AePVII_Andreozzi

Ricardo Andreozzi,
University of Pisa, Italy

Plants and signs: healing with plants according the iatromathematical science during the Roman and Late Antique Egypt   
DOI: https://doi.org/10.71067/AePVII-2022-21-64 
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Aegyptus et Pannonia VII, Acta Symposii anno 2021, Plants and Health from Ancient Egypt. to the Present Day.
Proceedings of the Conference held between 14th and 16th October 2021, Budapest; ed. by Hedvig Győry.
Published by The Ancient Egyptian Committee of the Hungarian-Egyptian Friendship Society, Budapest 2022, ISBN: 978-615-6571-01-4; DOI: https://doi.org/10.71067/AePVII-2022  
Soft cover. No Jacket. 1.st Edition. 6+338 pages (24x17), with colour pictures.

Abstract
During the period between the 1 st to 3rd century AD, the Hermeticis became widespread in the Roman Empire, and the texts of the Corpus Hermeticum took shape. Their attribution to the god Thot, as the contexts and characters of these writings openly recall the Egyptian environment where they grew. Among the treatises of the Corpus, the works on astrological medicine,
or iatromathematica, deserve particular attention. The latter discipline aims to explain the disease as the negative influence of a celestial body and to heal the illness by deleting the harmful effects of the star or planet. The iatromathematica constitutes a coherent set of knowledge in which the microcosm and the macrocosm are deeply connected: every part of the body, every plant, every stone, every animal finds its position in a precise pattern of correspondences with the celestial world. Within this frame, the purpose of this contribution is to investigate the reasons for the choice of some of the plants mentioned in the writings of “astrological botany” in the treatment of individual diseases, trying to understand the reason for their connection to individual stars, and, when possible, also highlighting the Egyptian background of the formation of these texts or their link with most recent innovations (such as the introduction of new plants in Egypt during the Graeco-Roman time). Furthermore, it will be underlined the connection, hitherto little or not at all recognized, of this type of writings with the Demotic, Greek, and Coptic herbaria that Roman Egypt has preserved, noting the singular coincidence of the common presence of some plants in both of these genres, and the significance of the iatromathematica in the formation and transmission of late herbaria