590
odyssey that also makes clear the origins of botanical illustration. The challenge,
writes Pavord, as early on indicated by Pliny was that “it was difficult to represent a
plant in a single image when the plant itself changed all the time.”
13
The first known
illustrated plant, a comfrey (Symphytum officinale) from the Johnson Papyrus, AD
400
14
was greatly benefitted by new advances in the production of “sheets rather
than rolls” of papyrus, around AD 100.
15
The pharmaceutical entrepreneur Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome (1853–1936)
whose passion for the natural sciences and medicine resulted in one of the largest
medical philanthropies, and science libraries in England, first opened its doors to
the public in 1913, and again, transformed, in 2007. It is London’s equivalent of the
13 ibid., p. 76.
14 Wellcome Library, MS 5753, London.
15 ibid., Pavord, p. 76.
Fig. 61.2 Portrait of Pedanius Dioscorides, illumination from the sixth-century Greek Juliana
Anicia Codex, ca. 515 AD, also known as the Vienna Dioscurides. (Private Collection)
61 Strange Connectors