Acosta's Treatise on medicinal plants (1585)
Cristóbal Acosta (ca.1515-1592). Trattato ... della historia, natvra, et virtv delle droghe medicinali: & altri semplici rarissime, che vengono portati dalle Indie Orientali in Europa. Venetia: F. Ziletti, 1585.
After the collapse of the Roman empire, the elephant disappeared from the western world and became the stuff of legend and myth. It was not until the 15th and 16th centuries, when the Portuguese opened up the main sea routes around Africa to India, that Europeans again became familiar with the elephant. Along with silk, spices, and exotic plants, ships returned home with elephants. As more and more people came in contact with the elephant, previous bizarre ideas about the animal were corrected.
The invention of printing and the development of the graphic arts and copperplate engraving techniques facilitated the spread of information about the elephant throughout Europe. Two elephant illustrations from Acosta's Treatise on medicinal plants, which concludes with a short chapter on the Indian elephant, are shown here.