Mattioli, Pietro Andrea

Abstract

Pietro Andrea Mattioli was a physician known for this abundant activity of translation of, and commentary on, the most important work on medical botany and materia medica of classical antiquity, De materia medica by the Greek Dioscorides (first century AD). After a first, modest, translation of the work into Italian, he rendered it into Latin in 1554 and compiled a commentary that he constantly expanded, producing repeated augmented editions. In 1555, he added small illustrations into the work, which he transformed into large ones covering most of the pages in 1562. His work was translated into Czech and German and was constantly expanded until Mattioli’s death. After a further posthumous edition in 1598 (Opera omnia), the work became obsolete. Mattioli’s method consisted not only in constantly deepening the analysis of the text with a particular attention to the identification of Dioscorides’ plants, but also in aggregating plants not described by Dioscorides to those present in De materia medica. To this end he proceeded by similarity in the general appearance of the plants. However productive it might have seen, this method resulted in obscuring the classification system adopted by Dioscorides, to the collapse of which Mattioli’s work contributed in a paradoxical way.