Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 31.1

DIOSCORIDES PEDANIUS, OF ANAZARBOS (fl. ca. 50 AD) Codex Vindobonensis medicus Graecus 1 of the Austrian National Library, Vienna. [Editions Medicina Rara] [1977?] Facsimile reprint, number 82 of 2300. 13 leaves of plates : col. Ill. 44 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 28

Contains twelve miniatures from the Anicia Juliana Codex, 6th C. The great work of the herbalist and pharmacologist, Dioscorides, the De material medica, was not illustrated. Later artist-botanists illustrated it in several different hand-produced manuscripts, but the Codex Vindobonensis medicus Graecus 1 (sometimes also called Codex Julia Anicia after the first owner) was created in the early 6th c., and is now in the Austrian National Library. The 12 beautifully-colored plates of this collection – only a small part of the total work – illustrate the following plants: wormwood, thistle, arum, century, cyclamen, poppy, yellow-horned poppy, fennel, garden rose, winter cherry, golden hair (‘goldilocks’), and nightshade. The classification of plants of medicinal use, and the families of such plants, as well as the various stages of growth and fruition, were well recognized by Dioscorides and he was copied as an authority as late as the works of Fuchs and Brunfels. Other manuscripts illustrating his works at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris (dating from the 9th c.) and at the Pierpont Library in New York (10th c.) are of equal interest.

See Related Record(s): 29 30 31 241 242 243 244

Gift of John Martin, M.D.