MAT-MED in Transit · MAT-MED Materia Medica in Transit. The Transforming Knowledge of Healing Plants

MAT-MED Materia Medica in Transit. The Transforming Knowledge of Healing Plants

'Materia medica' is a Latin expression meaning the body of knowledge about the medicinal properties of plants, of certain animals and minerals - the so-called 'simples' - that constitute the raw material for the preparation of medicinal remedies. The locution derives from the Latin title of the massive compilation put together in the 1st century AD by the physician Pedanius Dioscorides (original language: Greek; Latin translation: De Materia Medica). The main purpose of MAT-MED in Transit is to trace the Italian circulation of knowledge about local and exotic medicinal plants between the late 15th and early 17th century. Despite its slow commercial decline, Venice is a good vantage point, because it continued to be an important centre for the circulation of 'simples' and related knowledge. This circulation, which is a segment of the more global transit of 'materia medica' between European countries and between Europe and the West and East Indies, took place both at the level of professional figures (physicians, apothecaries) and at the level of more common people, whose role is usually more difficult to trace and often dismissed by scholars as an exercise in empiricism and quackery. MAT-MED in Transit demonstrates the social transversality of this circulation and the strong involvement of ordinary people as well, in the 16th century at its peak, only to decrease in the following century. Clear signs of this are the continuously growing production of Italian printed books on the 'materia medica' and the survival of numerous manuscript herbals. These, together with archive documents, are the main sources of this project, studied with an interdisciplinary approach that interweaves book history and history of science. The ultimate aim of MAT-MED in Transit is to raise our current awareness of the value of nature as a resource in our everyday lives. To this end, during 2022 I have designed a number of specific activities and research products (exhibition, board game, videos).

Data: CORDIS, © European Union