Gherardo Cibo

Cibo was born in Genoa in 1512 to Aranino and Bianca Vigeri Della Rovere (daughter of the bishop of Senigallia) in a wealthy family related to the Duke of Urbino.

After some early years in Genoa he moved to Rome where he stayed with his aunt, the Duchess of Camerino, Caterina Cibo da Varano and sought to join the clergy but war led to his movement to Bologna where he studied botany under Luca Ghini.

[2][3][4] The most important part of his artistic production is the corpus of landscape drawings done in pen and ink or sanguine, and his botanical illustrations in watercolour and tempera.

Cibo’s illustrations are executed with great accuracy and feature different plants, usually common species of Italy and the central Apennines.

The illustrations are accompanied by botanical commentaries excerpted from Discorsi by Pietro Andrea Mattioli (glossed Italian translation of Dioscorides’ De materia medica) and notes by Cibo himself.