Impressions From the Conference Visualizing Drugs & Dyes

Art and Pharmacology in (Early) Medieval Worlds (600 – 1400)

September 4–6, 2023

Art historians, philologists, conservators, medical historians, literary studies, classicist, and anthropologists, fostered a dialogue on the interrelation of art and pharmacology over the three days and delved deep into questions about the visualization of materia medica in medieval images and texts, the circulation of ingredients and the use of plant- and mineral-based colourants.

Besides the conference papers we integrated various sites visits into the program. On the first day we visited the manuscript department of the University of Basel, where medieval medical manuscripts were on display, carefully prepared and generously made available by Monika Studer from the Manuscript Department. The key object was the Antidotarium Magnum (D III 13), a pharmacopoeia of the late 12th century, which was presented by one of our speakers in front of the original.

On the second day, the conference was held at the Pharmacy Museum, which is part of the Pharmaceutical Science Department of the University of Basel. Before we started our program at the amazing lecture hall with historical drugs still on display, we were given a guided tour through the unique collection of the Pharmacy Museum by Elias Bloch. A site visit at the Department of Environmental Sciences to see the Bauhin Herbarium– one of the ten oldest herbaria in the world – concluded the international conference on the third day. Juriaan de Vos, Senior scientist & Curator of the Herbaria Basel and Botanical Garden at the Department of Environmental Sciences, showed us exclusively dried specimens from the Bauhin Herbarium, which is otherwise not on display.

My two student team members, Lyvia Baptista Wilhelm and Gregor von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk, put a lot of effort and energy over the three days to ensure that the technique worked, the transmission to zoom was successful and that everyone had enough to eat and drink. A very special thanks to them!

Here are a few impressions from the conference. By the way: the beautiful conference poster was designed by Xenia Jöri.