ch. vii] The ' Herbarium ' of Apideius 1 55 



This work contains coloured drawings of exceptional beauty, 

 which are smaller than those in the Vienna manuscript, 

 but quite equally realistic. 



It is however with the history of botanical figures since 

 the invention of the printing press that we are here more 

 especially concerned. From this epoch onwards, the history 

 of botanical illustration is intimately bound up with the 

 history of wood-engraving, until, at the extreme end of 

 the sixteenth century, engraving on metal first came into 

 use to illustrate herbals. During the seventeenth century, 

 metal-engravings and wood-cuts existed side by side, but 

 wood-engraving gradually declined, and was in great 

 measure superseded by engraving on metal. The finest 

 period of plant illustration was during the sixteenth century, 

 when wood-engraving was at its zenith. 



Botanical wood-engravings may be regarded as belonging 

 to two schools, but it should be understood that the distinc- 

 tion between them is somewhat arbitrary and must not be 

 pressed very far. One of these may perhaps be regarded 

 as representing the last, decadent expression of that school 

 of late classical art which, a thousand years earlier, had 

 given rise to the drawings in the Vienna manuscript. 

 Probably no original wood-cuts of this school were pro- 

 duced after the close of the fifteenth century. In the 

 second phase, on the other hand, which culminated, artis- 

 tically, if not scientifically, in the sixteenth century, we 

 find a renaissance of the art, due to a more direct study 

 of nature. 



The first school, of which we may take the cuts in the 

 Roman edition of the ' Herbarium' of Apuleius Platonicus 

 (? 1484) as typical examples, has, as Dr Payne has pointed 

 out, certain very well-marked characteristics. The figures 

 of the plants (see Plates IV, V, XVI, and Text-figs. 1 

 and 2), which occupy square or oblong spaces, are very 

 formal and are often represented with complete bilateral 

 symmetry. They show no sign of having been drawn 

 directly from nature, but look as if they were founded on 

 previous work. They have a decorative rather than a 

 naturalistic appearance ; it seems, indeed, as if the principle 

 of decorative symmetry controlled the artist almost against 

 his will. These drawings are somewhat of the nature of 



