John Gerard's 'The herball' (1633)
The wealthy barber-surgeon John Gerard (c.1545-1612) is the most well-known sixteenth-century English herbalist. Proud of his skills in having discovered the ‘properties and privie marks’ of thousands of plants under the Doctrine of Signatures, Gerard synthesised information into his Herball (1597). When published, the Herball, well illustrated with borrowed woodcuts, got an enthusiastic reception by a public eager for information in English about plants, especially their medicinal uses.
The book however is primarily a translation of the work of Flemish botanist Rembert Dodoens (1517-1585), augmented with Gerard’s own assertions and fantasies. For example, he relates how he observed a goose barnacle (a type of marine animal) giving birth to a goose, so propagating a myth that had persisted in Europe since the twelfth century.
In 1633, a second edition of the Herball was published. This had been completely revised by the apothecary Thomas Johnson (c.1595-1644); many of Gerard’s errors were corrected and hundreds of new illustrations and descriptions added.
The title page is a splendid mixture of allegorical figures and images of the important garden plants of the day. Overarching all is the Tetragrammaton, the Hebraic name of God. A quote from Genesis (‘I have given you every herb bearing seed’) appears above a sylvan landscape of Eden, which includes the date palm [see Description associated with title page of Parkinson (1640)]. Gerard picks up his interest in Signatures in the words below Eden: ‘Lest the Author of the divine work would evade you, any plant should show God as present’. To the left of Eden is Ceres (Roman goddess of agriculture) holding a sheath of cereal set against a ploughed field with bullock cart, and an ear of maize [see Description associated with title page of Parkinson (1640)]. On the right is Pomona (Roman goddess of fruitful abundance), holding a bill hook, sitting behind a pile of grapes and fruits which are probably pears.
On the left of the central panel is the Greek philosopher Theophrastus (c.371-c.287 BCE), the Father of Botany, who discussed the lives of plants in his Enquiry into plants and On the causes of plants. On the right is the Graeco-Roman physician Dioscorides (c.40-c.90 CE), the Father of Pharmacology, whose De materia medica was the basis of all practical medicinal knowledge about plants for nearly 1,500 years.
The centre of the bottom panel shows Gerard holding a flowering shoot of potato, the first published image of a potato flower in western literature. Gerard is flanked by vases replete with novel or luxurious plants that were attracting attention in early seventeenth-century England.
In the left-hand vase, cyclamens cluster at the base of the bouquet dominated by an inverted bunch of bananas. Johnson’s description of the banana in the Herball is the first accurate description of the fruit in English: ‘April 10 1633, my much honored friend Dr. Argent (now President of the Colledge of Physcians of London) gaue me a plant he receiued from the Bermuda’s … The fruit which I receiued was not ripe, but greene … This stalke with the fruit thereon I hanged vp in my shop, were it became ripe about the beginning of May, and lasted vntil lune: the pulp or meat was very soft and tender, and it did eate somewhat like a Muske-Melon’.
The right-hand vase includes a botanical myth, the Tudor Rose, and a snake’s-head fritillary (left-hand side). The whole is surmounted by a crown imperial, one of the choice horticultural plants of the period. At the base of the vase (left side) is liverwort, which Gerard associated with cures for liver disease because of the three-lobed leaves.