ACOSTA, Cristóbal

by Cristóbal Acosta

£15,000 · Offered by Sokol Books

First edition of this beautifully illustrated, influential work on medicinal plants of the East Indies. The splendid woodcuts are the first images of Indian flora printed in Europe, made from the author’s own accurate drawings. A Portuguese doctor, naturalist and botanist, Cristóbal Acosta (c. 1525-1594) is considered a pioneer in the study of Indian plants and their use in pharmacology. He was born in Africa – in his works he calls himself ‘Africanus’ – possibly in Tangiers or Ceuta (Portuguese at the time) or in Cape Verde. Around 1550, after completing his studies in Arts and Medicine in Spain, he travelled as a soldier to India. In the city of Goa, he met the great physician and naturalist García da Orta, the first European to describe the indigenous drug plants of India in his ‘Coloquios dos simples’. Appointed personal physician of the viceroy Luís de Ataíde, Acosta returned to Goa in 1568 and spent many years studying the local flora and collecting botanical specimens from various parts of India. His ‘Tractado de las drogas’ is an illustrated adaptation of Da Orta’s earlier treatise, with a series of interesting additions of his own. Acosta states: “The learned Dr. Orta has written with curiosity and diligence, but he has used reports, whereas I have set down what I have seen with my own eyes and depicted from life”. In this work, Acosta describes a total of sixty-nine botanical species for medicinal use. Each entry contains an attractive illustration, a general descri

• Binding: Hardcover

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