Medicina Antiqua. Codex Vindobonensis 93. Vienna, Österreichische National-bibliothek (review)

Medicina Antiqua. Codex Vindobonensis 93. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. Introduction by Peter Murray Jones, commentary by Franz Unterkircher. Manuscripts in Miniature, No. 4. London: Harvey Miller, 1999. 224 pp. Ill. $75.00; £48.00 (1-872-50120-6).

The "Herbarius complex," the most widely used of all anthologies on materia medica available in the early Middle Ages, survives in forty-seven manuscripts. Of these, Codex Vindobonensis 93 of the Austrian National Library is the most elaborate and visually striking. Thanks to Harvey Miller Publishers this important medical text is now available in a relatively inexpensive full-color facsimile (reduced in size by about one third), with a helpful new introduction by Peter Murray Jones.

Cod. Vind. 93 was produced in Italy in the early part of the thirteenth century--exactly at the moment when the Herbarius complex was at the height of its influence, when medical education was spreading, but before translations from Muslim versions of the classical medical tradition began to dominate. It preserves healing lore from the end of the Roman imperial era. Not confined to the physical healing powers of plants, it includes prayers to the earth goddess, directions for making amulets, prescribed rituals for the collection and preparation of herbs, references to mythological heroes, and lists of magical powers, such as calming storms at sea. It dramatizes for us, in Professor Jones's apt phrase, "the curious mixture of fantasy and pragmatism" that shaped late antique and early medieval medical practice (p. 28).

The works that make up the Herbarius complex are the following:

1. Precationes (Precatio terrae and Precatio omnium herbarum)
2. Letter of Hippocrates of Maecenas
3. Antonius Musa, De herba vettonica
4. Pseudo-Apuleius, Herbarius (fols. 18-118^r)
5. De taxone liber
6. Sextus Placitus, Liber medicinae ex animalibus et avibus (fols. 119-132^v)
7. Pseudo-Dioscorides, Ex herbis feminis (fols. 133-158^v)
8. Epistola Apollonis de implastris podagrico

Half of these works (nos. 2, 3, 5, and 8) are short letters on medical subjects inaccurately attributed to various eminent political leaders and physicians. The Herbarius (no. 4) that gives the group its name, by far the longest work, was written in Latin, possibly in North Africa in the fourth century, and derives much of its lore from Pliny the Elder's Natural History. The work on animals as sources of medicine (no. 6) is slightly later. The second work on herbs (no. 7) is based on Dioscorides and is the apparent object of a famous admonition from the monastic authority Cassiodorus, writing about 562 a.d.: "if you do not have sufficient facility reading Greek, then you can turn to the herbal of Dioscorides, which describes and draws the herbs of the field with wonderful faithfulness." It seems, therefore, to have been illustrated from the beginning (as the massive work of the actual Dioscorides definitely was not).

Those interested enough to purchase this volume will also wish to consult the amazing 1972 facsimile (Graz: Akademische Druck-u. verlaganstalt, Codices selecti 27.27), available in their nearest major research library. It is a full-size reproduction--almost, one might say, a re-creation, even to the point of cutting each page to match the uneven edges of medieval parchment. This is not merely an aesthetic consideration: the straight edges of the Harvey Miller volume end up cutting off some of the marginal figures (no. viii below) that not only point to text but also illustrate some complaints. For instance, Franz Unterkircher urges us to note in the margins of fol. 25^v the figure with the swollen leg; one can see it in the 1972 reproduction, but it had to be sliced off to fit the standardized format of the current volume. In addition, the introductory remarks that C. H. Talbot provided in the 1972 facsimile make an interesting complement to those of Peter Murray Jones, and take them a bit further in some areas...