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Release date: 2013

Dimensions: 29 x 33 cm

Pages: 992 (488+504)

Illustrations: 243

Box: Brossura cucita

Copertina: Copertina rigida con rivestimento in similpelle e impressioni a secco con oro a caldo;

Varie: Cofanetto in tela con 2 volumi

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The first pharmacopoeia of the ancient world in the form of a celebrated botanical codex. Translated for the first time and fully commented.

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A milestone in the history of phytotherapy, a precious connection between classical and mediaeval knowledge, progenitor of the famous herbaria and all pharmacopoeiae.

Aboca Edizioni, in collaboration with the University and Biblioteca Nazionale of Naples, offers this unpublished version of De Materia Medica by Pedanius Dioscorides. The reproduction of the text drawn from the precious codex Ms. ex-Vind. Gr. I, known as Dioscurides Neapolitanus, is accompanied for the first time by the full translation of the Greek text.

From the comment by Alessandro Menghini: "That which Dioscorides brought together was the rational method typical of Greek culture, a method which was applied in his work as a doctor and even more in the work that he wrote. A work whose configuration can be defined as modern, in spite of the almost 2000 years between him and modern times. Apart from the aspects associated with the advance of science and the progress of plant study (systems, chemical composition, pharmacological activity, preparation techniques etc), Dioscorides illustrated their cultural aspects with clarity as much as their applications. The clarity was the new aspect with which he raised the science of remedies from the misty world of ancient medicine to the sphere of rationality. De materia medica summarised almost all knowledge of treatment in man's possession at the dawn of the first millennium".

The historical/artistic part includes the critical comment and 243 modern botanical plates. More than 300 tables, compiled by specialists, compare the Dioscoridian knowledge with the results of current medical botany. A bulky appendix follows regarding the diseases mentioned by Dioscorides and the corresponding drugs.

Aboca facsimiles for professional use: fundamental works available to all. Legendary additions and splendid manuscripts, selected from the libraries throughout the world, have been reproduced using avant-garde printing techniques, complete with thorough and concise critiques.

Notes

Introduction by Guido Trombetti.

Preface by Mauro Giancaspro and Valentino Mercati.

Contributions from Paolo Caputo, Paolo De Luca, Roberto De Lucia, Roberto Romano e Manuela De Matteis Tortora, Hans Walter Lack, Pietro Baraldi and Paolo Bensi, Alessandro Menghini.

Afterword by Alain Touwaide.

Modern botanical images by Luca Massenzio Palermo.

Other information

Together with Dioscurides Costantinopolitanus from Vienna, Vindob. Med. Gr. I, the Dioscurides Neapolitanus is the oldest codex known drafted based on the work of Dioscorides. Among the rarest manuscripts of the Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples, it was compiled around the VI century BC. The vivacity of the illustrations and the pagination, enhanced by a rich commentary, make it a fundamental testimony of the Greco-Roman medical culture and its assimilation by the Byzantine world.

In the early years of the 16th century Antonio Seripando was a feature of Neapolitan literature. He was brother of Cardinal Girolamo, one of the protagonists of the Council of Trento, then he was taken to Austria in 1718 on the wishes of Carlo VI d'Asburgo. Having returned after the First World War, after a brief stay at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, he returned definitively to Naples on 7 June 1923.