1552
CRUZ, MARTIN. The Badianus
manuscript: (Codex Barberini) Vatican Library: an Aztec herbal of
1552. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1940.
The Badianus Manuscript is a sixteenth-century Mexican herbal
composed in the year 1552 in the College of Santa Cruz at Tlaltelco,
Mexico City. The principal author of the manuscript was Martin de la
Cruz. The second author was Juannes Badianus, whose signature appears in
the postscript at the end of the last chapter. Both of these men were
Aztec Indians educated at the College of Santa Cruz.
The manuscript is a complete herbal consisting of sixty-three folios
approximately six by eight inches in size, clearly written in Latin and
Aztec. It is divided into thirteen chapters, each representing an
attempt to group maladies by either similar type or similar location in
the body. The first eight chapters follow the latter arrangement,
beginning with the head and continuing to the feet. The text is
exquisitely illustrated with pictures of 204 herbs and trees.
Cortez and others reported in Europe that the Aztecs were excellent
botanists. Their choice of plants, as described in the Badianus, gives
proof of a vast empirical knowledge of the effects of certain plants on
the human system.
In 1552 the Badianus was sent, as a gift, from Viceroy Don
Francisco de Mendoza to King Charles V. A herbal, containing the secrets
of Aztec medicine, was an invaluable gift promising good health and
longevity. Unfortunately, history does not record whether Charles V or
his personal physician Andreas Vesalius ever had the opportunity to read
his gift. Charles V died at age 58 in 1558.
The Badianus Manuscript was discovered in 1929 in the Vatican
Library by a historian, Professor Charles M. Clark. In 1931, Dr. Clark
brought the manuscript to the attention of Dr. William Welch of Johns
Hopkins University. In 1940 Johns Hopkins Press published this facsimile
edition of the Badianus Manuscript.
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