text: Pietro Andrea Mattioli was a renowned botanist and physician. He published a translation of De Materia Medica into Italian in 1544 and ten years later published a work in Latin with all the plants of Dioscorides and 562 woodcut illustrations. It appeared in 1554, printed by Vicenzo Valgrisi, in Venice. Mattioli made a massive contribution to the original text of Pedani's Dioscorides. In some sections Mattioli added information that exceeded 15 times the length of the original text.  It resulted in a very big extension of the work, in beauty and information. It was later translated into German, French and Bohemian.
  Mattioli held a post in the Imperial Court as physician to Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria, and the Emperor Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. This position granted him an immense influence. He frequently tested the effects of poisonous plants on prisoners in order to popularize his works. He also affirmed that Jean Ruel had declared some information in the lycopsis chapter of his Materia Medica. This is false, but still Mattioli used it as a reason for attacking Ruel. He did not tolerate either rivals nor corrections. The naturalists and physicians daring to disagree with him, or who had corrected him, were attacked. The list of important characters that were admonished, rebuked, or pursued by the Inquisition contains Wieland, Anguillara, Gesner, Lusitanus and others. This made editions of Matioli's De Materia Medica omnipresent throughout the continent, especially in northern Europe.