Garden of Health

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Gart der Gesundheit , Mainz 1485. Title page

The garden of health (Latin hortus sanitatis , German " garden of health", with reference to the medieval herb and medicinal garden ) was written by Johann Wonnecke von Kaub and is one of the first printed herbal books in German. It served as a template for numerous reprints up to the 18th century and is one of the most important late medieval works for knowledge of natural history , especially medicinal plants . In 435 chapters 382 plants, 25 drugs from the animal kingdom and 28 minerals are described and illustrated with 379 illustrations. The work was relocated by Peter Schöffer in Mainz .

Together with the Latin Herbarius moguntinus (Peter Schöffer, 1484) and the Latin Hortus sanitatis (Jacob Meydenbach, Mainz 1491), the garden of health belongs to the " group of the Mainz herb book incunabula ."

Since the garden of health mainly describes medicinal products of plant origin ("herbs") and, to a lesser extent, medicinal products of animal and mineral origin, the work is assigned to the literary genre "herb book".

Emergence

The preparatory work on this herb book incunabulum apparently went back to the 1470s. The “Gart” was commissioned by Bernhard von Breidenbach (around 1440–1497), a Mainz canon . In addition, the publisher Peter Schöffer , a former employee of Gutenberg, was involved . The author ( compiler ) of the garden was the Frankfurt city doctor Johann Wonnecke von Kaub (around 1430–1503 / 1504). The draftsman Erhard Reuwich (also Rewich, Reuwick, Reeuwyck) from Utrecht made about a quarter of the 379 illustrations . While the text on the garden was completed in 1483 and handed over to the publisher, there were not too many drawings by Reuwich. More should probably be added, especially the result of a pilgrimage to Palestine , which Breidenbach undertook with Reuwich from 1483. It was precisely here that high-quality images of Mediterranean plants could be expected. Schöffer brought out the Garden of Health for the Frankfurt Spring Fair in 1485 .

text

Contrary to the earlier doctrine (cf. Keil 1982) that Wonnecke only used German sources for his work, it is now assumed that both German and Latin sources were used. At the end of the 15th century, there were insufficient sources in German specialist literature for 435 drug monographs, only for a little more than 150.

The following reliable sources can be mentioned: The book of nature by Konrad von Megenberg (e.g. based on the chapter on ivy ), also the Physica by Hildegard von Bingen and the Macer floridus by Odo Magdunensis, although it is not clear whether a German or the Latin version was available. None of these sources are mentioned in the garden .

Latin sources were Ibn Wafid's aggregator (pseudo-Serapion), from which various plant names were adopted, the Circa instans (or the "Secreta salernitana") from the school of Salerno , from which the structure of the chapters is borrowed and from which it is believed two versions were used, the Naturalis historia by Pliny , the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville and the second book of the Canon medicinae by Avicenna . Some of these sources are mentioned in the Gart and none of them was available in a German translation at the time of printing. Some of the works have not yet been completely translated into German.

Dioscurides ( Materia medica ) and Galenos ( Simplicium pharmacorum ) were cited at least indirectly .

Illustrations

Probably contrary to the original plan, only a quarter of the 379 woodcuts in the 1485 edition were made by Reuwich. They mainly show plants that bloom in spring and early summer. The quality of these drawings was extraordinary for the time. The other illustrations were apparently drawn up in a hurry and are far less realistic. In part, they go back to handwritten models, for example, with regard to schematic illustrations, to the Tractatus de herbis (Modena lat. 993) based on the manuscript Ms. Egerton 747 of Circa instans .

The lifelike illustrations in the Garden of Health , mostly based on the example of the Upper Rhine medical collective manuscript Codex Berleburg in possession of Breidenbach in 1475, combine medieval ornamentation with naturalness. As a result, the essence of the plant represented was represented in an abstract manner. The illustrations in the herbal books of the fathers of botany lost this abstract expressiveness through increasing emphasis on “photographic naturalness.” Arnold Klebs remarked (1925, p. IX):

"We who today in our aesthetic demands are drawing away more and more from the slavish copying of nature and demand that a work of art expresses type and character, can better appreciate the didactic value of these simple drawings than the previous generation to whom the photographic appealed as the highest form of truthful representation. "
“We, who today are moving more and more away from the slavish copying of nature in our aesthetic demands, can appreciate the didactic value of these simple drawings [in the garden of health] better than the previous generation, for whom photography is the highest form of true representation represented. "

Illustrations in the garden of health . Mainz 1485 (selection)

effect

Title pages to Egenolff's Kreutterbuch . Left: Eucharius Rösslin the Younger 1533 Right: Balthasar Ehrhart 1783

According to Gundolf Keil, the decisive factor for the effect of the garden and which was new compared to older texts was its project character, in which those involved in their respective fields worked together. The Gart was, despite numerous errors in the original text (see. Mayer 2011), a large verlegerischer success.

