This is an illuminated paper manuscript which replicates the text attributed to an author from the fourth century AD known as Pseudo Apuleius, probably produced in the Venetian-Verona area and datable to the last quarter of the fifteenth century. It is a "medical herbal", which lists about 130 plants specifying therapeutic virtues and medical prescriptions. The same text was also the basis of another volume presented here and printed around the same years.

The plants, hand-drawn, are accompanied by a list of different names by which they were known at the time. The images are deeply integrated with the text, to the point of overlapping.

Browsing the depictions, it can be noted that very realistic images (such as the strawberry which is perfectly identifiable), alternate, in contrast, with highly stylised and almost unrecognisable images, such as basil. Two representations of the mandrake are especially notable, as strong realism has been applied to the depiction of a plant that does not actually exist, at least with the human features which have been conferred to it.

It may be a copy (or a copy of a copy) of a manuscript preserved in Florence at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.

Browse the entire volume in Phaidra

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