Dioscorides edition by Jean Du Ruel

Dioscorides and Jean Du Ruel, Paris, 1516 (Google Books)

In February 1664/5, Lister continued his reading of Dioscorides, turning to “Joan. Ruellius etc in Dioscordem.”  Jean du Ruel (1474-1537) was physician to King Francis I. He dedicated his botanical manuel De natura stirpium libri tres (Paris, 1536) to the monarch.  Ruel also produced a translation of Dioscorides from the Greek in 1516, the work published by Henri Estienne in Paris.

The great humanist Erasmus was a great admirer of Ruel, thinking him an outstanding representative of humanistic medicine in France. 1.

  1. Peter G. Bietenholz, Thomas Brian Deutscher, eds., Contemporaries of Erasmus: A biographical register of the Renaissance and Reformation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 415

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