About Plants and Animals – A medical house book from the Middle Ages
Exhibitor
Universal Art Group | Verlag Müller & Schindler
During the third quarter of the 12th century, unknown artists in Northern France or England created a fascinating manuscript: a medical house book, which is now published for the first time as a perfect and faithful facsimile edition, limited to 900 copies worldwide. The original is held under the signature Sloane MS 1975 in the British Library in London.
Our manuscript offers a unique testimony of its time, not only from the point of view of medicine, pharmacology and the history of science, but also with regard to the history of mentalities and history of art. More than 240 skilfully executed illustrations, which offer an exceptional insight into the knowledge of the era, display plants, animals and medical treatment methods, converting each image into a little work of art, full of colours and splendidly decorated with gold and silver. The strongly stylised illustrations of plants, some of them almost arabesque-like, are found on nearly every page of the compendium, and together with the wonderful depictions of animals make this manuscript a unique gem of medieval book art.
The extraordinarily rich and sophisticated execution of this splendid manuscript indicates that the book was created for the extensive collection of a cultured, high-ranking individual.
