From top left: Asphodel, Panax Heraklios, Artemisia Absinthium or Wormwood (Absinthe), Drakontaia, S
From top left: Asphodel, Panax Heraklios, Artemisia Absinthium or Wormwood (Absinthe), Drakontaia, Strychnos, Rose, Cyclamen, Grape Vine, Wooly Bramble, Water Hemlock (Wild Parsnip), Physallis (Chinese Lantern), Cannabis Sativa. The Poisonous Garden Plants in the Poisonous Garden are either poisonous or have been thought to be poisonous at different times in history. All have were used as medicinal herbs for centuries. I selected the Poisonous Garden herbs from the Juliana Codex/Vienna Dioscorides, the oldest known manuscript of De Materia Medica, itself the oldest known herbal, in use for more than 1500 years. About Pedanius Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides (c. 40-c. 90) was a Greek physician. Sometimes, you’ll see his name as Pedanius Dioscorides Anazarbus. He was from the small town of Anazarbus near Tarsus, a town which was renowned for the study of pharacology at the time. Dioscorides worked as a surgeon with the army of Roman Emperor Nero, recording animals and sea creatures, as well as the existence and medicinal value of hundreds of plants, roots, seeds, herbs, and vines in southern Europe and northern Africa . About 70 A.D., he compiled that information into a five-volume work of medicinal herbs and attributes. Some time later, Dioscorides’s herbal was first translated into Latin as De Materia Medica, which was in turn translated into Arabic as well as later Greek and Latin translations and then into Itlaian, German, Spanish, French, and English over the next 1500 years. The Juliana Codex / Vienna Dioscorides The Juliana Anicia Codex, also known as the Vienna Dioscorides, is located in the National Library in Vienna. It is an illustrated early middle ages (512 A.D.) translation, with 400 color ilustrations each occuping a full page opposite a description of the plant’s medicinal properties. illustrated by a Byzantine artist for presentation to Juliana Anicia, daughter of the Flavius Anicius Olybrius, in Constantinople. No original copy of the original Dioscorides work has ever been found, so it is unknown if it contained illustrations. Scholars believe that the illustrations in the Vienna Dioscorides are based on illustrations from the Rhizotomicon of Crateuas of Pergamon (1st century B.C.). You can download all five books of De Materia Medica in PDF format. I have made 12 tiles from the Vienna Dioscorides so far and will add more sets over time. (via The Poisonous Garden, Vienna Dioscorides tiles) -- source link
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