From 1529, parts of the Latin Hortus sanitatis (Mainz 1491) were available in German translation: two ("de animalibus"), three ("de avibus"), four ("de piscibus") and five ("de lapidibus"). In 1533, the Frankfurt publisher Christian Egenolff mixed these with the herbal part of the German garden of health (Mainz 1485) and with the small distilling book (Strasbourg 1500), which was also written in German, to create a Kreutterbůch of all earth plants , which continued into the 18th century was edited again:

1533–1546 by Eucharius Rösslin the Younger ,
1557–1604 by Adam Lonitzer ,
1630–1703 by Peter Uffenbach,
1737–1783 by Balthasar Ehrhart

expenditure

literature

  • Agnes Arber . Herbals. Their origin and evolution. A chapter in the history of botany 1470-1670. University Press, Cambridge 1912, pp. 18–24 (digitized version)
  • Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber (1855–1932). The herbal books of the XV. and XVI. Century . Munich 1924. (As an appendix to the reprint of the Gart der Gesundheit , Mainz 1485, pp. I – LXII.)
  • Arnold C. Klebs : Herbal facts and thoughts. L'art ancien SA, Lugano 1925.
  • Hermann Fischer . Medieval botany. Verlag der Münchner Drucke, Munich 1929, pp. 79–94.
  • Gundolf Keil : 'Gart', 'Herbarius', 'Hortus'. Notes on the oldest herbal book incunabula. In: Gundolf Keil (ed.): Gelêrter der arzenîe, ouch apotêker ": Contributions to the history of science. Festschrift for the 70th birthday of Willem F. Daems. Pattensen near Hanover 1982 (= Würzburg medical-historical research. Volume 24), now at Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg, ISBN 3-921456-35-5 , pp. 589-635.
  • Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke : The herbarium of the Berleburg codex. In: Werner Dressendörfer, Gundolf Keil, Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke (eds.): Older German 'Macer' - Ortolf von Baierland 'Pharmacopoeia' - 'Herbarium' by Bernhard von Breidenbach - Dyer and painter recipes: The Upper Rhine medical Collective manuscript of the Berleburg Codex (Berleburg, Fürstlich Sayn-Wittgenstein'sche Bibliothek, Cod. RT 2/6). Introduction to the texts, description of the plant images and the handwriting. (= Codices illuminati medii aevi. 13). Color microfiche edition (Helga Lengenfelder), Munich 1991, pp. 75–98.
  • Brigitte Baumann, Helmut Baumann : The Mainz herb book incunabula - "Herbarius Moguntinus" (1484) - "Gart der Gesundheit" (1485) - "Hortus Sanitatis" (1491). Scientific historical investigation of the three prototypes of botanical-medical literature of the late Middle Ages. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2010, pp. 111-176 ISBN 978-3-7772-1020-9 .
  • Johannes Gottfried Mayer : The truth about the garden of health (1485) and its continued life in the herbal books of the early modern period. In: Sabine Anagnostou , Florike Egmond, Christoph Friedrich (Hrsg.): A passion for plants: materia medica and botany in scientific networks from the 16th to 18th centuries. (= Sources and studies on the history of pharmacy. Volume 95). Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-8047-3016-8 , pp. 119-128.

