Le Grant Herbier was the first major herbal printed in French. The anonymous text, first printed ca. 1486-1488, borrowed 264 of its 474 chapters from an earlier work, Circa instans, and also based its illustrations on woodcuts from Gart der Gesundheit. The College’s copy, the 3rd printed edition, ca. 1498-1500, contains 308 woodcut illustrations of plants, along with a few animals, identified with Latin headings. Due to limitations of the illustrations, along with variations in nomenclature, it is difficult to determine the precise identity of each plant with certainty.

Grant herbier (Imprime a Paris : par Pierre Le Caron, [ca. 1498-1500])

ZYa 16 1498 (Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia)