Emma Sallent Del Colombo, Department of Philosophy, University of Barcelona, presents the book Dioscórides ante el mundo. Usos plurales de un “libro-laboratorio” en la Edad Moderna (Dioscorides before the world. Plural uses of a “laboratory book” in the Modern Age), by Elisa Andretta and José Pardo-Tomás.

Friday, 27 February at 12:00 noon.

Format: hybrid, Palau Cerveró meeting room and Zoom (access code:581087)

Speakers: José Pardo-Tomás (IMF-CSIC, Barcelona) and Jana Černá (IILP, Valencia)

The book explores the profound transformation of De materia medica, the great pharmacopoeia treatise of Antiquity, during the early centuries of modernity. Far from being a closed text, Dioscorides' work became a veritable laboratory of knowledge, subjected to critical reading, experimentation and reinterpretation by physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, natural philosophers, philologists and policy makers.

Edited by Elisa Andretta (CNRS, Lyon) and José Pardo-Tomás (IMF-CSIC, Barcelona) with contributions from a dozen authors from various countries, the book analyses how knowledge about plants, animals and minerals with medicinal properties expanded and reorganised itself when classical tradition was compared with direct experience and news from distant lands. This process made it possible to renew knowledge and practices in the natural world and put them at the service of the control of natural resources in very diverse cultural and geographical contexts.

From Burgos to Goa, from Paris to Mexico, passing through Venice, Padua, Rome and Prague, Dioscórides ante el mundo explores the multiple uses, translations, critiques and commentaries that made Dioscorides' treatise a constantly evolving reference point during the Modern Age.

The work is part of the CSIC Estudios sobre la Cencia collection and, in addition to the paper format, is available with open access at eBook .