My first thanks must go to the people who spared time from their own work to help me with mine. Minta Collins allowed me to draw on the extensive research contained in her Medieval Herbals, and also with great care read the four chapters of my own book covering the medieval period. They have been greatly improved by her attention. Professor Bob Sharpies, of the Department of Greek and Latin at University College London kindly shared his unequalled knowledge of Theophrastus and commented, to great effect, on the four chapters relating to the classical world. Dr Brent Elliott, Librarian of the Lindley Library in London reviewed the early chapters on Brunfels and Fuchs and made, as always, pertinent and useful suggestions. At the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Professor Mark Chase, head of the Molecular Systematics Section, spent a great deal of time explaining the work of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. He also agreed to read and comment on the Epilogue as well as the chapter dealing with John Ray. Caryl Hubbard was the first person to read the manuscript in its entirety and her comments, as well as her support and encouragement, were given at the time when I needed them most. All these people know how much I am indebted to them. Any inaccuracies that remain are, of course, entirely my own.
In Italy, my work was eased by the kind encouragement given by Dr Chiara Nepi in the Natural History Museum at Florence University. She made it possible for me to see Cesalpino’s herbarium, arranged to copy various sections so that I could translate them into English, and later was invaluable in supplying photographs. In Pisa, Professor Fabio Garbari in the university’s Department of Botany, generously allowed me to quote from Giardino dei Semplici which he wrote with Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi and Alessandro Tosi. He also made available copies of several important portraits which belong to the university. I am much in their debt. I would also like to thank Beatrice Monti della Corte for offering me a place at Santa Maddalena, a writers’ retreat ideally placed for the research I needed to do in Florence. I had a memorable six weeks there.
The staff in the Rare Books Room at Cambridge University Library have been untiringly efficient at producing the often obscure books I needed to see. I appreciate their help and advice very much indeed. Nor could I have survived without the staff at the London Library who regularly sent parcels of books to me in the country. That is an unbelievable luxury. I am grateful too, to the British Library and the Wellcome Library for allowing me to consult manuscripts in their collections.
My agent, Caradoc King at A. P. Watt, has, as always, given great support. At Bloomsbury, I would like to thank Liz Calder who commissioned this project and the tenacious band who turned it into a book: the design director, Will Webb, and the production director, Penny Edwards. Victoria Millar was a brilliant editor, as tireless in pursuit of a footnote as she was in tightening up wobbles in the narrative. I respect her dedication and owe her a great deal. Heather Vickers handled the complicated picture research and Douglas Matthews provided the index.
Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Trevor Ware, who came to Kazakhstan, Guyana, Athens, Florence, Amsterdam, Bruges, Antwerp and all the other places this book has taken me to. Faced with the prospect of yet another museum, yet another library, his good humour rarely wavered.
Quotations from Thomas Johnson: Botanical Journeys in Kent and Hampstead edited by J. S. L. Gilmour (1972) are reproduced by courtesy of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA; the quotations from John Ray Naturalist, His Life and Works (1942) and English Naturalists from Neckham to Ray (1947) both by Charles Raven, are reproduced by kind permission of the Cambridge University Press; material from Medieval Herbals: The Illustrative Tradition (2000) by Minta Collins is reproduced by kind permission of the author and the British Library; quotations from Otto Pacht’s article in Volume 13 of the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes are reproduced by permission of the Editors of the Journal; the quotation from The Scientific Renaissance (1962) by Marie Boas is reproduced courtesy of the author; translations from the commentary to and facsimile edition (1999) of Fuchs’s De historia stirpium are reproduced thanks to the generosity of Stanford University Press; the quotation from Collins Gem Guide: Wild Flowers is reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, Copyright © Marjorie Blarney and Richard Fitter (1980); quotations from British Botanical and Horticultural Literature before 1800 (1975) by Blanche Henrey and Early Science in Oxford (1945) by R. T. Gunther are reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press; translations by Sean Jennet from Beloved Son Felix (1961) and Journal of a Younger Brother (1963) are reproduced by permission of Pollinger Ltd and the proprietor; the quotation from the Index of Garden Plants, edited by Mark Griffiths (© Mark Griffiths; first published in by Pan Macmillan in 1993) is included courtesy of Pan Macmillan Ltd. It has not been possible to trace the copyright holders of Christopher Plantin (1960) by Colin Clair, published by Cassell, an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group, or of Ray’s Flora of Cambridgeshire (1975), translated and edited by A. H. Ewen and C. T. Prime from which material has also been quoted.
Every reasonable effort has been made to contact copyright holders of material reproduced in this book. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publishers would be glad to hear from them and to make good in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.