‘He was experienced in his knowledge, learned and a good friend of Plantin the printer.
At the siege of Antwerp he helped the poor sick and made a recipe for pestilence.'
Anonymous
Pieter Coudenberg (1517-1599)
He runs a pharmacy in Antwerp and is the very first person in Europe to lay out a private botanical garden. Botanical gardens are usually part of a convent or a university. Coudenberg introduces many new plants because of their medicinal properties.
Dispensatorium
The pharmacist Pieter Coudenberg improves the work on medicines by Cordus for his friend Plantin. It makes him world famous. In the 17th century, the city of Antwerp made it compulsory for all doctors and pharmacists to use this book in their practice.
Top work
Valerius Cordus, Dispensatorium (ed. Pieter Coudenberg), C. Plantin, 1568
