The earliest herbaria appeared in the times of manuscripts. The problem of handwritten herbaria was that without the exact image of a plant, based only on a verbal description, it was difficult to determine its appearance. Different names in different languages complicated the situation even more. The image accuracy depended on the talent and imagination of the artist who illustrated the new copy of a manuscript. The invention of printing changed the situation drastically. Printed images were identical, so their accuracy was certain. Scientific illustrations were extremely important for herbaria; this explains why many botanical publications originated in Germany, i.e., the acclaimed centre of woodcut production and the country where Albrecht Dürer worked when he created the standard for realistic images of animals and plants.

The new type of a botanical text that appeared in Germany was the ‘Herbarius’ published in Mainz; it was followed by a concise ‘Hortus sanitatis’ in German and an extended ‘Hortus sanitatis’ in Latin. The preface to the ‘Herbarius’ reads that the book is for those people who do not have money for doctors and medicine so that they can use herbs that are easy to find in gardens, forests and meadows. It is not at all surprising that this book went through many editions.

The extended ‘Hortus sanitatis’ includes over 1000 articles describing plants, animals, birds, fish, minerals, as well as their medicinal properties. This reference book was a medieval encyclopaedia of sorts. The woodcuts that accompany the text depict 530 species of plants, 164 species of animals, 122 species of birds, 106 species of fish, and 144 types of minerals. Some of the engravings at the beginning of the book are hand-painted.