The World of Plants in Renaissance Tuscany

Cristina Bellorini received her PhD from the History Department at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her current research project is a study of sixteenth-century agrarian and horticultural history in Italy, based on archival sources in Florence and Milan.

Contents

Acknowledgements



List of Illustrations



List of Tables



List of Abbreviations

Introduction



Chapter 1

Plants and Medicine at the Court of Cosimo,

Francesco, and Ferdinando de’ Medici



The Construction of a Cultural Identity



The Importance of the Name Medici:



Cosmas and Damian



The Grand Dukes’ Commitment to Medicine



The Fonderie



Plants and Gardens



Conclusion



Chapter 2

Medical Botany at the Re-founded University of Pisa



Cosimo I’s Cultural Project and the University



Luca Ghini and the New Teaching of materia medica



Ghini’s Placiti and Lectures



Andrea Cesalpino



Cesalpino’s Herbarium (1563): A First Attempt



at Plant Classification



Cesalpino’s De plantis



Conclusion



Chapter 3

New Ways of Studying Plants



Gardens of Simples



Herbaria



Field Trips



Botanical Illustration



Cosimo’s Scrittoio



Brunfels and Fuchs



The Debate on Images



Iacopo Ligozzi



Conclusion



Chapter 4

Plants from the New World



The New plants



Florence and Discovery



American Plants in the Nuovo ricettario fiorentino



Luca Ghini on the French Disease



Gabriele Falloppio’s Tractatus de morbo gallico



New plants in Mattioli’s Discorsi



Nicolas Monardes’s Historia Medicinal



American Plants in Cesalpino’s De Plantis



Conclusion



Chapter 5

The Nuovo ricettario fiorentino

and the Understanding of Therapy



The First Edition of the Nuovo ricettario fiorentino



The Evolution of the Ricettario



The Penetration of Paracelsus’s Theories into Tuscany



Plants and Chemistry: Distillation



Plants and Therapy in Paracelsus’s Herbarius



The Doctrine of Signatures



Conclusion



Chapter 6

Theory and Practice



Medical Practice in the Faculty of Medicine



Three Texts of Mercuriale on Quartan Fever



Some Cases of Fever in the Medici Family



Cosimo I’s Illness in 1572



The Account Books of the Speziale al Giglio



Simples



Medicines



Conclusion

Conclusion

Bibliography