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Healing Arts. Representations and Practices of Medical Knowledge in Art and Literature (9th-12th centuries)

Healing Arts. Representations and Practices of Medical Knowledge in Art and Literature (9th-12th centuries) research project hero image

Overview

The project explores the entangled histories of botany, art and health. It considers plant images in early medieval herbals as modes of knowledge that articulate and negotiate medical practices.

Full Project Description

The project focuses on the intertwined histories of Botany and Art in the Early Middle Ages. Herbaria with elaborated plant images, poems with pharmacological content, as well as medical boxes used as reliquaries manifest the post-antique interest in pharmacology, especially in the 9th/ 10th century. These visualizations reveal systems of knowledge in which concrete medical practices were being actively articulated and negotiated. It furthermore connects questions that lead us to see plants as a way to approach nature and how the natural world transforms into a visual system beyond the question of resemblance.

Technical Details

Project ID
083E

Healing Arts. Representations and Practices of Medical Knowledge in Art and Literature (9th-12th centuries)

The project explores the entangled histories of botany, art and health. It considers plant images in early medieval herbals as modes of knowledge that articulate and negotiate medical practices.