Early Modern Illustrated Herbals Exhibition Opens at The Morgan

The Morgan Library & Museum's new exhibition Seeds of Knowledge: Early Modern Illustrated Herbals highlights the collection of 15th to 17th century European printed herbals of Dr. Peter Goop, one of the most significant private collections of herbals in the world. 

Using the Morgan’s 10th century manuscript of Dioscorides’s De materia medica as a centerpiece, this exhibition (running through January 14, 2024) explores developments in the understanding of the healthful and healing properties of plants, as Europe moved away from medicinal folklore toward an increased comprehension of the natural world.

Placing the Morgan’s copy of De materia medica in conversation with the books on view from the Peter Goop Collection, this exhibition illuminates a watershed moment in the studies of natural history, medicine, and the nascent field of botany. European printed herbals underwent significant developments in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: texts were made more accessible, local flora was increasingly included, and naturalistic illustrations enabled clearer identification of plants.

In medieval and Renaissance Europe, herbals were used by professional physicians and apothecaries as well as in religious communities. As printing made the volumes more affordable, herbals also became important references in private homes.

The installation explores the European evolution and expansion of knowledge about the natural world. The texts often cite authorities of antiquity, such as Pliny the Elder in addition to Dioscorides, whose botanical knowledge was largely restricted to the Mediterranean. A 1513 edition of Pliny the Elder’s Historia naturalis from the Peter Goop Collection is included in the installation. As the old view of the natural world broadened, propelled by studies of the flora of northern Europe and newly imported species from Asia and the Americas, scholars began revising and expanding herbals accordingly. Readers frequently annotated the books with additional information and medicinal recipes gained through practical experience, preserving deep local histories of herbal knowledge.

Highlights of the exhibition include the highly influential Herbarum vivae eicones (Living Images of Herbs), written by Otto Brunfels (1488–1534) and illustrated by Hans Weiditz the Younger (ca. 1495–1536). This was the first European herbal with highly naturalistic illustrations, copied directly from life, revolutionizing herbal illustration. Notably, the text focuses almost exclusively on local plants - including nearly 40 that had not previously been described - rather than relying on ancient authorities who would have known nothing about German flora.