Mat-Med in Transit

Sabrina Minuzzi, previously part of the team of the ERC-funded Oxford-based 15cBOOKTRADE Project led by Cristina Dondi, was awarded in 2019 a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship for her project MAT-MED in Transit. The Transforming Knowledge of Healing Plants (H2020, G.A. 844886, Oct. 2019-Sept. 2021). The acronym MAT-MED stands for materia medica, which is the body of knowledge concerning the medicinal properties of plants, animals and minerals – the so called ‘simples’ – that formed the basis for the preparation of medical remedies.

The new database MatMed-Readers, modelled on MEI, allows for the systematic analysis and recording of the traces that past readers left on printed books concerning materia medica.

At present MatMed-Readers offers the description of a few copies of herbals (mainly), books of secrets and regimina sanitatis printed in Italy.

Read more about the project in her Blog post

Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Commentarii in sex libros Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbei de medica materia…, Venetiis, ex officina Valgrisiana, 1565 (Venetiis : apud Vincentium Valgrisium, 1565), fol.