Nicolas Monardes, John Frampton and the Medical Wonders of the New World

The Spanish discovery of the new world produced not only a supply of precious metals but of rare plants apt for study as potential drugs and the means to miraculous new cures. Early among those who pursued these botanical novelties was Nicolas Monardes of Seville, who collected, studied, catalogued, grew and integrated them into his medical practice. After many years, he wrote a singular treatise which was translated into several languages including English and Latin in several spirits at once: a botanical collection; a book of Pharmaceutical simples; a treatise on miraculous cures; a book of wonders; and a work promoting the commercial exploitation of overseas resources. These diverse rhetorical aspects become even more apparent in the work's translation into English by the merchant-trader John Frampton of Bristol. Monardes' treatise is not only scientific in its import, but a print culture phenomenon revealing how the new instruments for the mass dissemination of astonishing new data could reconstruct the popular imagination.