The World of Plants in Renaissance Tuscany Medicine and Botany [Hardcover]

In the sixteenth century medicinal plants, which until then had been the monopoly of apothecaries, became a major topic of investigation in the medical faculties of Italian universities, where they were observed, transplanted, and grown by learned physicians both in the wild and in the newly founded botanical gardens. Tuscany was one of the main European centres in this new field of inquiry, thanks largely to the Medici Grand Dukes, who patronised and sustained research and teaching, whilst also taking a significant personal interest in plants and medicine. This is the first major reconstruction of this new world of plants in sixteenth-century Tuscany. Focusing primarily on the medical use of plants, this book also shows how plants, while maintaining their importance in therapy, began to be considered and studied for themselves, and how this new understanding prepared the groundwork for the science of botany. More broadly this study explores how the New World's flora impacted on existing botanical knowledge and how this led to the first attempts at taxonomy.

Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter 1

Plants and Medicine at the Court of Cosimo,

Francesco, and Ferdinando de Medici

The Construction of a Cultural Identity

The Importance of the Name Medici:

Cosmas and Damian

The Grand Dukes Commitment to Medicine

The Fonderie

Plants and Gardens

Conclusion

Chapter 2

Medical Botany at the Re-founded University of Pisa

Cosimo Is Cultural Project and the University

Luca Ghini and the New Teaching of materia medica

Ghinis PlalS)