ROOM OF HERBS

Dominae Herbarium

The magic of plants and herbal knowledge

The knowledge of the medicinal virtues of plants, the semplici (from the medieval Latin medicamentum or medicina simplex), dates back to the most remote antiquity. In Europe, Greek civilization has the earliest written documents regarding the use of plants in the cure of diseases: in their works, Homer, Pindar and Aristophanes describe how phytotherapy (herbal medicine) was practiced by doctors who were partially divine. The first organization of phytotherapy can be found in the work of Hippocrates, who made it the foundation of his innovative conception of medicine. Hence began a rational use of medicaments by the rhizotomoi, who, having a decent knowledge of the pathology and especially of botany, collected roots of medicinal plants. The so-called rizotomoi appeared also in Rome. They were specialized in the research of medicinal roots, aided by herbalists, herb finders, who set up proper pharmacies (tabernae medicinae), where remedies and herbs of all sorts and provenances could be found.

Besides these, another figure that existed in ancient Rome was that of the pharmacotriba, who did not exercise medicine, but limited himself to selling simple medical substances and to preparing the recipes of medicines prescribed by physicians. The knowledge gathered over the centuries by rizotomoi, herbalists and pharmacotrobia were catalogued in the grand encyclopedic work of Pliny the Elder, the Naturalis historia. The Greek physician Dioscorides, in his De matheria medica (Fourth century A.D.), further contributed to the classification of the semplici, term that designated the parts of plants, animals and minerals that had not undergone substantial manipulation, and of their use in medical practice.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, physiotherapeutic knowledge survived thanks to the patient work of transcription of classical manuscripts made by scribes in the scriptoria of Benedictine abbeys.

It was precisely by means of monastic culture and thanks to the influence of Arabs and Byzantines that, around the Ninth century, a famous medical school flourished in Salerno, which has transmitted a very famous collection of hygienic prescriptions and advices for the prevention of diseases, the Flos medicinae or Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum (Tenth century). This represents the summary of Arab and medieval knowledge. To assure themselves with a stock of natural medicines, the monks, in particular the followers of Saint Columbanus, introduced the “Gardens of simples” in their monasteries, where they cultivated the officinal herbs necessary for the composition of ointments, decoctions, and poultices.

With the contribution of the Arab medical experience (see Matteo Silvatico’s Opus pandectarum medicinae dated 1317), which penetrated in the abbeys and monasteries of Southern Italy, monastic pharmaceutical art considerably improved, enriched with the valuable use of distillation. Distillation was widely employed, fostering the therapeutic use of distilled waters and essences, which had a relevant role in medieval medicine and which anticipated the refinement of modern pharmaceutical techniques of extraction of active principles from plants.

In the Sixteenth century, while the interest for the study of nature grew and universities defined their role as custodians and sponsors of scientific knowledge, phytotherapy continued to be taught inside medicine faculties. In the same time, “Academic gardens” rose, where students could integrate the theoretical lessons they received.

The most ancient garden of this sort is considered to be the one in Pisa, followed by Padua and, finally, by Florence, founded by the duke Cosimo I de’ Medici on December 1st, 1545.

Although little known by historians, a fundamental role in the collection and transmission of herbal knowledge was played by the herbariae (women who knew the virtutes herbarum), by female healers and by sorceresses, who, throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age, practicing a charisma that was not acknowledged by authority, attended to the safeguard of health, in particular of subaltern classes.

The contribution given by these women in the preservation and transmission of extremely ancient knowledge, from which monks and later universities drew, is still to be uncovered. A history that has been neglected due to a violent process of acculturation that these women underwent between Fifteenth and Seventeenth century.

Magical Smells

Connected to the star symbolizing expansion and spirituality, agents of the vital force, of dynamism, heat, enthusiasm, courage, and optimism, such plants stimulate, among many other things, blood circulation, the heart, they are cardiotonic agents, restorative, stimulating. Saint John’s wort (hypericum), for instance, has antidepressant effects. Among the solar herbs we can recall thyme, sage and rosemary.

Made by Farmacia del Castello Genova.
Pharmaceutical description: essential oils.

In the deposition of the women accused of witchcraft we often read about a formidable ointment, made with hallucinogenic plants and parts of animals and humans, used by the women on their own body in order to magically fly to the ceremonies in honour of Satan. The unmistakable olfactory trait was the nauseating smell of the disgusting mush, which, to the nose of the servants of the Devil, recalled the classical smell of sulphur (i.e. of rotten eggs).

Made by Farmacia del Castello Genova.
Pharmaceutical description: essence of Methyl anthranilate and indole.