Camões wrote:  "The fruit of that Garden where new plants bloom, unknown to scholars"

WHEN IT ALL HAPPENED... 

"Favour the ancient
Science which Achilles held in esteem;
Look, because you must see
What was created in our time
The fruit of a Garden* where
New plants bloom, unknown to scholars.
Look, how in your lifetime
A remarkable Garden produces many herbs
In the Lusitanian fields,
Herbs which those wise sorcerers
Medea and Circe never found,
Because the laws of Magic outwitted them."

*A pun on Garcia da Orta’s name.  ‘Orta’ or ‘horta’, from the Latin ‘hortus’,  also means ‘garden’.         

A  BOOK  TALKS  ABOUT  ITS  AUTHOR

I know it’s not normal – I mean, it usually happens the other way round – but I am the book of an author whose biography I am about to write.  It might seem strange, but the fact is that we books wander around our writers’ heads for so long that we end up knowing them inside out.  Of course, we are not like human beings.  For example, we are used to being named only after we have been printed.  (By the way, printing was invented a mere century ago and has already caused quite a stir amongst us.  Some books are jealous because they have not been printed and are still in manuscript form.  Others have been printed but wish they had remained as manuscripts.  After all, we live inside the heads and hearts of men, so we can’t help but take on some of their defects.)  My name, “Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India”, had been given to me a long time before I was printed, but that’s another story.  (“Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India” is actually an abbreviation of my full name – these days books come off the printing press with very long names, something my friend “The Illiad” will never get used to.)

My author is Garcia da Orta, a Portuguese doctor and New Christian.  His life begins in about 1500 in Castelo de Vide, Portugal, and ends in 1568 in Goa, India (where, in 1563, I am printed for the first time).  He is a descendant of Jews who are expelled from Spain in 1492 and flee to Portugal.

In 1497, King Manuel converts all Jews compulsorily to Christianity.  From then on, they are known as New Christians, a term which already exists in Castile and Aragon (although the situation is different there).  My author’s parents settle in Portugal and start to build a new life.  Garcia, for whom I am not yet even a twinkle in his eye, finishes his general education and then goes to Salamanca and Alcalá de Henares, Castile, where he studies medicine.

OLD AND NEW BOOKS

Garcia da Orta studies the medicinal plants.

Medicine is an interesting profession.  Since the time of the ancient Greeks, and Plato’s “Banquet” with whom I was talking the other day will not contradict me, nobody knows exactly where to place it.  It involves a certain amount of craft, manual dexterity and technical application.  At the same time, it demands a great knowledge of science and philosophy.  Ancient philosophy is often studied at university, especially Aristotle (incidentally, I nearly came to blows with “Physics” last week because he insists on calling me a “fruit of empiricism”).  In the part devoted to so-called medicine, Galen is studied side by side with Pliny’s “Natural History” (with whom I maintain a distant but cordial relationship) and Dioscorides (who can’t even bear the sight of me – he thinks I should have been thrown onto a bonfire.  No wonder –  you’ll soon see why).

Since the fall of Byzantium, just over a hundred years ago, Greek manuscripts of medical and philosophical texts have been turning up.  Until then, only Latin translations from the Arabic were used and these new versions, which seem to be closer to the originals, are provoking change.  A wave of scepticism about the consistency of the ancient wisdom is gaining force.  Of course, all this is taking place very cautiously and slowly.  In the worst hypothesis people and books are being burned at the stake and at best we have censorship to contend with.  (Amato Lusitano’s “The Centuries” recently told me that some pages had been inked over so that they could not be read.  Amongst them was one where the author related the case of a nun who became ill as a result of her repressed sexual desires.)  So it is not very easy for us, books which open up new horizons and go beyond the conclusions reached by the ancients.

RETURN TO PORTUGAL

In 1523, Garcia da Orta returns to Portugal, qualified to practise medicine.  He shares this phase of his life with other important personages.  The mathematician Pedro Nunes, also a New Christian, is one of his best friends.

In 1530, he is appointed Professor of Logic at Coimbra University. He has some difficulties in being accepted for the post and is rejected twice but, due to the influence of an uncle, Francisco da Orta, doctor of the future Cardinal Dom Henrique, he manages to secure the position.  That’s how things work in Portugal in those days!  His passion for knowledge of the real world ensures his success as a respected and beloved professor.  Garcia da Orta teaches his students the importance of studying the natural world, the value of observation, the value of the senses which perceive the new and the uncommon and, together with the intellect, enquire into and discover things that had never before been examined so thoroughly or accurately (it is not by chance that Aristotle’s “Physics” despises me so much).

In 1533, he becomes a Member of the University Senate, but he is not happy.  The university career he has built up does not offer much of a challenge.  Outside, there is a whole world to discover.  He listens to the reports of travellers about new lands, plants and people, so different from anything he has heard about or recognises.  The ancient world was small and limited.  Now it is expanding and opening up.  I am born as a result of Garcia da Orta’s desire to experience it and describe it.

