reason, so that I might also gain some favor from foreigners, and so that I might benefit everyone universally by my study, care, and industry (which I have always held as a primary and chief goal), I undertook to make our commentaries Latin and to illustrate them out of the little leisure that remains to us.

The Author wrote herbals for Germans and Bohemians.

But when in the course of time I noticed that I had not benefited all foreigners universally by the Latin edition—since many more are found in every nation who are ignorant of the Latin speech than those who are skilled in it—I wrote specific herbals for the Germans and Bohemians, and published them in their own languages, adding larger images of plants. All of these (as I hear) were not unpleasing to them. This will leave a perpetual testimony to everyone that Mattioli was made to help all nations.

Mattioli’s Dioscorides was translated into the French language.

When these things were finished, while I was seeking a translator who might make this same herbal of ours French, my Dioscorides translated into the French tongue was brought to me from Frankfurt. Because of this, I turned my mind away from undertaking this labor, and I recognized that I owed no small debt to that translator for having relieved me of that burden. I would have seen to it, moreover, that the same would come out in the Spanish language, if Andrés de Laguna A famous Spanish physician and botanist (1499–1559) who published a celebrated Spanish translation of Dioscorides in 1555. had not anticipated me.

The expansion of the work.

But perhaps it will also happen, if Almighty God favors the course of our life, that these herbals will be published from Mattioli’s workshop in those languages as well. I had written previously in this same preface that I had published the completed Latin commentaries on Dioscorides for the sake of many, though they were not yet sufficiently digested original: "non satis concocta"; meaning the work was not yet fully refined or polished to his satisfaction. by me. Thus it happens that I have now sent out for your inspection and reading a version increased in more than a thousand places, corrected in many more, and illustrated with much larger, more numerous, and more elegant images. But as to what I have performed so far, you—for whose sake I have undertaken so much labor and incurred such vast expenses—will be the fair judges of these things. Nor would I wish anything else to be asked of everyone than that they estimate these Commentaries of ours with the same sincerity and equity of mind with which they would wish their own to be estimated and weighed by others, or with which we ourselves approached writing them.

The Author’s excuse for plucking out the errors of others.

For although I have dared to refute the opinions of many learned men, and perhaps followed up not a few things too sharply—namely corruptions which, through the persistence of the unlearned, can never be sufficiently exploded—I did so with the intention of bringing forth freely into the public for the fruit and utility of mortality whatever I could achieve by my talent, whatever I could elaborate by my mind, and finally whatever judgment in medical matters I could acquire for myself from studies, labors, and vigils. But certainly our discourse has wandered further in this than I had intended; for somehow it crept in so that I might open up some part of our method of writing. This would not have been entirely out of place, had not the reason for that plan been explained more widely by us elsewhere, and especially above in the Dedicatory Epistle—and approved, I think, by more people than should have been touched upon briefly in this place.

Admonition to the readers.

Therefore we must now proceed to that which we think students of medical matter should especially be warned about, as it pertains somewhat privately to the present...