Hortus Sanitatis

The Hortus Sanitatis, a Latin natural history encyclopaedia, was published by Jacob Meydenbach in Mainz, Germany in 1491.
It describes species in the natural world along with their medicinal uses and modes of preparation. It followed the Latin Herbarius moguntinus and the German Gart der Gesundheit, that Peter Schöffer had published in Mainz. Unlike these earlier works, besides dealing with herbs, the Hortus sanitatis deals with animals, birds, fish and stones too. Moreover the author does not restrict himself to dealing only with real creatures, but also includes accounts of mythical animals such as the dragon, harpy, hydra, myrmecoleon, phoenix, and zitiron.

Author

The author is unknown. Occasionally the Frankfurt physician Johann Wonnecke von Kaub is incorrectly named as the author.

Set in two columns, the work contains five sections describing simple drugs used for therapy:

De Herbis with 530 chapters on herbs.
De Animalibus with 164 chapters on land animals.
De Avibus with 122 chapters on birds and other airworthy animals.
De Piscibus with 106 chapters on aquatic animals.
De Lapidibus with 144 chapters on semi-precious stones, ores and minerals.

Set in two columns, each chapter is headed by a picture. The following text gives a general description of the related simple drug and under the title of »oparetiones« a list of its effects on the human body.
The plants of the section "De Herbis" were determined by B. and H. Baumann according to current binominal nomenclature.

Publication history

Incunabule

Mainz. Jacob Meydenbach 1491
Strasbourg. Anonymous 1496
Strasbourg. Anonymous 1497-1498 .
Strasbourg. Anonymous 1499
Paris. Antoine Vérard 1500 Ortus sanitatis translate de latin en françois

16th century

Strasbourg after 1500 .
Venice 1511 ; Reprint Würzburg 1978.
Strasbourg 1517
Paris 1539 Phillipe le Noir Le jardin de santé

Sections two to five of the Hortus sanitatis. Latin

Strasbourg. Matthias Apiarius 1536

Sections two to five of the Hortus sanitatis. German

Straßburg 1529. Hans Grüninger
Straßburg 1529. Balthasar Beck. Gart der gesuntheit. zu latin …
Straßburg 1536. Mathias Apiarius. Gart der gesuntheit zů latein …
Frankfurt 1556. Hermann Gülfferich. Gart der Gesundtheyt Zu Latein …

An English version of extracts from the Hortus, the Noble lyfe & natures of man, of bestes, serpentys, fowles & fisshes, was produced in 1491 by Laurence Andrew. A facsimile edition of this was published in London in 1954 by B. Quaritch.

Illustrations

The woodcut illustrations are stylised but often easily recognizable, and many were re-used in other works. In addition to the representations of simples, pictures show their use by humans, and scenes in which figures are surrounded by the subjects in their natural environment, such as standing by a river with fish and mermaids.

Illustrations. Mainz 1491

Source:

In culture

The University of Sydney comments that "The rich variety of the woodcuts makes this a very attractive book. The engraver was a skilled craftsman, but there is some botanical retrogression, since he did not always fully understand the plants he was copying from previous cuts."
A copy once owned by the apothecary George Pavius of Aberdeen is held by the University of Aberdeen.