Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Chig. F VII.158
Codex Chigi F VII.158 is richly illustrated with images of grasses, trees, plants, animals, amphibians and insects. This encyclopedic herbarium with notes about food, balsams, poisons and cosmetic products derived from various animals was an example and model both in the Orient and the Occident and enjoyed a great reputation from the medieval to the renaissance periods. The MS is the work of Dioscórides-Pedanio, the Greek doctor and naturalist born in the 1st century A.D. He was active as the military doctor for Emperor Claudio and Neron. Dioscórides understood the gathering and systemization of all that the empirical practice and popular medicine knew regarding the plants and their use.
