Jean A Givens, Karen M Reeds, and Alain Touwaide (eds), Visualizing medieval medicine and natural history, 1200–1550, AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science and Art, vol. 5, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006, pp. xx, 278, illus., £55.00 (hardback 978-0-7546-5296-0).

Abstract

The essays contained within this collection derive from sessions sponsored by AVISTA and the History of Science Society at the 2003 International Congress for Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, and by the International Congress of Medieval Art at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the College Art Association. The volume brings together research stemming from a current vibrant interest in the history of medical and scientific illustration. The editors introduce the collection as, “a conversation among scholars in fields at the intersection of the history of art, science, and medicine” (p. xvii), and indeed it is rare to come across a collected volume which sustains such consistent quality and coherent discussion within such breadth of theme. This is in part because of two recurrent topics in the book, the representation of plants (whether in herbal or botanical compilations) in the chapters by Alain Touwaide, Jean Givens, Karen Reeds and Claudia Swan, and the contribution of Leonardo da Vinci, in a trio of essays by Monica Azzolini, Piers Britton and Karen Reeds. This sense of an ongoing conversation is enhanced by the recurrence of certain manuscripts, the reiteration of shared historical concerns throughout the book, and the successful evocation of continuities which extend from the medieval to the early modern period. This is a beautiful, intriguing and thought-provoking collection of essays. Every one has been written elegantly and with clarity, an impressive feat given the complex nature of many of the manuscript transmissions discussed. The book is also generously illustrated (though it is a shame not to have colour illustrations at some pertinent points, references are given, wherever possible, to help the reader access colour reproductions). All the essays weave together their pictorial evidence carefully in order to reach some important new conclusions. I would highlight in particular the contributions of Alain Touwaide—who suggests possibilities for the exchange of learning between Byzantines and Latins during the thirteenth-century occupation of Constantinople—and Monica Azzolini—who counteracts the traditional image of Leonardo da Vinci as an isolated genius by situating him firmly in the context of a vibrant Milanese medical community. If the first strength of this collection lies in the detail of each case study, the second is in its constant engagement with a set of theoretical and methodological problems critical to this interdisciplinary study of the scientific image. The tone is set by Peter Murray Jones’s opening essay, which demands that we, “consider the relationship of image, word, and medicine afresh” (p. 1). Common themes and questions which span the book include the practical utility or function of these images; their transmission, adaptation and creation in different contexts and for different audiences; the relationship between the textual and the visual, the image and reality. Above all the collection causes the reader to ask how these manuscripts and images would have been made and how they might have been read. In Karen Reeds’s words: “For any given image, we always have to ask: utility to whom? Fidelity to what end?” (p. 236). Claudia Swan's final essay acts neatly as an epilogue, returning to the questions raised at the start by Peter Murray Jones, and in turn posing a fundamental question: why were these images produced at all? The book will of course attract scholars of medieval and early modern medicine and natural history. In the broader questions raised by this collection, however, there lies significance for a much wider readership, for those interested in the history of the book as much as those concerned with the history of the image.