BOTANY / HERBAL / GART DER GESUNDHEIT]

Herbarius zu teütsch unnd von allderhandt kreuteren.

      Augsburg Johann Schönsperger 1496. - Folio [24.5 x 15.5 cm], 261 ff., lacking the first blank leaf. Quarter blind-tooled vellum over cont. boards, rebacked to style, spine in 4 compartments with raised bands, clasps with leather hinges. Around 400 cont. hand-colored woodcuts. Scattered fingersoiling and marginal repairs. A very attractive copy. Extremely rare, complete (see below) edition of "the most important medieval work on natural history with illustrations" (Choulant) and the first printed vulgate herbal. Klebs, the great historian of herbals, has compared the Gart der Gesundheit to Vesalius? De humani corporis fabrica, alleging it "marks a similar milestone in the evolution of the healing art into a science." Unlike De humani corporis, however, we can be certain that the present work occupied an immensely popular spot in the limited canon of 15th century "layman?s books," accessible to and used by learned and unlearned alike. In contrast with its contemporary rival, Lignamine?s Apuleius (1484), the Gart der Gesundheit?s pictures are generally taken from Nature rather than ancient manuscripts, it does not uncritically reproduce the superstitious herbal lore of past generations, and most significantly, it is printed in the vulgate. These factors have served to convince most historians of science that the present text truly was "the only botanical incunabulum of real importance" (Blunt & Stearn) and "the chef d?oeuvre of all early herbals and the real starting point for the future direction of scientific publications." (Klebs)Although the present work became unrivalled in popularity (running through 16 German editions, 6 other vulgate translations, and 8 loosely based Latin editions), its widespread use doomed it to extreme rarity. By appearing in the vulgate, the Gart der Gesundheit would have appealed to non-professionals as well as herbcutters, apothecaries, and physicians; "I have had it made in German that it may help all the world, learned and unlearned," declares the unknown author in his preface. The rough-and-tumble lifestyle of a domestic herbal has taken its toll over 500 years. We have managed to check 16 US copies of incunable editions by inspection or from reliable records; of these, only 8 are complete. The present volume thus affords an extremely rare example of this influential work in its entirety, of which only two other copies are known to exist in America. This, the sixth Augsburg edition, is essentially a reprint of the second edition of 1486 with smaller type, presumably for an even wider circulation. The second edition contained 13 more woodcuts than the original, and this particular printing contains a few more additions. Johann Schönsperger masterfully pirated the first edition of the Gart der Gesundheit only five months after it was published in 1485 by Schöffer, the technical genius in the enterprise of Gutenberg and Fust; many other pirated editions followed.The Gart der Gesundheit may be considered equally important as a monument of the German language, being one of most substantial texts preserved from this period, and representing "a remarkable source for folklore and dialect studies" (Klebs). Although the format of the work appears to follow the traditional model of picture, description, and medicinal uses, both German and Arabic names are noted, as well as the Latin and Greek. The original and fascinating index of the medicinal powers of plants ("Was den schlaff bringt," etc.) must have proved invaluable to the user. According to the preface, the compiler, having discovered that many of the herbs mentioned by the Ancients did not grow in Germany, set out for the Holy Land to pursue what must have been the [Attributes: Hard Cover]