20 - A fascimile copy of Dioskurides Codex Vindobonensis Medicus Graceus,

A fascimile copy of Dioskurides Codex Vindobonensis Medicus Graceus, Published in a limited run of 480 copies by Salerno Editrice in Roma and Akademische Druck u. Verlagsanstalt in Graz, 1988, With accompanying text Codex Neapolitanus is one of the oldest manuscripts in the tradition of Materia Medica, the leading pharmacological work of Greco-Roman times, written by the Greek surgeon Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century A.D. The Neapolitan codex can be dated to the early 7th century, although it is still a question as to whether it was made in Byzantium or in Italy. It includes a great number of botanical illustrations and descriptions of plants in all their details. G. Cavallo suggests that the miniatures in the manuscript were obviously a product of the activity of Greek artists in Italy. The 403 miniatures depict different plants and bear unique testimony to the skill of the illuminators of this period. Until the early 18th century, the original manuscript was kept in the Augustine monastery S. Giovanny a Carbonara in Naples. In 1718, the Habsburgs took it back with them to the Viennese Court Library and the conclusion of the peace negotiations after World War I, the codex returned to Naples in 1919, to the Biblioteca Nazionale, where it is now kept.