farfel_n02_168_130

-The folio ed. of Fuch were too expensive for the ordinary
field botanist to bug + far too heavy fro him to take
with him into the country side. Soon, therefore, various smaller
+ pocket ed. appeared with freshly cut blocks.
-If the contous of the cuts in Fuchs herbal seem rather
too thin to support a drawing in pure outline, we must
rember that his plater were intended to be coloured.
A number of such copies have in fact survived. +
their uniformitsy confirms that they were issued in
this state by the publisher.
Fuch was Professor of Medicine at the Univ. of Tubingen from
1535 until his death, having 1st achieved renown for treating victims
of the plague of 1529. At Tubingen he was successful as a physician
+ botanist, + he supported Vesalius' challenge to Galenic authority/
WIth over 500 woodcut illustrations, Fuchs' herbal became one
of the most popular descriptions of useful plants, undergoing
some 13 ed + translations between 1542 + 1557.
-It is quite a new departure to give portraits of the artists
engaged on the work; occasinally but very seldom, before this
time, the illustratiors were mentioned ... but the name of
the woodcutter occurs still less frequently, + as to a portrait,
we do not rember another instance.
-After a period when it was fashionable to deny coloured copies of teh
great Herbals, it is now realised that The colouring of many copies
of Fuchs, + also some of Brenfels, is authentic, in that they
were issued by the publisher in a coloured state based upon
the aritst's original coloured drawings made from living
specimens' -Blunt
Linnaeus - 1753 Species plantarum includes Fuch's 1542 herbal
among the authorities cited as sources for his descriptions.
No earlier herbal is so distinguished.