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  • Chapter 11 - Late Byzantine Alchemical Recipe Books

  • from Part II - The Borders of Pharmacology
  • Edited by Petros Bouras-Vallianatos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Dionysios Stathakopoulos, University of Cyprus
  • Book:
    Drugs in the Medieval Mediterranean
    Published online:
    19 October 2023
    Print publication:
    02 November 2023, pp 336-365

  • 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.