Johannes de Cuba

Johann von Wonnecke Caub or Johannes de Cuba (1430-1503), is the attributed author of an early printed book on natural history, first published in 1485, then revised and expanded in 1491.

Publications

De animalibus vitam in terris ducentium references superstitious medicinal practices. This diagram shows the extraction of a toadstone to treat someone who has been poisoned.

The book first appeared in German under the title of Gart der Gesundheit (1485), printed in the workshop of Peter Schöffer, then was translated into Latin and expanded under the title of Hortus sanitatis (1491), edited by Jacob von Meydenbach. Contrary to some historians, it is probably not a translation of Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarius (1484), but an original work of a much larger scope.

It was translated into French in 1500 under the title of Jardin de santé : herbes, arbres et choses qui de iceuly coqueurent et conviennet a lusage de medecine.

Hortus sanitatis is divided into several treatises:

• De Herbis, the best-known, deals with plants and their medical use. It has 530 chapters.
• De animalibus vitam in terris ducentium, which deals with land animals has 164 chapters.
• De Avibus, which deals with birds (as the title suggests) and flying animals in general; as it also mentions bats and flying insects.
• De Piscibus has 106 chapters on fish and sea monsters (including mermaid illustrations).
• De lapidibus has 144 chapters on gemstones.
• Tractatus de Urinis concerns the historic medical practice of uroscopy.

Themes in his works

This work has an obvious medical orientation, including the sections on animals and certain minerals. The illustrations are sketchy although quite lifelike. These and the text will be repeatedly reused in other works, even if the scientific quality of the work is very poor. The author uncritically reproduces many legends, such as the tree of life and coiled snakes; De animalibus vitam in terris ducentium, in addition to references regarding genuine fauna, replaces a variant of the mythical centaur with an onocentaure, a man with a donkey's head.

Personal life

Little is known of the life of Cuba. He was probably a doctor in Frankfurt.