Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Pliny the Elder - A Natural History

Herbals are the building blocks of the foundation of Apothecary. They are the text books that hold our knowledge. To understand apothecary we know look back at the period texts. Tonight's Herbals is....

Naturalis Historia
Pliny the Elder
The Death of Pliny the Elder 
Gaius Plinius Secundus
Born in 23 or 24 CE in Novum Comum, a small city in the region known as Gallia Transpadana.
Died in the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius while trying to rescue his friend Pomponianus and his family.
A Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher.


Also a naval and army commander and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian.

Natural History -1470


Earliest known copy – Nonantulus 5th or 6th Century
Earliest Manuscript - Codex Bamburgensis 10th       Century
Leidensis Vossianus -11th Century
Codex Parisinus Latinus – 10th or 11th Century
37 Books
2,000 Manuscripts Referenced
33,727 Items Listed
400 Authors Referenced
One of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day and to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge.
Pliny claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such a work.
Covers the fields of botany, zoology, astronomy, geology and mineralogy.
His discussions of some technical advances are the only sources for those inventions
It is virtually the only work which describes the work of artists of the time
A true window into 1st Century Rome.
  


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