J. Antall szerk.: Medical history in Hungary 1972. Presented to the XXIII. International Congress of the History of Medicine / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 6. (Budapest, 1972)
Z. Kádár: Some Notes on the Common Archetypes of Pharmaco-Zoological Illustrations in the MSS. Cotton Vitellius C., III. and the Greek Theriaca
Z. Kádár : Some Notes on the Common Archetypes . 8? "iological" literature illustrations of this kind appeared —as far as we knowin Theriaca, the work of Nicander, physician and poet of Colophonian origin in the Hellenistic age. In the 3rd century Tertullian writes on Nicander in his work "Scorpiace" as follows: "Magnum de modico malum scorpio terra suppurat. Tot venena quot et genera, tot pernicies quot et soe:ies, tot dolores, qu ot ot colorer Nicander scribit et pinxit." Max Wellmann has pointed out 4 that Nicander's work —which was concerned mainly about venomous snakes and scorpions —is not an original one, but was compiled on the basis of the works of Apollodoros an Alexandrine physician in the 3rd cent. B.C. Thus the species of animals described in the work all attest the East-African provenance. For obvious reasons we cannot expect the scribe, not to mention the illuminator of the codex, Fig. 1. Vienna, Nat. Bibl. Cod. med. gr. 1. Fol. 399* produced on Anglo-saxon territory in the 11th century, to have a correct knowledge of the venomous animals of the South-Mediterranean area, nevertheless, in our analysis we shall try to establish the connections between the illustrations of the Theriaca manuscript and the miniatures of the London codex representing snakes and scorpions. Nicander's Theriaca has come down to us in one illustrated manuscript preserved in a manuscript dating back to the 10— 11th centuries now in the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris. (Suppl. gr. 247). Some of its pictures represent snakes and scorpions and some of these venomous animals are even identified. The immediate prototype of human representations can be traced back only to the 3rd century, while "Villustration marginale dérive directement de Vart héllenistique" 5. We know the paraphrase of Eutecnios written to the work of Nicander in the late classical period, the text of two manuscripts was even 4 Wellmann, M.: Philumenos: Hermes XL (1900) p. 369. According to him Apollodoros's work was illustrated. ^ 5 Porcher, J.—Concasty, M. L. Byzance et la France Médievale, Paris 1958, p. 2. (bibliography ibid. p. 2-3), text edition: Gow, A. S. F.-Sçĥo fie đ, A. F.: Nicander, Cambridge 1953; c.f. also Diringer, D.: op. cit. pp. 49 — 50; Weitzmann, K.: Ancient Book Illumination, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1959, pp. 14—15, 24, 97-99, 109, lately Grabar, A.: L'art profane a Byzance: XIV e Congrés Int. de Études Byzantines, Rapports III, Bucarest 1971 p. 21.
