Botanical icons : critical practices of illustration in the premodern Mediterranean / Andrew Griebeler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Griebeler, Andrew, author.

Contributor:

Arthur Wofsy, Class of 1937, Acquisitions Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dioscorides Pedanius, of Anazarbos. De materia medica--Illustrations.

Dioscorides Pedanius.

Botanical illustration--Mediterranean Region--History--To 1500.

Botanical illustration.

Illumination of books and manuscripts--Mediterranean Region--History--To 1500.

Illumination of books and manuscripts.

De materia medica (Dioscorides Pedanius, of Anazarbos).

Illustration of books.

Mediterranean Region.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

xiii, 329 pages : color illustrations ; 27 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago, IL : The University of Chicago Press, 2024.

Summary:

"This book traces the history of botanical illustration in the premodern Mediterranean from antiquity to the early modern period. By examining Greek, Latin, and Arabic botanical inquiry in this early era, Andrew Griebeler shows how diverse and sophisticated modes of plant depiction emerged and ultimately gave rise to many practices now recognized as central to modern botanical illustration. The material is remarkable and varied, and the author draws on a vast range of manuscript material across Europe and the Mediterranean, over a long span of time. Lavishly illustrated, Botanical Icons assembles ample evidence for a dynamic and critical tradition of botanical inquiry and nature observation in the late antique and medieval Eastern Mediterranean. The author reveals how many of the critical practices characteristic of modern botanical illustrations and manuscript culture actually appear in premodern manuscripts. Consequently, he demonstrates that the distinctions between pre- and early modern botanical illustration center more on the advent of print, and the narrowing of the range of accepted forms of illustration, than on the novel invention of critical and observational practices exclusive to modernity. Griebeler's emphasis on continuity, intercultural collaboration, and the gradual transformation of Mediterranean traditions of critical botanical illustration persuasively counters previously prevalent narratives of rupture and Western European exceptionalism in the histories of art and sciences"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Rulers and root-cutters

Mithridates' library

Painting, seeing, and knowing

Illustrating Dioscorides

Medieval herbals

The critical copy

Ex Novo

Echoes and reverberations.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Arthur Wofsy, Class of 1937, Acquisitions Fund.

ISBN:

9780226826790

0226826791

OCLC:

1375662027