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1580

MONARDES, NICOLAS. Joyfull newes out of the new found worlde, wherein are declared the rare and singular vertues of divers and sundrie herbs, trees, oyles, plants, & stones... Englished by John Frampton. London: William Norton, 1580.

Nicolas B. Monardes (1493-1588) was born in Seville, the son of an Italian bookseller. Receiving his medical degree in 1547, he served the European community by publicizing many of the newly discovered medicinal plants from America. Monardes never went to America, but was able to study the medicinal plants from that continent in his native city which controlled the navigation and commerce between Spain and the New World. He established a botanical garden in Seville where he cultivated and studied the effects of most of the imported drugs. His work on American drugs entitled Two Books...about the Drugs from the West Indies used in Medicine, Seville, 1565, was reprinted, enlarged and translated many times. Monardes included in his herbal one of the first illustrations of tobacco, coca, sunflower, passion-flower, guava, sarsaparilla, and balsam. This edition is the scarce English translation by John Frampton, enthusiastically entitled Joyfull Newes out of the New Found Worlde.

Nicolas Monardes never went to America, but he was able to study medicinal plants from that continent in his botanical garden in Seville, a city which controlled navigation from Spain to the New World.