What are herbals and what are they for? When was the Padua herbal compiled? Using examples from the Padua Herbal, this gallery tells the many stories of the plants and of the people who collected them.

The first herbals date back to the mid-sixteenth century. They have pages to be turned like books, but dried plants are glued to these pages. From the mid-eighteenth century, with Linnaeus, the herbal developed into a set of samples on single sheets of paper then placed in a cabinet. The herbal as we know it today shows the scientific name of the species, the name of the collector, the place and date of collection. Found in botanical gardens all over the world, herbals are an endless source of information regarding the plants of yesterday and today.

The Padua herbal was established in 1835, three centuries after the foundation of the botanical garden. It was initiated by Scientific Director, Giuseppe Antonio Bonato, who donated his own herbal and library to the University. Thanks to Bonato, the plants and books of his predecessor Giovanni Marsili were also donated. Botany is now an independent discipline from medicine and the herbal is acknowledged as an indispensable tool for the study of plants. Over the years, the collection has grown, reaching the current 700,000 entries, which make the Padua herbal one of the most important in Italy.

One herbal worthy of note is the collection assembled by artist Luigi Tibertelli, known by his alias Filippo de Pisis. He was born in Ferrara in 1896 and at an early age he developed a passion for life sciences, collecting shells, butterflies, minerals, and plants on long walks. Before he was even twenty years old, de Pisis had assembled a herbal of about 1,200 entries, with plants collected in Emilia Romagna, Veneto and Tuscany. Next to each plant, the young man added sketches and comments. In 1917, the artist donated his herbal to Padua botanical garden.

Herbals help us understand the intense relationship between art and nature. On one hand, paintings and frescoes are filled with plants, often acquiring allegorical, symbolic, mythological, and religious meanings. They were used to explain a character, associating them with a plant through codified symbology. For example, honeysuckle denotes loyalty. Saint Anthony is accompanied by a lily, whose whiteness suggests purity and goodness.

On the other hand, illustration has always been a fundamental aspect of botany and medicine. The herbal gallery closes with a selection of ancient specialist texts accompanied by an interactive table, allowing us to explore the illustrated history of Western botany, medicine and anatomy in twelve stages: from Antiquity to the eighteenth century, taking in Padua and its University.