Medieval Medical Miniatures

Medieval Medical Miniatures

Some of the manuscripts illustrated are famous because of the quality of their design and splendor of illumination. But most medical illustration was not work of such refinement and, consequently, has been ignored by historians of art. For the historian of medicine, however, these ordinary manuscripts are as revealing and enlightening as the select few, because they tell so well what the study and practice of the healing arts must have been like in medieval times and provide evidence of the changing role of the book in the history of medicine.

The eleven color and sixty black-and-white llustrations vividly enable the reader to see the extraordinary range and diversity of the miniatures in subject matter and styles. Jones considers each picture as an integral part of the manuscript in which it is found and interprets it as document of medical history. An informative and revealing addition to the literature of art and its place in medicine, Medieval Medical Miniatures gracefully combines sumptuous illustrations with enlightening text in a book of interest to physicians, art and medical historians, and medievalists alike.