Note 861 — Chapter IX

Biogr. Univ. Andrès, xiii. 80. Eichhorn, iii. 304. See too Roscoe’s Leo. X., iv. 125, for some pleasing notices of the early studies in natural history. Pontanus was fond of it; and his poem on the cultivation of the lemon, orange, and citron (de Hortis Hesperidum) shows an acquaintance with some of the operations of horticulture. The garden of Bembo was also celebrated. Theophrastus and Dioscorides were published in Latin before 1500. But it was not till about the middle of the sixteenth century that botany, through the commentaries of Matthioli on Dioscorides, began to assume a distinct form, and to be studied as a separate branch.