The History of Mycological Illustration

 

1560
1st published image of a fungus where it is possible to identify the genus
Plate: Agaricum [woodcut]

Mattioli, Pietro Andrea, 1500-1577.
Commentarii secundo aucti, in libros sex Pedacii Dioscoridis, Anazarbei de medica materia : adiectis quamplurimis plantarum, & animalium imaginibus, quć in priore editione non habentur …

[Venetiis : in officina Valgrisiana, 1554, 1560 printing.]

Image Courtesy of the Library of the Arnold Arboretum

 

Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1500-1577), an Italian physician and herbalist, served as the personal physician to Emperor Maximilian of Austria. In his herbal Commentarii in libros sex Pedacii Discoridis... (1560) he published the first fungi illustrations that can be identified with confidence, that of Agaricum as well as an illustration of black and white truffles.

Previous image - 1491, First published illustration of a fungus
Next image - 1601, First full monograph written on fungi

 

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