S04 



HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



and Southern Asia, as well as the eastern coast of Africa, 

 brought from thence many rare fruits and seeds, and, for 

 the first time, described, from actual inspection, the plants of 

 India, and of the islands of the Indian Ocean. This treatise 

 is found in the original, in the second volume of Ramusio's 

 great collection. 



Meanwhile, in the cloysters of the West, some know- 

 ledge of medicinal and garden plants had been preserved, — 

 which plants were endeavoured to be made extensively known 

 by what was called the Hortus Sanitatis. This contained 

 an alphabetical catalogue of useful plants, to which miserable 

 plates were added, and which was translated from one lan- 

 guage into another. The Latin edition of Meidenbach, at 

 Mentz, in 1491 ; the German of Schonsperger, at Augs- 

 burgh, in 1488; and that in the Lower Saxon dialect, by 

 Cube, at Lubeck, in 1492, are well known. 



II. First Establishment of* Scientific botany. 



438. 



During the flourishing condition of the free states of Italy, 

 which had been raised to distinction by trade, and by their 

 constitutions, science and art were first established on a pro- 

 per basis, and those Greeks that had been banished by the 

 Turks, namely, Emanuel Chrysoloras, Bessarion, and Theo- 

 dore Gaza, in particular, first made the Italians acquainted 

 with the great masterpieces of ancient Greece. Hence arose 

 a very active and well known rivalry, — in the search for memo- 

 rials of Grecian art and science, — in the multiplication and il- 

 lustration of the genuine works of the ancients by writing 

 and printing,— and even in the imitation of their celebrated 

 works. It was now that Dioscorides and Pliny were, for the 

 first time, studied in the original, — the belief being universal 

 that their works are the only and the abundant fountain of 

 the knowledge of plants. But, at the same time, attempts 

 were made to ascertain what native plants properly bore the 

 names which the ancients had assigned, 



