Christian Egenolff, Herbarum, arborum, fruticum, frumentorum...
(Frankfurt, 1552)
Christian Egenolff, the publisher of this 16th century herbal book featuring 800 woodcuts of plants and animals, produced many popular illustrated books. He was not a botanical writer and the engravings in Herbarum, arborum were mostly pirated from other works. Egenolff was heavily criticised by his contemporaries for his many mistakes and was even sued for the breach of copyright. His defence was that plants can’t be copyrighted and belong to all.
Leonhart Fuchs wrote in the preface to his De historia stirpium (1542) that of all the then available herbals he knew, there were none which had "more of the crassest errors than those published by Egenolff".
In the College copy the Dutch names of some plants are supplied in a 17th century hand.
