Herbarum varias qui vis cognoscere vires: huc macer adest: quo duce doctor eris. Cum bonis ambula. Mors peccatorum pessima. Sic utere tuo: ut alieno non egeas.
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Paris, Baquelier, c. 1515. Small-8vo (14 x 9,5 cm.), leaves 159, (1 blank). With large woodcut on title, 65 woodcuts in the text. Contemporary vellum.
Early Paris edition of which several appeared with the same collation. The work was written sometime in the 9th-10th centuries, probably by Odo, Bishop of Meung, although the authorship is not yet settled. "The 'Macer floridus' is a poem which recounts the virtues of 77 plants in 2269 hexameters. It was written about 1100 A.D. and had reached wide circulation by the late Middle Ages. The poem received its name from Aemilius Macer, a contemporary and friend of Ovid's, to whom either the author or one of the subsequent copyists ascribed the work. The stanzas which are by no means maladroit, are based on Pliny, Gargilius Martialis, and the Dyascorides Lombardus, but Walafried Stabo and Constantinus Africanus, as the last one in chronological order, were drawn from too, larger extracts or sentences from them being woven into a new pattern" (Nissen, Herbals p. 27). The poetic form was most likely employed as a mnemonic aid for early physicians. It was one of the most popular medical and botanical works of mediaeval times. A fine copy with with some very slight browning and marginal worming on a few leaves.
Provenance: Title with autograph ownership dated 1776 of Gilbert Trouflaut (1726-1820), priest and canon of Never. He botanized with Jean Jacques Rousseau and created the botanical garden of Nevers.
Hunt 22; Johnston 27; Brunet III, 1270.