Known and unknown creators of the illustrations for the Prague editions of Mattioli's herbal (1562, 1563)
2021
Abstract
A contribution to the history of European botanical illustration in the second half of the 16th century, this article presents both well-known and so far unknown actors in the production of illustrations of two Prague editions of the herbal of Pietro Andrea Mattioli: one in Czech (Herbář from 1562) and the other in German (Kreüterbuch from 1563). Close inspection of the 814 illustrations has revealed two new monograms of draughtsmen or cutters in the Herbář, making it possible to update their list: BMS, CG, DW, FP (or dF), GS, MH, SI (=IS) and WS.
Based on art-historical dictionaries as well as research into early printed books and archival documents, the article presents hypotheses about the identity of the monogrammists.