On Medical Matters

PRAEFATIO Preface

friendship and kindness. Therefore, I have the option and power to pass judgment on these manuscripts in particular.

The first manuscript (C.), the Constantinopolitanus, is the very one that Lambecius 42 described, more verbosely than expertly, and after him, Montfaucon 43. Through the persuasion of Busbecq, the Austrian ambassador to the Turkish tyrant, it was purchased by Emperor Maximilian II and transferred to Vienna. This parchment manuscript is quite clean, in a larger square format, with capital letters; it lacks accents and diacritical marks, and it is less corroded by moths than it is perhaps eaten away by a corrosive ink, by which the membranes are occasionally seen to be worn down to the lines of the letters. The scribe himself testifies that he transcribed this copy at the order of Anicia Juliana, who, daughter of Emperor Olybrius († 472) and granddaughter of Valentinian III, married a certain Areobindus 44. Therefore, we have verified that this manuscript was written toward the end of the fifth century.

The other Viennese manuscript is (N.), the Neapolitanus, which Montfaucon 45 described while it was preserved at the Augustinians in Naples; later, after it had been brought to Vienna, Kollarius 46 described it. It seemed to all who inspected it to be equal in age to the former, if not older; it is written in similar letters, but it is more mutilated. It contains more Roman synonyms for plants, and they are better written. Although it generally agrees with the Constantinopolitanus, it nonetheless contains many better readings. It is arranged in alphabetical order, which is contrary to the autognomoni self-evident/independent intention of Dioscorides.

Attached to both manuscripts are painted icons of plants, adorned with excessive praise. Although copies of them, inserted by Dodoens into his history of plants, might provide little expectation for experts of art, nevertheless, Swieten and Kollarius urged Empress Maria Theresa to have them engraved on copper. Since she agreed to these prayers, despite them being ill-considered and hasty, not a few were sculpted with the intention that they be published. But by the persuasion of Jacquin, a most knowledgeable judge, the artist set his hand aside, and the entire, highly superfluous work was soon forbidden. The copper plates now lie on the second floor of the imperial library, in no way worthy of being published for the public. They are all crude figures, many invented according to the imagination or even the whim of the painter, and more are monstrous.

42) L. c. p. 519 — 594.
43) Palaeogr. graec. p. 195.
44) Theophan. chronogr. p. 125. Ducange famil. Byzant. p. 74. 75.
45) L. c. p. 212.
46) Supplem. ad Lambec. p. 343.