INTRODUCTION. XXlll 



of all current knowledge, had long been 

 lost to view, at least in the Greek. It 

 was now printed : the Latin translation 

 in 1478 and the original in 1495 by Aldus. 

 From this event a new movement started. 

 The first Commentator was Hermolaus, 

 who as early as 149^ opened the new 

 field of study: and from this time until 

 the middle of the sixteenth century it was 

 the chief aim of botanists to verify the 

 plants described by Dioscorides. The first 

 stage of the Revival consists of a succession 

 of Commentators, and it culminates in the 

 person of a great physician, the Italian 

 Matthiolus, in honour of whom the Stocks 

 have the generic name Matthiola. His folio 

 Commentarii in Dioscoridem, published in 

 1554, had an extraordinary success, ran 

 through seventeen editions, and enjoyed 

 the patronage of princes beyond any book 

 of the time. It abolished all previous 

 works of the kind and was never itself 

 superseded : but ultimately, being en- 

 crusted with all the additional illustration 

 that could be piled upon it by such a 

 vigorous editor as Caspar Bauhin, it stood 



