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Book of the Month

Paradisi in sole, paradisus terrestris - April 2005

Paradisi in sole, paradisus terrestris : or, a choice garden of all sorts of rarest flowers, with their nature, place of birth, time of flowering, names, and vertues to each plant, useful in physick, or admired for beauty. To which is annext a kitchen-garden furnished with all manner of herbs, roots, and fruits, for meat or sawce used with us. With the art of planting an orchard of all sorts of fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, shewing the nature of grafting, inoculating and pruning of them. Together with the right ordering, planting and preserving of them, with their select vertues ... London : printed by R.N. and are to be sold by Richard Thrale at his shop at the signe of the Cross-Keys at S. Pauls-gate, going into Cheap-side, 1656. [Rare Books Collection FOL. QK41. PAR]

by Hugh Cahill, Senior Information Assistant, Foyle Special Collections Library

Book of the month archive

Portrait of John Parkinson, from: Theatrum botanicum: the theater of plants, or, an herball of a large extent. London : Printed by Tho. Cotes, 1640. [Rare Books Collection FOL. QK41. PAR]

While much had been published about gardening in English by the beginning of the seventeenth century, Paradisi in sole was a landmark in English garden literature. Henrey has called it the "earliest important treatise on horticulture published in England", while the Hunt catalogue describes it as "a very complete picture of the English garden at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and in such delightful, homely, literary style that gardeners cherish it even to the present day." Its title is a pun on the name of its author, John Parkinson (1566-1650) and can be translated as "Park-in-sun's earthly paradise". By profession Parkinson was an apothecary and when the Society of Apothecaries was formed, in December 1617, he was one of its founding members. He was active within his profession and was well respected; he served on the governing body of the Society of Apothecaries, the Court of Assistants, and was involved in obtaining a grant of arms for the Society and in drawing up a schedule of all medicines which should be stocked by an apothecary. He was also one of the apothecaries whom the College of Physicians consulted during the compilation of the first Pharmacopoeia Londinensis.

Endive, pictured in: Paradisi in sole, paradisus terrestris ... London : printed by R.N. and are to be sold by Richard Thrale at his shop at the signe of the Cross-Keys at S. Pauls-gate, going into Cheap-side, 1656.[Rare Books Collection FOL. SB97 PAR]

In 1622 he left the Court of Assistants, and took no more part in the administrative affairs of his profession but concentrated on tending his garden in Long Acre. Little is known about Parkinson's garden but clues in his writings and the writings of others have led John Riddell to suggest that it was at least two acres in size and that it was probably walled. Riddell's research has found that 484 types of plant are recorded as having been grown in Parkinson's garden. He was one of the most eminent gardeners of his day and maintained close relationships with other important botanists, herbalists and plantsmen, such as William Coys, John Gerard, whom he knew personally and John Tradescant the elder, who was a close friend of his. He also maintained strong links with eminent continental gardeners and herbalists, such as Vespasian Robin and Maathias de L'Obel (Lobelius). Indeed, Lobelius frequently mentioned the Long Acre garden and praised Parkinson's abilities in his own writings.

By Parkinson's time gardens were no longer only about producing food or medicines but also about pleasure.This fact is reflected Paradisi in sole. Parkinson devotes by far the largest section of the book to the "garden of pleasure" describing his task as having "selected and sat forth a Garden of all the chiefest for choyce, and fairest for shew, from among all the severall Tribes and Kindreds of Natures beauty". In his introduction we see that Parkinson is a pious man who sees the botanical world as an expression of divine creation. He takes great pleasure in the beauty of plants and believes that in the garden man can recapture something of Eden. However, the short poem in French at the foot of the title page warns the gardener against hubris and in having excessive regard for his efforts, for whoever tries to compare Art with Nature and gardens with Eden "measures the stride of the elephant by the stride of the mite and the flight of the eagle by that of the gnat".

