NATURAL SCIENCES. 1.7 



of his reign, to compose himself, shows that he was very well versed in 

 everything relating to birds of prey. 



The study of natural sciences had become more general and complete by 

 the beginning of the fourteenth century, though observations from nature 

 were not yet given the preference over the ancient descriptions to be found 

 in the Greek, Latin, and Arab authors. The difficulty of recognising under its 

 Arab name a plant described by Dioscorides also led to endless confusion. 

 Thus, for instance, Matthew Sylvaticus of Mantua, who possessed a superb 

 botanical garden at Salerno, had great difficulty in putting the right 

 names to his plants and ascertaining their specific qualities ; for, though he 

 knew Greek, he was ignorant both of Arabic and Hebrew, and hence 



Fig. 86." How Alexander fought the Dragons with Sheep's Horns upon their Foreheads." 

 Miniature of a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century, No. 1 1,040. In the Burgundy Library, 

 Brussels. 



arose the absurd errors in his nomenclature. The writings of Dino del 

 Garbo, the Florentine ; of John Ardern of Newark, the Englishman ; and 

 of several other botanists were almost valueless for the same reasons. But 

 James Dondi and his son, John dall' Orologio, who worked in concert about 

 the middle of the fourteenth century at a perfected Codex of the materia 

 medica, lived at Bologna, and studied only the native plants, which they 

 have described with great precision and accuracy in their book on Simples, 

 written in Latin, with the title of "Liber de Medicamentis Simplicibus," and 

 translated into Italian as the Herbolario Vulgare." Another book, inferio 

 to the above in every respect, but very much better known, was that 

 Bartholomew Glanvil, an English monk, who compiled, for the benefit of 



