Flora: The Aztec Herbal

The album published here is Cassiano's copy of the Codex Badianus, a remarkable herbal of Aztec plants and medicine prepared for the Viceroy of Mexico in 1552 and presented to Cassiano's patron, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, during a papal legation to Spain in 1626. The earliest medical text and herbal known to have been written in the New World, the Codex Badianus was copied on the Cardinal's return to Rome for Cassiano's fellow members of the Accademia dei Lincei, engaged at that time in completing their own vast illustrated natural history of Central America, the Tesoro Messicano (based on the notes and illustrations collected in Mexico by Francisco Hernandez).