Illustration taken from De Herbis et Plantis, a physician welcomes students who bring him plants used for healing. Claudius Salmasius (1588-1653) was a French classical scholar. In 1629 he produced his magnum opus as a critic, his commentary on Gaius Julius Solinus's Polyhistor, or rather on Pliny the Elder, to whom Solinus is indebted for the most important part of his work. Salmasius learned Arabic to qualify himself for the botanical part of his task, and was so unwilling to go to press without having consulted a rare treatise by Didymus that the third part of his commentary, De Herbis et Plantis, did not appear in his lifetime.