Alberti Magni De Vegetabilibus Libri VII

VII

After he had, to use his own words, conf. Nicolaus Damascenus, On Plants, edited by E. Meyer 1841, page II devoted himself zealously to restoring, adorning, and publishing for public use this work which is truly golden and yet, as it deserves, rejected by an ungrateful posterity, he soon realized that without an accurate revision of the little treatise: On Plants original: "De plantis", upon which this work of Albertus had been built since Book I, Chapter 2, it could by no means be brought to completion. Nor did a mere reading suffice for this task, since there existed such great and troublesome discrepancies in the versions, but that critical art was needed. When this was duly applied, it could happen that, vice versa, some light would shine from Albertus upon that Pseudo-Aristotelian work. Therefore, he voluntarily undertook this labor as well. He did not refuse the rather large task of seeking out, with the greatest art, the individual words of the Pseudo-Aristotle—whom he demonstrated to be Nicolaus Damascenus—which Albertus had interwoven into his own words.

After he completed the most accurate edition of that work, illustrated with the best notes, in the year 1841, he turned his mind back to our work. He amended very many corrupt passages from the codices or by conjecture, illustrated obscure ones with his own learning from the writings of Albertus and others, and interpreted very many plants, all of which will be in view for the reader on the following pages. However, he was subsequently vexed by doubts concerning both many obscure and lacunose passages and the orthography. For at first [he focused] only on the names of the plants, but then, lest the orthography of the work turn out uneven, he [sought to harmonize] all the words of the work.