NO. 2 THE BADIANUS MANUSCRIPT EMMART 5 



the New World. With the coming of Cortez and the fall of Tenoch- 

 itlan in 1521 , news of the medical knowledge of the Aztecs drifted back 

 to Europe. In a letter to Charles V concerning the district of 

 Tlaltelolco, the marketplace of Tenochitlan, Cortez mentions espe- 

 cially a street of " herb sellers where there are all manner of roots and 

 medicinal plants that are found in the land. There are houses as it 

 were of apothecaries where they sell medicines made from these herbs 

 both for drinking and for use as ointments and salves." ' 



These letters, accounts of ship captains and explorers, even at this 

 early date carried news to Europe of a knowledge of the use of herbs 

 and medicaments which appeared to rival that of the Old World. 

 This interest is reflected in accounts of later historians and travelers, 

 and in the works of some of the great European herbalists of the 

 sixteenth century. 



Of the translator Juannes Badianus, we have brief but precise data 

 in the last two pages of the volume (pi. 2), where he adds a word of 

 explanation to the reader which is self explanatory : 



JuAXXES Badiaxus, tiik Translator, to the Gextle Reader 



I beg again and again, most excellent reader, that you consider that I have well 

 employed the labor that went into the translation, such as it is, of this little book 

 of herbs. For my part, I preferred to have that labor go for nothing than to 

 undergo your most exacting judgment. Further be sure that I put so many 

 spare hours on this edition, not to show off my own talent, which is almost 

 nothing, but only because of the obedience which I very rightly owe to the 

 priest of this Monastery of St. Jacob, the apostle of the Spaniards and my most 

 excellent patron, and very much to his superior the reverend Franciscan father, 

 brother Jacobo de Grado, who laid this task upon my shoulders. Farewell in 

 Christ the Saviour. At Tlatilulci in College of the Holy Cross, on the feast 

 day of Saint Mary Magdalene during the Holy Holidays, A.D. 1552. 



End of the Book of Herbs, which Juannes Badianus by nation an Indian of the 

 Xuchimilcanus country, reader of the same college, translated into Latin. 



Glory be ever to him by wliose gift I translated this Book which you per- 

 ceive, Good friend Reader. 



Badianus was apparently a native Indian from the district of 

 Xochimilco, and he was undoubtedly among those first students who 

 attended the college after it opened in 1535. It is most fitting that 

 the translator was a native of the district of the floating gardens of 

 Xochimilco, which had long been the gardens of the Aztec kings and 

 princes. Centuries before the conquest the Aztecs had brought flowers 

 and herbs from the lowlands and had developed a truly botanical gar- 



° Cortes, Hernando. Five letters, 1519-1526. Translated by F. Bayard Morris, 

 Robert M. McBride & Co., New York, 1929. Second letter, p. 87. 



