Images
Some of the manuscripts that conveyed the pharmacotherapeutic knowledge, practices, and wisdom of Antiquity contain depictions of plants, sometimes as full-page, polychromatic and naturalistic representations and sometimes as small sketches on portions of the folios or in their margins, with some colors or solely in black ink. Scholars have extensively studied these representations over the past century, predominantly from an art history perspective, regarding them as illustrations that enhance the visual appearance of books, occasionally resulting in artistically crafted, large botanical albums akin to magnificently illustrated coffee-table books. As a corollary, scholars traditionally regarded the manuscript tradition as a progressively simplified and cumulatively impoverished reproduction of initial naturalistic depictions that resulted in unrecognizable figures. These plant representations have seldom been examined in conjunction with the texts they are related to, systematically compared throughout their tradition, thought of as scientific devices that translate written descriptions into visual terms, and deciphered through the lens of contemporary botanical description and representation methods used as keys for correct interpretation. The list of plants by manuscripts—with multiple indices—will contribute to a renewed understanding of ancient plant depictions identified as botanical tables.