The de la Cruz - Badiano Aztec Herbal of 1552: Translation and Commentary

The present volume contains the full text, in English version, with all the figures of the plants, as found in the original manuscript, which as Codex Barberini, Latin 241, has remained in the Library and archives of the Vatican since the time of that Cardinal Barberini from whom it holds its Vatican reference number, and of whose interest in the many forms of natural history much has come down to us, even including the naming after him of a magnificent cardinal colored flower, by the botanists of his time. The manuscript itself was prepared as a tribute to the son of the then Viceroy of Mexico, in 1552, by two pupils, both then in the college at Tlatilulco; one of these, named Martin de la Cruz, having received his knowledge of medical plant values from the old men of his race, and to whom at base we owe the treatise; and the other, Juan Badiano, who owed his ‘ Latinity ’ to the great Sahagun himself.