The letter: private text or public place? The Mattioli-Gesner controversy about the aconitum primum.

Abstract

From 1555 to 1565, Pietro Andrea Mattioli and Conrad Gesner were locked in controversy over the veracity of Mattioli's picture of aconitum primum. This dispute led to numerous vehement publications and to intensive exchanges of letters, not only between the protagonists but also within their own and sometimes inter-connected networks of correspondence. This dispute illustrates how 16th-century scholars played upon the ambiguous place of these letters between private and public space to deal with controversy in the Republic of Letters.