De plantis libri XVI

Andrea Cesalpino's De plantis libri XVI, published in 1583, is considered the first textbook of botany. In this work, Cesalpino aimed to classify plants based on unified principles rather than alphabetical order or medicinal properties. He established botany as an independent science.1

The book's initial section outlines botanical principles, drawing from Aristotle and Theophrastus. The subsequent fifteen books describe and categorize over 1,500 plant species. While Cesalpino's classification system foreshadowed Linnaeus's binomial nomenclature, it retained outdated divisions between woody and herbaceous plants and incorrectly assumed plants were not sexual. Nevertheless, his work significantly influenced later botanists, including Linnaeus.1