There is another problem.  At the time of the forced, mass conversion of Jews to Christianity in 1497, King Manuel had promised that the New Christians would not be troubled by religious matters for fifty years.  However, things do not run quite so smoothly.  By 1506 they were already suffering persecution by the populace and low-clergy of Lisbon.  There is pressure for the Inquisition to be established in Portugal and indeed it will be instituted in 1531 by means of the Cum ad Nihil Magis papal bull of 17 December that year.  The bull defends its establishment by proclaiming, “... some converts from Hebraic infidelity to the Christian faith, known as New Christians, are returning to the Judaic rituals they had abandoned; others who had never acknowledged the Hebraic sect, but were born of Christian parents, are observing those Judaic rituals; whilst others are following Lutheranism and other heresies, condemned sins and black arts ...”ⁱⁱ  The same old story!  In fact, the Inquisition only begins to act in Portugal from 1536.  This transition takes place during Garcia da Orta’s lifetime.  He, together with his family, had only nominally adopted the Christian religion and he follows the religion of his ancestors in secret.  He therefore has good reason to feel threatened, as opposed to those New Christians who fully adhere to the new faith.

A happy sequence of events takes place.  Martim Afonso de Souza is another of da Orta’s friends.  He returns to Portugal from Brazil where he has founded a village and started a sugar-cane plantation, but India is still the main objective for Portuguese expansion and he is sent there with a fleet.  On 12 March 1534, Garcia da Orta and his family leave with Martim Afonso de Souza, now Viceroy of India.

DOCTOR  AND  BUSINESSMAN  IN  INDIA

The headquarters of the Portuguese Government in India is at Goa.  It is difficult to convey the liveliness of the place, with its myriads of peoples, languages, religions and cultures.  The Courts of the Inquisition have not yet arrived here.  The spice trade brings wealth and riches to many.  There is non-stop war against the Turks who do not want to lose their control of the overland spice route.  Portugal acts aggressively to hold onto its position and advance – it is a time of unrest.  An epic poem is apparently being written (according to what “The Aeneid” told me) by a poet who, some time in the 1550’s, will become a friend of my author:   Luís Vaz de Camões.

In Goa, my author works as a doctor.  He becomes acquainted with the Hakims, Arabian physicians, and their writings – until then he had only known what had been written by the most famous of them.  He also gets to know the work of the Vydias, Hindu physicians, of which he was completely unaware.  He sees illnesses which he realises also exist in Portugal.  Others look like ones he recognises, but with slight variations.  Others he has never come across before or heard about anything similar.  As a doctor, he takes part in the first autopsy carried out in Goa, during a cholera epidemic in 1543.  However, there is something which attracts him far more than caring for the sick and that is the huge variety of medicinal and edible plants, resins, animal secretions, minerals; entirely new materia medica unknown to the Europeans.

THE  PORTRAIT  OF  A  BOOK

In order to write me, Garcia da Orta opts for the dialogue form, which is very much in fashion nowadays.  He creates a fictitious character, Ruano, based on himself when he first arrived in India.  He is familiar with medicine as it is practised in Portugal, Castile and other places in Europe, but knows nothing about how it is practised here in India or about the new plants and remedies.  The materia medica he refers to, the pharmacopoeia available to him, is that of Dioscorides, Serapion and other works by mediaeval, mostly Arabian, doctors, translated into Latin.  His knowledge of botany is that of Pliny and some other mediaeval authors, who only had knowledge of the world surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.  In that world, “India” signified somewhere faraway, a half-imaginary, half-metaphorical land.  However, this is India - here, now!  Ruano is the alter ego of a Garcia da Orta who collects, classifies, organises and adds to the information contained in this new materia medica and makes it accessible to others.  Apart from Ruano, the book contains other dialogue characters, other acquaintances of Garcia da Orta, such as the scholar Dimas Bosque, a Valencian doctor, who arrives in India in 1558 where he is employed as Chief Physician.  He also has a property on an island near Goa, where he cultivates more unusual fruits and plan

I do not deal specifically with medicine.  Although my author is a doctor and has worked as such in India, he is more concerned with botany and describing new plants than with detailing different illnesses and their treatments.  When he does so, it is as if he is compiling an encyclopaedia which, for example, includes information on the gymnophists, on the beliefs which exist in India, and even goes so far as to describe a bird hospital.  Not to mention what he says about the game of chess, the anecdotes he tells and his notes on culinary.  I am really vast and extensive, quite like this great New-Old world.

My author splits me into 59 dialogues (57 really, given that the first is an introduction and the last a revision of some points which needed clarifying).  Each conversation is dedicated to an item of materia medica described by my author, mostly about herbs and fruits, but minerals are also included.  The dialogues are in alphabetical order, starting with ‘aloe’ and ending with ‘zedoary’ and ‘zerumbet’.  Edible fruits are also mentioned in this materia medica since to eat well and in the correct way is essential for good health.

