The Badianus manuscript, also referred to as the Codex de la Cruz Badiano
The Badianus manuscript, also referred to as the Codex de la Cruz Badiano, was penned by Martín de la Cruz, a Náhua healer, and it did not fare much better than Hernández’s writings. It was a little red volume kept at the Vatican library. Less than thirty years had passed since Tenochtitlan fell when the book was written, and by then the Spanish had taught an entire generation of Náhuas to read and write in Náhuatl using an alphabetic version of the language.
28. 2. 2024 De la Cruz was one among them; he recorded his knowledge of the flora in his nation and their customs using the new writing. Another native man named Juan [sometimes Joannes] Badiano was hired to transcribe the work into Latin and give it the Latin title Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis (The book of Indian medicinal plants, 1552). He was a professor at the Colegio de Santa Cruz in the area.
The book was meant to be a present for the Spanish king, who would not have been able to read the language of his recently acquired subjects despite the fact that the Spanish had imposed Latin as the language of instruction and medicine. The completed book was stored at the Spanish royal library at the Escorial, a large palace outside of Madrid, and contained around 200 exquisite colored images of Mexican plants.
It was transferred to the Vatican collection from Cardinal Francesco Barberini’s library in the seventeenth century, when it was given still another name, the Codex Barberini. The book wasn’t generally studied until it was rediscovered in the 1920s, at which point an English translation was created. Originally praised as the only “Aztec” herbal that was known not to be “contaminated” by European herbal and medicinal tradition, it was later disregarded by scholars as a slavish replica of European herbals of the era and a derivative.
The truth rested somewhere between these assertions: while it is evident that the native team was familiar with European herbals (Pliny is even listed as an authority at one point), more recent research indicates that the book represents a sophisticated synthesis of indigenous and European knowledge. For instance, there are several instances of pre-conquest beliefs and customs strewn throughout the book, and many of the drawings feature glyphs, the ancient symbols used to write Náhuatl.
It may seem strange that the Catholic priests who oversaw the Colegio de Santa Cruz trained people they considered to be pagan to document beliefs the Spanish must have considered superstitions, but the year Columbus arrived in America also saw the beginning of a brief shift in the Church’s unwavering antipathy towards magic, thanks to a new pope named Alexander VI. A resurgence of interest in natural magic and the discovery of old, occult texts were common during the Renaissance.
Rather of disregarding or erasing Native American magical knowledge, many Europeans actively sought it out as a result of their renewed fascination with the idea of manipulating nature through natural magic as a result of the New World and its amazing new species. For this reason, in the 1540s, Bernardino de Sahagún, a Franciscan missionary, instructed his students—among them Martín de la Cruz at the Colegio de Santa Cruz at Tlatelco—to begin documenting all of the information they could find regarding traditional plant knowledge, cures, and medicines. Many of the important manuscripts detailing the plants of the New World did make it to a Renaissance readership, despite the fact that others were lost or forgotten for decades.
Carolus Clusius, also known as Charles L’Écluse, translated texts written in languages that few other Europeans could read, such Portuguese or Spanish, into Latin, which was still the official language of education on the continent at the time. Nicolás Monardes’ book on New World medicines, Simplicium Medicamentorum ex Novo Orbe Delatorum (Medicinal simples herbs from the New World explained), was one of them. It was printed in Antwerp in 1579 by Christopher Plantin, another renowned Renaissance printer.
After that, the novel was translated into numerous colloquial languages, including English. Clusius had been a part of the courts of Holy Roman Emperors Rudolf II and Maximilian II, who were both enthralled with the various marvels of the New World. Clusius gathered large collections with their assistance, which he brought back to the Netherlands when he was appointed professor at the University of Leiden. Many colleges established physic or medicine gardens—the precursors to botanic gardens to teach their students about the medicinal qualities of plants as part of the European tendency toward augmenting textbook learning with hands-on experience. Universities then began employing eminent naturalists, and the Leiden professors convinced Clusius to assist in the development of the city’s botanical garden.
With the assistance of the Dutch East India Company, he was able to acquire various exotic plants, including those from the Dutch East Indies, which he planted. But the commanders of their ships proved to be less helpful than the Holy Roman Emperors had been, so in order to obtain specimens and information, he started to establish broad networks of correspondence with scholars, merchants, and travelers.
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