The practice of herborizing must have been a constant activity for those who have professionaly interested themselves in plants since ancient times. It is easily understandable that the search for the root that feeds or the leaves that cure implies that one goes out into nature in order to find plants.

But herborizing practice, starting from the Renaissance , falls under a slightly different logic : it is more observing the nature in a given area than looking for already known herbs with utilitary goals. The aim here is to describe reality in order to draw up an inventory, it starts with a description of the plant in question and finishes by defining and naming the plant. In the first part of the sixteenth century, this rather new look at plants is accompanied, at the same time, by the perfecting of the drying process, in Italy, which allows, therefore, the making of dry herbaria. One generally considers that Luca Ghini, Tuscan botanist, born during the second half of 16^th century, standardized this process. The most important naturalists of the second half of the 16^th century were his students : from Aldrovandi to Cesalpino ; from Matthiole to Anguillara. The oldest dry herbaria that we keep today are dating back to this period : let us point out, in France, Jean Girault’s herbarium in the Natural History museum of Paris ; the one from Cesalpino, kept in the Orto Botanico of Florence ; the one from Aldrovandi, kept in the Erbario from Bologna University. Concerning botanical expeditions of the time, there are many witnesses proving the importance – in the mind of Renaissance scientists – of the direct observation of plants. Many travellers’ accounts during this period, in the old as well as in the new world, include notes on plants.

In Europe, it is easy to show how quickly explorative expeditions became popular . Gesner writes in the foreword of David Kyber’s thesaurus that a bilingual nomenclature will allow the students to locate themselves in the natural environment ; G. Pona, F. Calzolari and U. Aldrovandi organise an expedition in the area of Monte Baldo, near Verona, and they write three reports on it; Matthias de l’Obel and Pierre Pena explore the Provence area, while the botanist from Arras , Charles de l’Ecluse, describes plants from the whole of Europe, from Hungary to Spain. Melchior Wieland, Prussian botanist, very active in Padua, occupies his ten years of captivity in Egypt by searching old papyrus, then he becomes the head of the Botanical garden in Padua. As we see it, there are numerous examples of these botanical expeditions.

During the 17^th century these botanical expeditions became more frequent Boccone’s biographies insist on the systematic search for plants which have not been described yet and the ones for which exist controversies on their identification ; the concern for already described plants which will allow to cure diseases is also present . As we notice it, Paolo Boccone’s botany is still strongly influenced by medicine.