Portret van Pedanius Dioscorides 1816 - 1833

Pierre Roch Vigneron created this portrait of Pedanius Dioscorides using an engraving technique during the 19th century. Vigneron, working in a time of burgeoning scientific exploration, revives the legacy of Dioscorides, a Greek physician, pharmacologist, and botanist who lived in the 1st century AD. Consider the historical implications: Dioscorides served in the Roman army. He wrote "De Materia Medica," a crucial pharmaceutical text for over 1500 years. Vigneron’s engraving not only resurrects Dioscorides but invites us to contemplate the transmission of knowledge across millennia. The choice of portraying a historical figure involved in medicine also reflects broader cultural fascinations with science and history. Feel the weight of time as you consider how each era interprets its predecessors, and how portraits like these shape our collective memory.