Mattioli, Pierandrea (1501–1577)

Italian physician and botanist. His encyclopedic study of plants Commentarii a Dioscodie/Commentaries on Dioscorides (1544) brings together classical, medieval and Renaissance knowledge of plants and their uses in medicine. He moved to Bohemia in 1554 and became physician to the Emperor Ferdinand I.

He was born in Siena, studied in Padua, and travelled widely in Italy to collect plants. His Commentarii a Dioscodie, intended as a practical guide for doctors, was first published in Venice and went into many editions and translations: it appeared first in Latin, and then in Italian (three versions) in 1554. It also appeared in German, French and Czech. It goes beyond the plants described by the Greek doctor Dioscorides (1st century AD) and includes Mattioli's own discoveries and reports from his correspondents.

The two series of illustrations, one first published in the Venice edition of 1554, the larger ones appearing in a Prague version of 1562, and both copied repeatedly, are unusual in representing massed foliage, fruit, and flowers instead of single twigs or plants.