340 AsTER History; BRUNFELS 
LXVII. BRuUNFELS 
Otto Brunfels, first * of the three German “ Fathers of Bot- 
any,” son of a cooper at Castle Brunfels at Mentz, was born prob- 
ably not long before 1500, and died Noy., 1534 + (when between 
35 and 40 according to Meyer’s conjecture). 
Brunfels’ great work, figuring 229 plants, the “ Herbarum 
in tomis tribus”’ § of 1539, was first published in its three parts 
or tomes at Strasburg at different dates, 15 30-6. 
The figures || are the earliest work of genuine botanical art; 
the first true and well-executed representations of plants from 
nature, accurate in detail and exhibiting the whole plant. 
Had Brunfels added to the figures new descriptions of like 
verity, his volume, remarks Meyer, would have been far more an 
epoch-making book than it was. 
A posthumous work of Brunfels, Strasburg, 1543, was his “‘ /z 
Dioscoridis...adaptatio,” being a list of the Greek names of Dios- 
corides with Latin and German equivalents, without preface or text. 
In his preceding and monumental work, the Herdarum, Brun- 
fels occupied part of each volume with his “ Simplicium Pharma- 
corum,” which consisted of copious accounts of plants, on an exten- 
sive plan, each called by him a “ Rhapsodia,” and containing 2 
verbatim citation of what each previous author had said of the 
of Bota 
ft Brunfels was at first a student of theology, then a Carthusian monk at Mentz. 
Becoming a Protestant, he preached at Strasburg three years or more, taught 4 schoo! 
there for nine years, studied the Greek and Arabic physicians, took a degree in ved: 
cine at Basle in 1530, and was made city-physician (stadtarzt) of Berne, but had held 
it only a year and a half at his death in 1534. 
t See Meyer, 4: 295 +. 
The first tome, ** Herbarum vivae eicones” being printed by Joannes caasssiti 
(John Scott) at Strasburg in 1 530 (ex /ibr. Meyer) and reissued without change Sp 
(ex fbr. Bu. and ex Hibr. E. L, Greene) ; and the second tome begun 1531, its ae id 
ing finished Feb. 14, 1532. In German translation, as ‘ Contrafayt Kreuterbuch,’’ * 
appeared 1532 at Strasburg, and the 2d part 1537. 
|| The figures were executed (till toward the end of the third volume) by one a i 
Weydiz or Guiditius, of Strasburg, whom Brunfels calls ‘* Johannes Weiditz, the begin 
ner of wood engraving.’’ 
* Sprengel, and after him Meyer, entitled Brunfels, Bock and Fuchs “‘ the Fathers 
ny.’” 
Joannes pictor Guidictius ille 
Clarus Apellaeo non minus ingenio, 
says Brunfels in the prefatory verse. 
