Synteny of Images in Three Illustrated Dioscoridean Herbals: &lt;i&gt;Juliana Anicia Codex&lt;/i&gt;, &lt;i&gt;Codex Neapolitanus&lt;/i&gt;, and &lt;i&gt;Morgan 652&lt;/i&gt;

Jules Janick,Anna L Whipkey,John Stolarczyk

doi:10.15835/nbha4129242

Synteny of Images in Three Illustrated Dioscoridean Herbals: Juliana Anicia Codex, Codex Neapolitanus, and Morgan 652

Jules Janick, Anna L Whipkey + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.15835/nbha4129242

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Abstract

Plant illustrations were compared in three ancient illustrated recensions of the non-illustrated manuscript of Dioscorides titled Î ÎµÏÎ¯ ÏÎ»Î·Ï‚ Î¹Î±Ï„ÏÎ¹ÎºÎ®Ï‚ (De Materia Medica in Latin; On Medical Matters in English) written about the year 65: Juliana Anicia Codex (JAC) or Codex Vindobonensis produced in the year 512, Codex Neapolitanus (NAP) produced in the late 6th or early 7th century, and Morgan 652 (M652) produced between 927 and 985. M652 contains many illustrations that are similar to those of JAC, and it has long been evident that large parts of the M652 were based on the JAC or a precursor. NAP also appears to be a source in the creation of M652 since M652 contains several images that appear in NAP but not JAC, and when images are common in all three herbals about 19.3% of the M652 images are closer to NAP than JAC. We conclude that M652 illustrations are based on images from both JAC and NAP. A database of the three herbals is available online www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/herbalimages.

Highlights

In genetics, synteny (Greek: on the same ribbon) refers to preservation of the same gene on chromosomes of individuals related by descent
In this paper we use this term to describe the relationship between derivative images found in three ancient illustrated manuscripts based on the nonillustrated Περί ύλης ιατρικής (De Materia Medica in Latin, On Medical Matters in English) of Pedanios Dioscorides (20-70 ce) written about the year 65
Juliana Anicia Codex (JAC) was produced in Constantinople in 512 and was dedicated as a gift to the Imperial Princess Juliana Anicia by the citizens of Honorata (Collins, 2000; Hummer and Janick, 2010; Janick and Hummer, 2012) and is the first surviving illustrated codex of a portion of the non-illustrated Dioscorides manuscript. It consists of 491 surviving folios of which 12v-387r contain 382 full page contemporary images of the healing plants mentioned by Dioscorides and five other ancient texts on folios 388-491 which are not covered here

Summary

Introduction

Synteny (Greek: on the same ribbon) refers to preservation of the same gene on chromosomes of individuals related by descent. JAC ( known as the Codex Vindobonensis) was produced in Constantinople in 512 and was dedicated as a gift to the Imperial Princess Juliana Anicia by the citizens of Honorata (Collins, 2000; Hummer and Janick, 2010; Janick and Hummer, 2012) and is the first surviving illustrated codex of a portion of the non-illustrated Dioscorides manuscript. It consists of 491 surviving folios of which 12v-387r contain 382 full page contemporary images of the healing plants mentioned by Dioscorides and five other ancient texts on folios 388-491 which are not covered here. Our analyses involve the images and titles only and not the accompanying text

Methodology

Findings

Common exclusively to one of the other two herbals