The role of plant taxonomy and nomenclature in Leoniceno’s break with Plinius

ABSTRACT

Nicolò Leoniceno (1428–1524), Italian humanist and physician, born in Vicenza and educated in Padua, was a leading figure of the medical school at the University of Ferrara and at the Court of Este. In 1492, at the age of 64, he published a short pamphlet in which he held the view that Naturalis Historia, the master work by Caius Plinius Secundus, contained a number of errors in plant identification and naming. His concern was that such errors would be misleading to the practical physician who, by using the treatise as a handbook could, potentially, damage rather than cure his sick patients. Leoniceno’s publication caused a harsh reaction by Plinius’ ‘defenders’ and a vivid discussion about how to interpret a classical text. A detailed analysis of Leoniceno’s text shows that, in spite of a number of indisputable errors and inaccuracies on his side, the elderly physician also addressed the issue of how to define taxonomic units and how to give them a univocal name, a key issue in the natural sciences during the subsequent centuries. Leoniceno’s break with Plinius and the contest with his adversaries proved to be a landmark in the development of plant taxonomy and nomenclature.

KEYWORDS:

• Caius Plinius Secundus
• Ermolao Barbaro
• history of botany
• Nicolò Leoniceno
• Pandolfo Collenuccio
• plant nomenclature
• plant taxonomy
• Renaissance humanism

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Umberto Mossetti for critical reading of the manuscript; to Fabio Garbari, Claudia Bonfiglioli, Mirko Travaglini and Marinella Marvelli for help with bibliographic research; and to Stefania Biondi for linguistic revision. Special thanks is due to Ariane Dröscher for valuable comments and useful suggestions on an early draft of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For an exhaustive biography of Leoniceno, see Mugnai Carrara (1979a).

2. An analysis of the contribution of Leoniceno to medicine in the context of Renaissance science falls beyond the scope of this paper. In-depth studies are to be found in Pazzini (1947), Mugnai Carrara (1991) and Hirai (2011).

3. To appreciate Ghini’s approach to taxonomy and nomenclature, see De Toni (1907).

4. The text of the Errores in the form published in 1509 has been re-edited more recently by Premuda (Leoniceno 1958).

5. In Leoniceno’s very rich library (Mugnai Carrara 1991) the texts of the Arabic school, i.e. Avicenna, Averroes, Serapion, are present only as Latin translations.

6. ‘In eo vero quem arabice scripsisse constat translatorumque vitio perperam … latinis traditus fuit: non video unde Leonicenus: aut quivis alius Arabicae litteraturae prorsus rudis et expers: citra temeritatis notam culpare Avicennam criminarique possit’ (Collenucius 1493).

7. Premuda (1958, p. 41) declared explicitly: ‘Le discussioni fitodiagnostiche potrebbero prolungarsi all’infinito e rivestire un significato di assai discutibile erudizione … Prolissa e pertanto noiosa, ma soprattutto inutile per una visione storico-critica riuscirebbe l’analisi che si proponesse di trovare il pelo nell’uovo’ [Phytodiagnostic discussions could be interminable, yet they would be no more than an exhibition of questionable erudition … An analysis finalised to split hairs would be rambling and boring – and, above all, useless for the purpose of a historical-critical overview].

8. The main historical sources were provided as follows: Collenucius (1493): digital copy released by Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Firenze; Dioscorides (1499): Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio, Bologna; Fuchs (1542): University of Bologna-Library BIGEA; Leennius (1532): University of Bologna-BUB; Leonicenus (1492): digital copy released by Bayerische Staatsbibliothek-MDZ; Leonicenus (1509): digital copy released by Google Digitalbooks, https://books.google.com; Mattioli (1565, 1568): University of Bologna-Library BIGEA; Ruelle (1552): digital copy released by Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library; Silvaticus (1498): digital copy released by Biblioteca Histórica de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Theophrastos (1644): digital copy released by Real Jardin Botànico de Madrid-CSIC; Theophrastos (1813): digital copy released by Royal College of Physicians, London. The Herbarium Aldrovandianum is housed in the Herbarium of the Bologna University (BOLO), and is accessible at http://botanica.sma.unibo.it/aldrovandi/.

9. ‘two ivy species, male and female … both of them look like the wild rose’.

10. ‘Greeks, using a similar word, name cisthon a shrub larger than thyme, with leaves like basil.’

11. According to Fuchs (1542) the name refers to Saponaria (soapwort): the identification is compatible with the figure in Diosc. Vind. (f. 294), although Mattioli (1568) holds that Fuchs’ identification conflicts with the description provided by Dioscorides (1499); in H.Aldr. (vol. 1, f. 353) the specimen named ‘Radicula lanaria. Struthium aliys’ is Silene latifolia subsp. alba (Miller) Greuter et Burdet (Soldano 2000–2005).

12. ‘what plant is Alcibium, I was unable to find by the authorities’.

13. Collenucio affirms to know the plant from having seen it around Venice, ‘et pictum vidimus et herbariorum narratione didicimus’ (Collenucius 1493).

14. In Diosc. Vind. (f. 224) and Diosc. Neap. (f. 96) it has been identified with S. vulgaris (Moench.) Garke (De Luca et al. 2013b); the specimen in H.Aldr. (vol. 1, f. 390) is S. italica (L.) Pers. (Soldano 2000–2005).

15. ‘Μήκων αφρώδες … φύλλα μικρά στρουθίω εοικότα.’

