Vienna Dioscurides

The 491 vellum folios measure 37 cm by 30 cm and contain more than 400 pictures of animals and plants, most done in a naturalistic style. In addition to the text by Dioscorides, the manuscript has appended to it, the Carmen de herbis attributed to Rufus, a paraphrase of an ornithological treatise by a certain Dionysius, usually identified with Dionysius of Philadelphia, and a paraphrase of Nicander's treatise on the treatment of snake bites.

• Name — Vienna Dioscurides • Location — Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna • Width — 180px • Also Known As — Juliana Anicia Codex; Codex Vindobonensis med. gr. 1 • Type — Illustrated manuscript (medical) • Date — c. 512–515 • Place Of Origin — Constantinople, Byzantine Empire • Language S — Greek (uncial; later minuscule additions) • Scribe S — Unrecorded • Author S — Pedanius Dioscorides (original text, 1st century AD) • Patron — Anicia Juliana • Material — Parchment (vellum), ink, pigments • Size — 37 × 30 cm • Format — Codex • Condition — Largely preserved; restored and rebound in 1406 • Script — Greek uncial (main text); Greek minuscule (later scholia) • Contents — De materia medica; Carmen de viribus herbarum; paraphrases of Nicander's Theriaca and Alexipharmaca; Dionysius of Philadelphia's Ornithiaca; Oppian's Halieutica • Illumination S — Plants, animals, physicians, and allegorical figures • Additions — Multilingual plant names (Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Old French); scholia and table of contents added in 1406 • Exemplar S — Classical herbals and painted panel models • Previously Kept — Constantinople (c. 6th–16th centuries) • Other — Oldest surviving illustrated copy of De materia medica; UNESCO Memory of the World Register (1997)

• Illustration — Portrait of Anicia Juliana, for whom the book was made, flanked by Megalopsychia and Phronesis (detail from folio 6v) The manuscript was created in about 515 AD in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire's capital, Constantinople, for a resident Byzantine imperial princess, Anicia Juliana, the daughter of Anicius Olybrius (one of the last of the Western Roman Emperors). The manuscript is accordingly now called the Juliana Anicia Codex by scholars. Although it was created as a luxury copy, in later centuries it was used daily as a textbook in the imperial hospital of Constantinople, and a medieval note records that a Greek nurse there, named Nathanael, had it rebound in 1406. Throughout the Byzantine period the manuscript was used as the original for copies of the work that were given to foreign leaders, including the Arabic edition of Abd al-Rahman III of Spain for the creation of which the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII sent a Greek copy and a translator. A note recording the name of one Michael of the Varangian Guard is also found in the text. The manuscript was restored and a table of contents and extensive scholia added in Byzantine Greek minuscule, by the patriarchal notary John Chortasmenos in 1406. In the mid-15th century, it was used to create the Pope Alexander VII Dioscorides, now in the Vatican Library, by the monks of St. John the Baptist Greek orthodox monastery in Constantinople. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 a subsequent owner handwrote each plant's name in Arabic and Hebrew. The manuscript, still in Istanbul a century after the fall of the city, was purchased from Moses Hamon, the Arabic-speaking, Jewish physician to sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, by the Flemish diplomat Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, who was in the employ of Emperor Ferdinand I of the Austrian Habsburgs. The manuscript is now held among the manuscripts of the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) in Vienna, where it is identified as the Codex Vindobonensis med. gr. 1. The manuscript was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World international register in 1997 in recognition of its historical significance.

• Illustration — Peacock endpapers • Illustration — Folio 4v, author portrait • Illustration — Folio 5v, author portrait • Illustration — Folio 6v, donation portrait of Anicia Juliana • Illustration — Folio 29v, Plantago lanceolata (lamb's tongue) • Illustration — Folio 148v, Viola odorata (violet) • Illustration — Folio 167v, Cannabis sativa (hemp) • Illustration — Folio 391v, coral • Illustration — Folio 475r, birds • Illustration — Folio 39v, Anagallis arvensis (scarlet pimpernel)