386 Aster History; MATTHIOLI 
voting his prolix preface “contra obtrectatores ” to calling his 
critics opprobious names, ‘“ asios, blaterones, impostores,” * and 
a whole catalog of terms deemed by him appropriate for men 
of what he calls “that diabolic faction.” He remarks that his 
commentary had now for about twenty years met with great praise 
throughout all Europe and in other parts of the globe except 
chiefly in Italy. He then proceeds to inveigh against all who had 
ever differed from him, as against Amatus, Maranta, Gesner,t 
and Guilandini,t and especially against Anguillara, finally resulting 
in driving that noble and true student of nature out of his seat in 
the University of Padua, merely on account, it appears, of two 
brief remarks in Anguillara’s Pareri, respectfully correcting errors 
of Matthioli regarding Lyciwm and Aconitum. Furthermore, An- 
guillara had, without consulting Matthioli, independently interpreted 
many plants of the ancients in different manner from Matthioli, and 
that Matthioli could not brook. 
In fact, Matthioli assumed to be, as Meyer remarks, “ dictator 
of the knowledge of the ancients.” It became positively danger- 
ous to suggest that he was not infallible. A sad example was that 
of Amatus Lusitanus,§ another acute commentator on Dioscorides. 
* Many more are quoted by Meyer, 4: 376. 
+ Matthioli, a man ‘‘ contradictionis impatientissimus, had attacked Gesner with 
contumely’’ in his second (Latin, 1558) edition, one result of which was Gesner’s 
prompt rejoinder, 1558, in his ‘‘ Liber de Aconito.”’ See “ Vita Gesneri,”’ i Schmie- 
del’s Gesner, xxiii. 
+ Melchior Guilandinus or Wieland, born in Prussia, it is said in Konigsberg ; 
early betook himself to Italy, and especially Sicily ; by aid of ‘‘a Venetian patron, 
the esteemed professor of anatomy and surgery at Padua, Gabriele Falloppio,’’ he 
journeyed 1558-1560 through Greece, Syria and Egypt; while returning was made 
captive by the Moors ; was redeemed by Fallopius who secured his establishment 1561 
at Padua as overseer of the botanical garden and as Lector simplicium. He died there. 
1589,aged 70. An L>pistola Melchioris Guilandini Borusst (of Melchior Wieland the 
Prussian) was published at Basle, 1557, together with one by Gesner, both containing 
description of new plants. Like Anguillara, he roused the bitter hatred of Matthioli, 
publishing at Padua, in 1558, his 7%e.m, a pamphlet directed against certain of Mat- 
thioli’s identifications, and among others, that of Amellus, of which Guilandini asserted 
‘* Aster Atticus Amellus non est,’’ see p. 383. Matthioli followed in rebuttal, 1562, 
with a thirty-page attack entitled ‘* 4dversus viginti problemata Melchioris Guilandini 
disputatio,’’ printed at Pavia by Ulmus, 1562, and again at Venice by Valgrisi. 1563: 
2 Amatus Lusitanus or Joam R. Amato, who wrote at first under his name © Juan 
Rodriques de Castelblanco, a Portuguese philologist and botanist, believed to have been 
born at Lisbon, of Jewish parents, exiled from Spain in 1492, and later adopting Chris- 
