MACER FLORIDUS De Herbarum Virtutibus Aemilii Macri Veronensis elegantissima poesis, cum succincta admodum difficilium & obscurorum locorum, D. Georgii Pictorii… expositione… & in lucem edita. Cum Carmine de Herba quadam exotica… D. Georgio Pictorio Villingano autore.

Catalogue des prélinnéens, 72; BM, Natural History, 1208; see Pritzel, 6385 (for other editions); NLM, 2895; Wellcome, I, 3936.

A delightful pocket edition of this famous botanical poem.

 It was written by the court physician to the Archduke of Ensisheim, Georg Pictorius (or Jörg Maler, ca. 1500-69), and illustrated with 52 charming woodcuts of plants. 

The author of the Macer Floridus remains anonymous, but the text is usually attributed to Odo, Bishop of Meung, who wrote it in the eleventh century. It consists of hexameters describing 77 plants and their medicinal properties.

First published in Naples in 1477, it was immediately so successful that it was reprinted many times until the nineteenth century. This popularity is undoubtedly due to the poem’s ease of memorisation, which can be compared with the other great medieval medical poem, the Regimen Sanitatis of the School of Salerno. 

The Macer Floridus is “of importance as one of the earliest Western documents showing a revival of interest in botany.” (Hunt, I, p. 4).

A fine copy.