To begin with, Garcia da Orta writes me in Latin.  This is the language of culture, the universal language of Europe, to where he intends to introduce the novelties contained in me.  However, just as I am about to be printed, he decides to publish me in Portuguese.  He does this because he thinks that I will be more widely-read, especially by the Portuguese in India.  This is another new idea which my author brings to the science of his time.  He believes that knowledge must be shared between the greatest number of people possible and that this can only be done by breaking down the barriers between a language used by the elite and a language which is understood by the majority of the same race.

He is so attached to me that he speaks directly to me:

“FROM  THE  AUTHOR  TALKING  TO  HIS  BOOK,
and sent to Sr. Martim Afonso de Souza.

My trusty book, from here you go;

With one good cause I console myself

On seeing you bear your breast

To the sharp blade at every corner:

Which is, that I send you to be examined

By a gentleman who, from pole to pole,

Is the only one in whom wise Apollo

Has shown the same strengths as the warrior Mars.

There you will find true justification,

With the force of reason, or of daring,

That one virtue will not annul the other;

In front of you the palm and the olive tree

Tell you that only he gives equal value to both

The bloody armour and the white toga.”ⁱⁱⁱ        

My author is also very worried about the possibility of my being copied, that is to say, stolen from him in some way (no wonder, I have occupied his heart and soul for so long that he has a very passionate relationship with me).  Alleging that he wants to avoid the danger of having his book printed by anybody else without his permission, my author asks the Viceroy to guarantee him the exclusive printing rights.  Anyone else who wants to print me must request authorisation from my author, or face a fine of 200 ‘cruzados’ (gold coins) for each unauthorised print, this condition to be valid for a period of three years from 5 October 1562.^iv

Garcia da Orta pursued for the Inquisition. 

Garcia da Orta’s last years are very difficult.  He faces financial hardship and family quarrels.  In 1568 he dies from a serious illness but not before he sees his sister, Catarina, taken to the Cathedral of Goa to hear her sentence for the “crime” of practising Judaism:  to be burned at the stake.  Many of his relatives are exposed to the inquisitorial frenzy, not only in Goa, but also in Portugal.  He dies a sick man, bitter and in dire straits, but at least he appears to be at peace.  However, the Inquisition does not cease its relentless “cleansing”.  In the wake of  accusations made against members of his family, he ends up being tried post-mortem and condemned to the stake.  As he is no longer alive, his bones are exhumed and burned.

I have had more luck than my author because at least I haven’t been burned.  Now, speaking from the 21^st Century, I can look back on my travels around the world.  A book’s journey is different from the wanderings of people.  I have been translated into other languages and a few versions of me have been made.  The first, very different from the original – an epitome in fact – by Charles l’Ecluse, the botanist, appears in Antwerp in 1567.  In 1572, I am translated into Castilian for the first time, published by Juan Fragoso, in Madrid.  In 1574, an enlarged Latin version of l’Ecluse’s résumé appears, which gives rise to several later editions (1579, 1593, 1601, 1605 and 1611).  Then comes an Italian version, by Annibale Briganti, which appears in Venice in 1576 with new editions appearing in 1582, 1589, 1597 and 1616.  There is a French translation by Antonio Collin in Lyon in 1602.  None of these translations, however, were based on the original text written by my author, but rather on l’Ecluse’s abridged version.  Nonetheless, the many editions show the amount of interest in the subject as well as the indirect influence my author has had on medical botany since the 16^th Century.  Take, for example, the case of Cristobal Acosta, a Castilian doctor, also a New Christian, who published his “Treatise on the drugs and medicines of the East Indies, with their effects on the living” (Burgos, 1578).  This book is completely based on me but was more accessible to the public.  Throughout the centuries, many learned people forgot about Garcia da Orta.  Even in the Portuguese language, new editions of me only appeared in 1872 and 1891.

Nevertheless, although neglected, Garcia da Orta represents, in Portuguese culture, that awakening to the new.  That scepticism which doubts received wisdom and which believes not in the ancient texts but in what can actually be seen around us, not only by reading the traditional books, but fundamentally by observing and investigating nature itself.

I lie on dusty shelves while my author could not even rest in his grave in eternal peace.  However, he represents one of the signposts along that great journey which, more than showing the Portuguese the way towards the discovery of the spices and beauties of India, helped to guide all human kind along the path which still continues today – the thirst for knowledge.

___________________________________________________________________

Notes

ⁱ  Extract from the 1891 edition of the “Colloquies”.  Colóquios dos Simples e Drogas da Índia.  Lisbon, Imprensa Nacional, 1891.  Edited and annotated by the Count of Ficalho (from:  Colóquios ...), pp 7-9.  The Count of Ficalho, in the same work, states that this is the first of Camões’ compositions to be printed (idem) p.16.  The extract transcribed here is on p.8 of the work referred to and includes some tiny alterations by the editor.  The Count of Redondo was Dom Francisco Coutinho, 8^th Viceroy of India.

ⁱⁱ  Extract from Christãos – Novos Judeus e os Novos Aronautas.  Lisbon, Editorial Caminho, 1998, p. 103.

ⁱⁱⁱ  Colóquios ... p. 6

^iv  Colóquios ... p. 3