Who wrote the 1544 herbal cited for Europe's earliest tomato discussion?

Pietro Andrea Mattioli wrote the 1544 herbal cited for Europe’s earliest tomato discussion.

Mattioli was an Italian physician and botanist whose 1544 commentary on Dioscorides included the earliest widely recognized discussion of the tomato in European literature. He described it in a section associated with mandrake and treated it as a newly encountered type of eggplant rather than immediately recognizing it as the distinct crop familiar today.

His description noted a flattened, segmented fruit that was green when unripe and golden or reddish when mature. He also reported that it could be cooked in a manner similar to eggplant, with oil, salt, and pepper. This shows that the tomato was being observed as a possible food soon after its arrival from the Americas.

Mattioli’s early account did not use the modern botanical name Solanum lycopersicum. In later editions, he used names translated as “golden apples,” a phrase often connected with the Italian pomi d’oro. The tomato’s first European mention therefore predates its eventual transformation into a defining ingredient of Italian cuisine by many decades.