Albert the Great’s De vegetabilibus represents the first complete treatise on the vegetal world in the medieval Latin West. Albert focuses on plant physiology, especially dealing with digestion, as he adapts the doctrine of human digestion to plants by describing every activity in them as due to a precise phase of digestion. Albert’s description of plants relies on digestion and nourishment as the body undergoes a continuous state of dissolution and growth.
In his text, Albert provides a detailed overview of every type of moisture and heat that operate within digestion. In this way, he explains the diverse phases of vegetal life, blooming and ripening. Accordingly, the generation of flowers is the first ebullition of the subtler part of moisture from which, therefore, derives the generation of fruits.
As a result, Albert presents an innovative interpretation of life. In my talk, while analysing Albert’s description of the generation of flowers and fruits and of the diversity of their accidents, like colours, forms, flavours and smells, I show that the generation of each part of a plant is conceived as a stage of the whole metabolic process. By assigning a complex metabolic process to plants in order to describe each of their activities, Albert’s innovative approach represents an important moment in the history of botany.
