Chili Pepper (Capsicum annuum)

A wooduct illustration of chili peppers with added watercolors from De Historia Stirpium commentarii insignes
by Leonhart Fuchs (1542).

The chili pepper, a fruit of the Capsicum genus of the Solanaceae family, has been in the human diet since 7500 BC. Native Americans grew chili peppers between 5200 and 3400 BC, making them one of the oldest American crops [1]. Christopher Columbus was one of the first Europeans to encounter the chili pepper, which was essential to the New World diet, “as indispensably necessary to the natives as salt to the whites” [2]. Diego Alvarez Chanca, a physician who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to the West Indies in 1493, brought the chili pepper back to Spain and wrote about its medicinal effects [3]. Prior to its post-Columbian global distribution, the chili pepper was native to the area extending from today’s southern United States border to southern South America, although the ancestral fruit from which the chili pepper was domesticated probably came from Bolivia and Peru [4]. The chili pepper “spread like wildfire across the European, Asian and African continents in less than 50 years between 1498 and 1549” [5]. The fruit became established across the globe, but the initial ways in which it was viewed varied greatly between Europe and other parts of the world.

The chili pepper spread from Mexico to the Philippines, India, China, Korea, and Japan. It is believed that the Portuguese were primarily responsible for this [6]. They acquired the chili pepper from Spain and brought it to Portugal and the Cape Verde Islands, and then to West Africa and India. By 1512, the chili pepper was firmly established in Portugal’s Indian colonies, and then spread through Central Asia and Turkey to Hungary. It reached China by 1542 and Japan by 1549. The chili pepper can thrive in environments from tropical to temperate, which greatly aided its global establishment. In many locations outside of Europe, the chili pepper quickly became incorporated into local cuisine. These areas, including India, South-East Asia, and China, were places where food with heat was already accepted and prized [7]. The heat in the chili pepper comes from capsaicin and other related chemicals, together called capsaicinoids, which create a burning sensation. The stem end of the pod has the glands that produce capsaicin [8].

Chili peppers were not initially incorporated into European cuisine, probably because hot ingredients were not valued in Europe as in other places. While the chili pepper spread quickly globally, it was slower to spread in Europe; it did not reach Italy until 1526 and England until 1548 [9]. After entering Europe, chili peppers were grown in the gardens of Spanish and Portuguese monks as “botanical curiosities.” The monks realized the similarity of the pungency of the chili pepper to black pepper, or Piper nigrum. This spice was extremely costly, and the chili pepper offered an attractive alternative [10]. Chili peppers were originally grown in Europe for their “ornamental value,” but they soon began to be valued for their medicinal qualities [11]. These properties had been utilized previously; the Mayans used chili peppers to treat coughs and sore throats, and the Aztecs used them to relieve toothaches [12]. In early modern Europe, rather than being added into local cuisine, the chili pepper became an object of inquiry. It sparked the interest of those studying science and medicine, as well as a public interested in natural history.

A woodcut illustration of the chili pepper appears in De Historia Stirpium comentarii insignes (Notable Commentaries on the History of Plants), written by Leonhart Fuchs and published in 1542. This book is an herbal, meaning it describes a variety of different plants, including medicinal applications. Three individuals created the woodcuts for Fuchs’ herbal: Albrecht Meyer drew the plants from observation, Heinrich Fullmaurer transferred these drawings to woodblocks, and Vitus Rudolph Speckle cut these blocks and printed the final illustrations. Fuchs was a doctor and a medical professor. These woodcuts were meant to be as accurate as possible because the book was to be a reference for medical students. While the quality and accuracy of the woodcuts were revolutionary, Fuchs’ descriptions of medicinal properties drew heavily from the ancient writings of Dioscorides, Galen, and Pliny [13]. It was the images themselves that caused De Historia Stirpium to be widely circulated throughout Europe. During Fuchs’ lifetime alone, the book was reprinted thirty nine times in various languages. It was a valuable resource for the study of plants that were already known about, and some plants, including the chili pepper, were illustrated for the first time [14].

