29
/
en
AIzaSyAYiBZKx7MnpbEhh9jyipgxe19OcubqV5w
April 1, 2024
627647
52618
2

jan 1, 515 - Vienna Dioscurides

Description:

An early 6th-century Byzantine illuminated manuscript of De Materia Medica by Dioscorides in Greek. It is an important and rare example of a late antique scientific text. The 491 vellum folios contain more than 400 pictures of animals and plants, most done in a naturalistic style. The manuscript was created in about 515 and was made in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire's capital, Constantinople, for a resident Roman imperial princess, Anicia Juliana, the daughter of Anicius Olybrius, one of the last of the Western Roman Emperors. Although it was originally created as a luxury copy, in later centuries it was used daily as a textbook in the imperial hospital of Constantinople. The manuscript has 383 extant full-page illustrations of plants out of the original 435 illustrations. The illustrations fall into two groups. There are those that faithfully follow earlier classical models and present a quite naturalistic illustration of each plant. There are also other illustrations that are more abstract. The majority of the illustrations were painted in a naturalistic style so as to aid a pharmacologist in the recognition of each plant. However, it is believed that these illustrations were made as copies of an earlier herbal and were not drawn from nature.

Added to timeline:

31 Jan 2018
0
0
347
Art History

Date:

jan 1, 515
Now
~ 1510 years ago
PremiumAbout & FeedbackTermsPrivacy
logo
© 2022 Selected Technologies LLC – Morgan Hill, California