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Chapter 11 - Late Byzantine Alchemical Recipe Books

Metallurgy, Pharmacology, and Cuisine

from Part II - The Borders of Pharmacology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2023

By
Matteo Martelli
Edited by
Petros Bouras-Vallianatos  and
Dionysios Stathakopoulos
Petros Bouras-Vallianatos
Affiliation:
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Dionysios Stathakopoulos
Affiliation:
University of Cyprus
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Summary

This chapter focuses on a selection of recipes included in Byzantine alchemical and pharmacological compendia that are preserved in manuscripts dating between the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries: MSS Parisinus gr. 2314, Bononiensis 1808, and Vaticanus gr. 1174. These manuscripts represent important case studies that are compared with similar collections, from late antique medical encyclopaedias to Byzantine alchemical writings and Nicholas Myrepsos’ pharmaceutical handbook. Through an in-depth analysis of the contents and the terminology of these works, I track the transformation of their technical vocabulary, focusing on cross-cultural exchanges between the Byzantine, Arabic, and Latin traditions. Byzantine authors and copyists reshaped and ‘updated’ a long-lasting technical tradition deeply rooted in late antique and early Byzantine writings, which continued to be read and commented on during the Palaiolοgan period, when scholars compiled large selections of formulas and prescriptions belonging to different, yet overlapping fields, such as metallurgy, pharmacology, and cuisine.

Keywords

alchemypharmacologyink-makingIsisOrpheusCleopatra
Type
Chapter
Information
Drugs in the Medieval Mediterranean
Transmission and Circulation of Pharmacological Knowledge
 , pp. 336 - 365
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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