The woodcut of the chili pepper demonstrates Fuchs’ goal of making an accurate scientific and medical guide; the widespread circulation of this herbal also demonstrates that New World plants were looked at by early modern Europeans as not just potential ingredients, but objects of study. While the primary intended audience of Fuchs’ herbal was the scientific and medical community, the fact that it was reprinted so many times and in so many languages indicates that this was also a general interest image. Educated Europeans were probably interested in natural history, and particularly in plants being introduced from the New World. This woodcut, unlike past botanical images, was drawn as accurately as possible to serve a practical purpose. According to Fuchs, “a picture expresses things more surely and fixes them more deeply in the mind than the bare words of the text.” Watercolors were added by hand to the illustrations in some of the original books. The use of very thin lines in the woodcuts was intentional, because Fuchs meant for color to be added [15]. Color not only enhances the effect of the image, but enhances the image’s ability to be used for identification purposes.

This image not only shows the chili pepper, but the plant’s stems, leaves, and roots. The inclusion of the roots in particular is surprising, given that roots grow below the ground. Fuchs purposefully included all parts of the plant, demonstrating the chili pepper as an object of study. The emphasis was not only on the fruit, as in other places where the chili pepper was incorporated into cuisine, but on the plant as a whole. The woodcut not only depicts all of the plant’s parts, but all stages of life. Many fullly grown red chili peppers are illustrated, but there are also two small green peppers in early development, as well as many leaves and a few small flowers. These details enable the chili plant to be studied as a whole, and also allow for this image to be used to identify chili plants during multiple seasons and stages of life.

The woodcut illustrations in De Historia Stirpium reveal a new emerging purpose of art in the early modern period, and a new way of conveying information about nature. In the world in which these woodcuts were printed, “art connoted the work of the human hand in imitating nature. Such an imitation…could lead to a faithful representation that in effect deceived the eye into thinking that it was real” [16]. While in some parts of the globe the chili pepper became a prized ingredient in local dishes, in Europe it primarily remained the focus of inquiry for scientists, medical students, and a general audience of educated Europeans. This woodcut illustrates both this scientific and educational approach that Europeans took to understanding the chili pepper, as well as how art became a mode of enabling accurate identification and discovery.

--by Jennifer Rutishauser

1. Paul W. Bosland, “Capsicums: Innovative Uses of an Ancient Crop,” Progress in New Crops, ed. J. Janick (Arlington VA: ASHS Press, 1996): 479-487, <http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1996/V3-479.html>

2. Charles B. Heiser Jr. and Paul G. Smith, “The Cultivated Capsicum Peppers,” Economic Botany, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Springer on behalf of New York Botanical Garden Press, Jul.-Sep. 1953): 214, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4287775.pdf>

3. S.S. Pawar, N.V. Bharude, S.S. Sonone, R.S. Deshmukh, A.K. Raut, and A.R. Umarkar, “Chillies as Food, Spice, and Medicine: A Perspective,” International Journal of Pharmacy and Biological Sciences, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Jul.-Sept. 2011): 312, <http://www.ijpbsonline.com/uploads/1/2/1/8/12183777/311-318.pdf>

4. Bosland

6. Pawar et al.

7. Evans, “Migration of Chillies”

9. Evans, “Migration of Chillies”

10. Pawar et al.

11. Heiser and Smith

12. Bosland

13. “Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566),” Trinity College Dublin, last updated February 24, 2011, <https://www.tcd.ie/Botany/tercentenary/origins/leonhart-fuchs.php>

14. Julie Gardham, “Leonhart Fuchs, De Historia Stirpium,” Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department, last updated October 2002, <http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/oct2002.html>

15. Gardham, Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department

16. Pamela H. Smith, “Art, Science, and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe,” Isis, Vol. 97, No. 1 (The University of Chicago Press: Mar. 2006): 91, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/501102>