Seeds of Knowledge. Early Modern Illustrated Herbals

The Seeds of Knowledge exhibit at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York highlights Dr. Peter Goop’s extraordinary collection of fifteenth- to seventeenth-century European printed herbals. Doctors, pharmacists, and laypeople of the day made essential tools of these elaborately illustrated texts featuring both folkloric and therapeutic uses for plants. The quality of texts and images alike were honed constantly as scientific knowledge of the plants increased and representational methods grew more accurate. These precious books served as instruction manuals; readers frequently annotated them with recipes, observations, and other marginalia to supplement – and sometimes even correct – the printed text. The transition from the theological interpretation of nature to its empirical exploration was not only a matter for physicians and botanists but mirrored mankind’s evolving relationship to nature in general, a topic that remains of crucial relevance today.