Date: Fri 22-May-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: JUDYC

Quick Words:

Verdant

Full Text:

Verdant Riches Revealed

(W/2 Cuts - PICS) - EWM

NEW YORK CITY -- A treasure trove of 80 botanical and horticultural books,

from a medieval herbal works to the illustrated books of French painter Pierre

Joseph Redoute, will be on display at the New York Grolier Club to July 31.

This selection form the extensive collection of The LuEsther T. Mertz Library

at The New York Botanical Garden, which focues on herbals (Twelfth-Sixteenth

Century), illustrated works of European botanical expeditions

(Seventeenth-Nineteenth Century), and rare horticultural treatises and garden

design works (Sixteenth-Nineteenth Century).

The Western world's interest in herbal medicines did not originate in our

"high tech" age. Herbals -- books about plants with special reference to their

medicinal properties -- were already on the European must-read list centuries

ago.

Around AD 980 in Salerno, Italy, scribes of the first medical school in Europe

painstakingly transcribed the Circa Instans, a catalogue of herbal remedies,

under the guidance of physicians. A Twelfth-Century copy of this manuscript is

on display in this exhibit, the counterpoint to the current wave of articles

about herbal remedies in today's glossy magazines. This centuries-old

manuscript, one of the earliest known copies of the medieval work, lists 258

items of materia medica written in pre-Gothic hand. It is an excellent example

of the type of manuscript documentation that predated printed books and

carried forward the knowledge of antiquity to the Middle Ages.

Among the herbals in the exhibition are many books printed before 1501, known

as incunabula. Also included are copies of landmark works by Otto Brunfels and

Leonard Fuchs from the mid-1500s, the first printed works to use illustrations

drawn from the direct observation of plants in their natural setting, instead

of being copied from earlier works. The herbals are illustrated with woodcuts,

a relief printing surface consisting of a wooden block with a pictorial design

cut with the grain.

Books capturing Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century global explorations feature

illustrations and accounts of expeditions to remote places. Of particular

interest are four books published between 1775 and 1820 that document the

discovery in the South Pacific Island of the breadfruit (Autocarpus), its

transport on Captain William Bligh's ship, The Bounty, and its introduction to

the West Indies.

Other books document the introduction of the newly discovered plants of the

Western Hemisphere to the gardens of Europe. The illustrated works of Pierre

Joseph Redoute, the official flower painter to Empress Josephine of France,

feature not only roses, but also the plants of scientific and horticultural

interest introduced to the gardens of the French nobility in the Eighteenth

and Nineteenth Centuries.

The exhibition also includes a selection of rare horticultural manuals and

works devoted to the art of garden design. Items range from a 1519 edition of

the first printed agricultural treatise to the first printed series of garden

designs published in 1583. Selected gardening and garden design books are

illustrated with early woodcuts, ambitious folio engravings, and hand-colored

aquatints -- a printing method that reproduces tones similar to watercolor

washes -- with moveable flaps showing before-and-after scenes.

The items in this exhibition underscore the depth and scope of the great

collection of the Mertz Library at The New York Botanical Garden. Assembled

over the past century to support research and study in the fields of botanical

science, horticulture, and garden design, the library now counts more than

1.26 million print and non-print items, and is one of the most comprehensive

libraries in this field in the United States.

With this exhibition, The New York Botanical Garden celebrates the gift of the

famous collection of books about garden design and architecture assembled by

Mrs Ewing W. Reilley, a distinguished member of the garden's Library Visiting

Committee and of the Grolier Club.

A 40-page illustrated checklist accompanies the exhibition. For information,

413/584-1867.

The club is at 47 East 60th Street and is open Mondays through Saturdays, from

10 am to 5 pm. Admission is free.