16. ‘whose leaves, if observed from some distance, look like birds’.

17. ‘Μήκον Ηρακλεία … τό μέν φύλλον έχουσα οίον στρουθός.’

18. Cristofolini and Mossetti (1998) noted that the name ‘Saxifraga’, in the literature of the late Middle Ages, covered no less than six or seven different species (including a fern), only linked by the property of eliminating kidney stones.

19. The identification at the species level seems problematic, but Mattioli (1565, p. 943–944) and H.Aldr. (vol. 7, f. 47) leave little doubt as to the genus.

20. ‘According to Dioscorides, and other influential physicians, and as confirmed by Plinius himself, the Cyclamen root is so harmful that a pregnant woman who happens to walk on the ground where it is growing will miscarry’ (Leonicenus 1492).

21. ‘Its flower looks like the scorpion’s tail.’

22. ‘it is also called scorpiuron … its seed is shaped like the scorpion’s tail, hence its name’. The same plant is also mentioned in XII.17, under the name ‘herba scorpio’.

23. ‘Fragra’ is an unusual spelling for ‘fraga’, maintained by Leoniceno also in the 1509 edition. It does not seem to have been used by any other authority.

24. ‘Everybody knows Quinquefolium, since it is also appreciated because it yields strawberries.’

25. In the occasion of a celebrated (Santoro 1956) visit to a pharmacy in Venice (‘est Venetiis in eo vico quem speciarium vocant: seplasiarii cuiusdam non ignobilis taberna’), Collenuccio referred that: ‘In ea liber est herbarium … in eo picta vidimus … herbam foliis quinque ut pinximus prorectiores angulos sinuatosque haberet: et fructos quos fraga dicas: tum ad ipsam herbam latinum nomen Sanicula’. Clearly, the anonymous herbalist cited by Collenuccio as a reliable reference was very approximate or imaginative in providing details, since the fruit of Sanicula does not in any way resemble a strawberry.

26. To support this identification, see also Dioscorides (IV.6), Diosc. Neap. (f. 89) and Mattioli (1565, p. 955).

27. ‘I don’t see why, when naming any herb growing in Italy, we should follow the Foreigner or the Greek, rather than Pliny, born and educated in Italy.’

28. ‘Iasine unum folium habet, sed ita implicatum ut plura videantur’ [Iasine has only one petal, that is folded up in such a way to appear as numerous petals] (XXI.65).

29. Also in H.Aldr. (10.108) there is a specimen of Convolvulus elegantissimus Miller named ‘Jasione Plinii, Helxine’, a synonym that leads us back to the preceding point.

30. The image of Arction in Diosc. Vind. (f. 43) is absolutely obscure; it was interpreted as Verbascum sp. (Mazel, in Dioscorides 1998–1999), but this identification is not convincing.

31. The images and the descriptions of ‘Arction’ in Mattioli (1565, p. 1154) and Leennius (1552, p. 565) represent Arctium minus (Hill) Bernh.

32. ‘Chamaedaphne grows with a single shoot, about two feet tall, its leaves are thinner than laurel, seeds are red, inserted on the leaves.’

33. There is some doubt about this identification; the image of Chamaedaphne in Diosc. Vind. (f. 379) has also been interpreted as Danae racemosa (L.) Moench (Mazel, in Dioscorides 1998–1999).

34. The synonymy is corroborated by Diosc. Neap. (f. 21), where the images of ‘αιρα’ [aira] represent a species of Lolium; the image in Diosc. Vind. (f. 71), on the contrary, is ambiguous due to the presence, on the spikelets, of an awn that might suggest a species of Bromus (brome grass). The synonymy is accepted also by Ruelle (1552, p. 220).

35. As an example, the image as well as the description of ‘Nardo Celtico’ of Mattioli (1568, p. 36–37) corresponds to Valeriana celtica L. or V. saliunca All., but in H.Aldr. (vol. 2, f. 313) a specimen of Primula farinosa L. is named ‘Nardus celtica Matth.’

36. ‘Saliunca, with rather short leaves … [is] a herb rather than a flower, compact as if it had been pressed in the hand, forming a peculiar short shoot.’

37. ‘nowadays it is priced like gold’.

38. This identification is corroborated by Diosc. Vind. (f. 305) and is accepted both by Mattioli (1565, p. 483) and H.Aldr. (vol. 7, f. 113) (Soldano 2000–2005).

39. See H.Aldr. (vol. 7, f. 113): Sium maius. Crateva Dodon. Sium verum Diosc. Dalech. Silaum Plinij quibusd.

40. ‘Silaus grows on the gravel of perennial creeks, about two feet tall, and is similar to marshwort.’

41. In the inventory of Leoniceno’s library (Mugnai Carrara 1991) there is only one entry (A 168) indicating an unidentified volume of Plinius, presumably the Naturalis Historia. The Historia had been printed repeatedly in the fifteenth century (for the first time in Venice, by Giovanni da Spira, in 1469).

42. Plinius repeatedly cited (XVI.20; XX.50; XX.84) Sextius Niger, a pharmacologist during the reign of Augustus, that was cited by Dioscorides as well. A derivation of both authors from Sextius cannot be excluded.

43. ‘Collenuccius, although a jurist by profession, displays both a wider knowledge of the Natural History itself and better acquaintance with plants and nature than does Pliny’s critic, Leonicenus, who was a physician.’

44. ‘Knowing plants appears almost impossible nowadays, because their original names are unknown to us.’