{"id":37529,"date":"2013-06-19T12:40:59","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T16:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nybg.org\/plant-talk\/?p=37529"},"modified":"2013-06-19T12:57:24","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T16:57:24","slug":"humble-turnip-stands-tall-at-mertz-library-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/2013\/06\/exhibit-news\/humble-turnip-stands-tall-at-mertz-library-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Humble Turnip Stands Tall at Mertz Library Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joyce H. Newman holds a Certificate in Horticulture from The New York Botanical Garden<\/a> and has been a Tour Guide for over seven years. She is the former editor of Consumer Reports GreenerChoices.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Turnip\"<\/a>A fascinating showcase of rare, stunningly illustrated books\u2014dating from medieval and Renaissance times\u2014is now open to the public in the Rondina and LoFaro Gallery at the Mertz Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dozens of amazing works on display, called \u201cHerbals,\u201d contain some of the earliest ever recorded descriptions of plants in Western civilization, written by European botanists, physicians, historians, and clergy. Exhibitions Coordinator Mia D\u2019Avanza<\/a> explains how the exhibit was first conceived more than two years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a curatorial team from the Library that changes with each show, and often we choose a knowledgeable curator from outside the Garden who is an expert in the subject of that exhibition\u2026. Our curator for this show, Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi<\/a>, an art historian at Italy\u2019s University of Pisa, advised us as we chose works from the Library\u2019s collection and described their significance.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One such work includes a lovely image of a turnip (Brassica rapa<\/i>), also featured on an eight-foot-tall poster placed just outside the gallery entrance. The image is from Otto Brunfels\u2019 <\/span>Contrafayt Kre\u00fcterb\u00fcch (1532-37), <\/i>which can be seen inside a glass case with other German herbals. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Herbal-4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is rare to see the humble turnip presented so beautifully,\u201d says D\u2019Avanza. \u201cIn the text corresponding to the drawing, Brunfels writes that the turnip can be ingested against poison and snakebites, or cooked and mashed to heal feet that have been damaged by the cold.\u201d Who knew? Turnip lovers be amazed.<\/p>\n

D\u2019Avanza says it\u2019s hard for her to pick a favorite from among so many wonderful books, but like many others she is \u201cvery partial\u201d to Leonhart Fuchs\u2019 De Historia Stirpium<\/i> (1542) for the beauty of the plant illustrations and the portrait of Fuchs himself.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Fuchs\"<\/a>\u201cI love seeing how authors choose to depict themselves in their works, and Fuchs seems to be slightly smiling as he stands in his fur robe and tights with a flower in hand. He doesn\u2019t\u00a0 look stern like some others do in their portraits. He looks pleased and relaxed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides his wonderful portrait, Fuchs\u2019 work\u2014as well as Brunfel\u2019s turnip\u2014exemplify the impact of the invention of printing on the spread of botanical knowledge throughout Europe. The printing press made possible the efficient mass-production of books. These botanical texts were among the first to be printed in the vernacular in addition to Latin, making them useful to a wide range of readers.<\/span><\/p>\n

In many ways this exhibit proves that knowing the healing powers of plants was just as popular thousands of years ago as it is today. To see more from The Renaissance Herbal<\/em>, you can view a slideshow here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The gallery show is part of the <\/em>Wild Medicine exhibition at NYBG and is drawn from the manuscript collections of the Garden’s Mertz Library, the largest botanical and horticultural library in the world. To learn more, visit the exhibition page<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From counteracting poisons to warming feet, ancient botanical tomes offer unique takes on common plants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":37656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3,1346],"tags":[3334,3333,3330,3332,453,3331,3335],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/brunfels_IVO5366_for-web.jpeg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ph0lU-9Lj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37529"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37529"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37692,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37529\/revisions\/37692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}