Parkinson described Paradisi in sole as a "speaking garden" and he dedicated it to Queen Henrietta Maria, for which Charles I gave him the title of Botanicus Regius Primarius (first botanist to the King). He divided it into three sections, dealing with the flower-garden, the kitchen-garden and the orchard respectively. Over a thousand plants are described with the origin, time of flowering, variant names and medicinal properties given for each. Parkinson does not include specific growing instructions for each type of plant but he does include instructions on "ordering" each type of garden at the start of each main section, giving advice on such matters as situating a garden, layout (with diagrams), soil improvement, grafting, tools to be employed, planting and sowing and the types of plants that should be included in each type of garden.

Nearly 800 plants are illustrated in 108 full-page plates. Most of the woodcuts are original and were made by the German artist, Christopher Switzer, but others seem to have been copied from the works of Lobelius, Clusius and the Hortus Floridus of Crispin de Passe. The most striking illustration is the title page depicting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We see Adam and Eve gathering food beneath a canopy of fruit trees, vines, giant cyclamens, lilies and carnations. In the background we glimpse the mythical Scythian or "vegetable" lamb growing from a central stalk attached to its stomach. Thought by some to provide a link between animals and plants, the Scythian lamb was an animal that was reputed to have flesh that tasted like fish, blood that tasted like honey, and golden wool. It was also supposed to grow and propagate itself like a plant, being attached to the ground by a stalk that would bend down to allow it to graze. Legend has it that it died when it had eaten the vegetation that surrounded it. However, other versions recount several lambs growing from the same stalk and breaking off and running away when the food ran out. The legend probably arose from confusion over classical accounts of the cotton plant. The other woodcuts in the book are unremarkable but Agnes Arber credits them with being innovative for including a number of species in one large woodcut.

Adam and Eve in Eden with the Scythian Lamb in the background, from: Paradisi in sole, paradisus terrestris ... London : printed by R.N. and are to be sold by Richard Thrale at his shop at the signe of the Cross-Keys at S. Pauls-gate, going into Cheap-side, 1656. [Rare Books Collection FOL. SB97 PAR]

Double Daffodil picture in: Paradisi in sole, paradisus terrestris ... London : printed by R.N. and are to be sold by Richard Thrale at his shop at the signe of the Cross-Keys at S. Pauls-gate, going into Cheap-side, 1656. [Rare Books Collection FOL. SB97 PAR]

In his opening address to the reader in Paradisi in sole Parkinson promised a fourth section on simples. This eventually evolved into Parkinson's second major work, Theatrum Botanicum, which was published in 1640 and contained descriptions of some 3800 plants and their medicinal properties. As in Paradisi in sole, Parkinson's displays his knowledge of the relevant authorities, by making extensive references to the works of other authors. Theatrum Botanicum uses the botanical nomenclature developed in Caspar Bauhin's Pinax and also makes extensive use of manuscript notes left by Maathias de L'Obel, who had spent the final years of his life in Highgate supervising the gardens of Edward, eleventh Baron Zouche.

Parkinson's works were based upon careful observation and an extensive knowledge of the botanical literature of his day. He decries a number of botanical myths, such as hanging sprigs of mistletoe around the necks of children to ward off the Devil. In Paradisi in sole he condemned the superstitions surrounding Mandrake root, a point he returned to in Theatrum Botanicum, writing that:

Mandrakes and Womandrakes, as they are foolishly so called, which have been exposed to publicke view both in ours and other lands and countries, are utterly deceitful, being the work of cunning Knaves onely to get money by their forgery

Yet, he accepts other myths without question and also can be inconsistent. He states in Theatrum Botanicum that the use of herbs against witchcraft is foolishness, yet elsewhere he gives a recipe for a potion that will do just that. He praises the properties of unicorn horn, gives the medicinal properties of the moss that is found growing on the skulls of executed criminals, accepts the myth of the Scythian lamb (which appears in both his major works)and discusses the uses of various herbs as amulets.

Parkinson was not just interested in growing plants but actively sought new varieties through his contacts abroad and by financing William Boel's plant hunting expedition to Iberia and North Africa in 1607-1608. He was responsible for the introduction of seven new plants into England and was the first gardener in England to grow the great double yellow Spanish daffodil. He was not only interested in exotic species but paid close attention to native flora and was the first to describe 33 native plants, thirteen of which grew near his home in Middlesex. Surprisingly, some of the plants he was first to describe were very common such as the Welsh Poppy, the Strawberry Tree and the Lady's Slipper, but had gone unnoticed, or at least unrecorded by his predecessors.