Web links

Wikisource: Gart der Gesundheit  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Gart der Gesundheit  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christina Becela-Deller: Ruta graveolens L. A medicinal plant in terms of art and cultural history. (Mathematical and natural science dissertation Würzburg 1994) Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1998 (= Würzburg medical-historical research. Volume 65), ISBN 3-8260-1667-X , p. 116.
  2. ^ Gundolf Keil: Hortus Sanitatis, Gart der Gesundheit, Gaerde der Sunthede. 1986, p. 68.
  3. ↑ Christina Becela-Deller: Ruta graveolens L. A medicinal plant in terms of art and cultural history. (Mathematical and natural science dissertation Würzburg 1994) Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1998 (= Würzburg medical-historical research. Volume 65), ISBN 3-8260-1667-X , p. 116.
  4. ^ Gundolf Keil: Hortus Sanitatis, Gart der Gesundheit, Gaerde der Sunthede. 1986, p. 68.
  5. ↑ Gundolf Keil, Peter Dilg: herbal books. In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages. Volume 5, Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, Sp. 1476-1480.
  6. ↑ Thomas Melan: The demarcation of the terms herbal book and herbarium ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kraeuterbuecher.at archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
  7. ↑ Henrike Fricke: The history of the herb book literature with special consideration of the "Herbarium Siegesbeckianum". Grin, 2017, ISBN 978-3-668-49375-9 . (Bachelor thesis 2013)
  8. ↑ Julius Schuster : Secreta Salernitana and Gart der Gesundheit. In: Medieval manuscripts. Ceremony for the 60th birthday of Hermann Degering. Leipzig 1926, pp. 203-237, here: p. 220.
  9. ↑ Gundolf Keil: 'Gart der Gesundheit'. In: Encyclopedia of Medical History. 2005, p. 458.
  10. ↑ Christina Becela-Deller: Ruta graveolens L. A medicinal plant in terms of art and cultural history. 1998, p. 173.
  11. ↑ Gundolf Keil: 'Gart der Gesundheit'. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil, Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , pp. 457-459
  12. ↑ Johannes Gottfried Mayer 2011
  13. ↑ Peter Riethe . Hildegard von Bingen's Liber simplicis medicinae in the Mainz Garden of Health. In: Sudhoff's archive . Volume 89, Issue 1, 2005, pp. 96-119.
  14. ↑ See also Otto Beßler: Principles of drug science in the Middle Ages. Statement and content of the Circa instans and Mainzer Gart. Mathematical and scientific dissertation. Halle on the Saale in 1960.
  15. ↑ Christina Becela-Deller: Ruta graveolens L. A medicinal plant in terms of art and cultural history. 1998, p. 241.
  16. ↑ However, only five are taken directly from the Berleburg Codex, while 94 were made based on the example of Circa-instans illustrations.
  17. ↑ Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke, Werner Dressendörfer, Gundolf Keil: Older German 'Macer' - Ortolf von Baierland: 'Pharmacopoeia' - 'Herbarium' of Bernhard von Breidenbach - Dye and painter recipes: The Upper Rhine medical composite manuscript of the Berleburg Codex. Color microfiche edition with an introduction to the texts, description of the plant images and the handwriting. Munich 1991 (= Codices illuminati medii aevi. Volume 13).
  18. ↑ Werner Dressendörfer, Gundolf Keil, Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke (eds.): Older German 'Macer' - Ortolf von Baierland 'Pharmacopoeia' - 'Herbarium' of Bernhard von Breidenbach - Dyer and painter recipes: The Upper Rhine medical collective manuscript of the Berleburg Codex (Berleburg, Fürstlich Sayn-Wittgenstein'sche Bibliothek, Cod. RT 2/6). Introduction to the texts, description of the plant images and the handwriting. Farbmikrofiche-Edition, Munich 1991 (= Codices illuminati medii aevi. Volume 13), pp. 75–98, here: pp. 80 f.
  19. ↑ Gundolf Keil: 'Gart', 'Herbarius', 'Hortus'. Notes on the oldest herbal book incunabula. 1982, p. 596 f.
  20. ↑ Gundolf Keil, Christine Wolf: The leading herb book as a transporter: Old German specialist prose in Johann WONNECKES 'Gart'. In: Ingrid Kästner u. a. (Ed.): Exploring, collecting, noting and communicating - science in the luggage of traders, diplomats and missionaries. (= European Science Relations. Volume 7). Aachen 2014, pp. 37–74.
  21. ^ Ortus Sanitatis , Hans Grüninger, Strasbourg 1529 (digitized version ) --- Gart der Gesuntheit ... zu Latin ... , Balthasar Beck, Strasbourg 1529 (digitized version)
  22. ↑ Eucharius Rösslin the Younger . Kreutterbůch of all earth plants. Christian Egenolph, Frankfurt am Main 1533 (digitized) ; 1542 (digitized version) ; 1546 (digitized version)
  23. ↑ Adam Lonitzer . Kreuterbuch: artificial conterfeytunge of trees, shrubs, hedges, Kreuter, Getreyde, Gewürz, with actual description of the same names, in six different languages, namely, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, German and Hispanic, of the same shape, natural strength and effect; sampt artificial and kind reports of distilling; item of the greatest animals on earth, birds, and fish; the same of metals, ores, precious stones, rubber, and seasoned juices . Christian Egenolff's heirs, Frankfurt 1557; 1560 (digitized version) ; 1564 (digitized version) ; 1573 (digitized version) ; 1578 (digitized version) ; 1582 (digitized version) ; 1593 (digitized version) ; Kreuterbuch 1598 (digitized version) ; 1604 (digitized version)
  24. ↑ Edited by Peter Uffenbach 1630 (digitized version ) ; 1678 (digitized version) ; 1703 (digitized version)
  25. ↑ Editing by Balthasar Erhrhart 1737 (digitized version ) ; 1783 (digitized version)
  26. ^ Arnold C. Klebs . Incunabula scientifica et medica. The Saint Catherine Press Ltd., 1938, pp. 171f. (Digitized version)