The New Herbal

The Dedication and Mandrake are free to read. The rest is for Club members: create a free account before January 1, 2027 and confirm your email, and you are a Charter Member, with every part, for good. Join the Club.

A first English translation, made for the press from the first edition and read here by Club members. It is the text alone: the commentary and the notes are for the printed edition.

The edition

Castore Durante, Herbario nuovo. Rome: Bartholomeo Bonfadino and Tito Diani, 1585. The first edition, read from the page images of the John Carter Brown Library’s copy; each part gives its pages.

The text

Translated from the page images, not from the machine-read text, which runs the two columns together. Durante’s Latin verses are given as he printed them, each followed by an English rendering; his headings (Names, Kinds, Form, Place, Quality, Virtues) are kept. Of the eight hundred and more chapters, this first selection holds the dedication and ten plants, in the order of the book. No English translation of the Herbario nuovo is known to the press; the English book of Durante’s that exists, A Treasure of Health (1686), is a translation of his other work, Il tesoro della sanità. See the scanned book.

Rights

Durante’s Italian text is in the public domain. The English translation is the press’s own work.

Copyright

English translation © 2026 B. C. P. Statema and The Thinking Press. All rights reserved. No part of this translation may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted without the written permission of the press.