Parkinson died in the summer of 1650, and was buried at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 6 August. Both he and Paradisi in sole continued to be remembered long after his death. He is commemorated in the Central American genus of leguminous trees Parkinsonia and Paradisi in sole inspired the writer of children's books, Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841-1885), to write the story Mary's meadow, which first appeared in Aunt Judy's Magazine from November 1883 to March 1884. This story is based upon children reading Parkinson's Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris and then creating their own garden. The story was well received and the magazine received much correspondence about it and in July 1884, it was suggested that a Parkinson Society should be formed. The objects of the society were to:

to search out and cultivate old garden flowers which have become scarce; to exchange seeds and plants; to plant waste places with hardy flowers; to circulate books on gardening amongst the Members ... [and] to try to prevent the extermination of rare wild flowers, as well as of garden treasures.

The copy of this work at the Foyle Special Collections Library is the second edition of 1656 and although the title page says it has been was revised and enlarged it is substantially the same as the first edition of 1629. It was donated by Douglas Charles Harrod (1910-1994), a former Senior lecturer in Pharmacy at King's who greatly enriched the College's collections of herbals, pharmacopoeias, formularies, and botanical works. An electronic version of the second edition of Paradisi in sole is available via EEBO (Early English Books Online). It requires an Athens password and is restricted to King's users.

Further reading

F.J. Anderson. An illustrated history of the herbals. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. [Science Store QK15 AND]

Agnes Arber. Herbals, 3rd. ed.Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1986. [Science Store QK15 ARB]

Blanche Henrey. British botanical and horticultural literature before 1800 : comprising a history and bibliography of botanical and horticultural books printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland from the earliest times until 1800. London : Oxford University Press , 1975. [Franklin-Wilkins QK21.G7 HEN]

Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt. Catalogue of botanical books in the collection of Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt. New York : Maurizio Martino, [1991]

John Riddell. "John Parkinson's Long Acre garden 1600-1650", Journal of Garden History, Vol. 6, no.2, 1986, pp.112-124.

E.S. Rohde. The old English herbals. London : Longmans, Green and Co., 1922. [Science Store QK21.G7 ROH]

Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi. An Oak Spring flora : flower illustration from the fifteenth century to the present time : a selection of the rare books, manuscripts, and works of art in the collection of Rachel Lambert Mellon. Upperville, Va. : Oak Spring Garden Library ; New Haven : Distributed by Yale University Press, 1997.

Also of interest

John Abercrombie. Every man his own gardener: Being a new, and much more complete gardener's kalendar than any one hitherto published, containing not only an account of what work is necessary to be done in the kitchen and fruit garden, pleasure ground, flower garden and shrubbery ; nursery, green-house, and hot-house, for every month in the year, but also ample directions for performing the said work ... London : printed for J. F. and C. Rivington ..., 1782. [Rare books Collection.SB46. M44 ]

Stephen Clarke. Hortus Anglicus, or, The modern English garden ... London : Printed for F.C. & J. Rivington, 1822. [Early Science Collection QK306 CLA]

Richard North. The Gardener, planter, and seedman's catalogue. [London] : [W. Prat?] , 1759. [Rare Books Collection SB197 NOR]

John Parkinson. Theatrum botanicum: the theater of plants, or, an herball of a large extent .... London : Printed by Tho. Cotes , 1640. [Rare Books Collection FOL. QK41 PAR]

John Worlidge. Dictionarium rusticum & urbanicum, or, A dictionary of all sorts of country affairs, handicraft, trading, and merchandizing ... : Illustrated with cuts of all sorts of nets, traps, engines, &c. Containing more particularly: The whole art of gardening, viz. sowing, setting, grafting, transplanting, salleting, &c. with the names, descriptions, and uses, of all kinds of plants, flowers, and fruits ... London : Printed for J. Nicholson, 1704. [Rare Books Collection PE1689 D56 ]