gems, early lapidaries, Albertus Magnus, epilepsy, magical properties, medicine, melancholy

In this volume a distinguished international team of scholars examines the history of drugs within all the major medical traditions of the medieval Mediterranean—Byzantine, Islamicate, Jewish, and Latin—analyzing numerous previously unedited or scarcely explored texts; adopting a Mediterranean-wide perspective enables deeper insight into broad phenomena such as the transfer of scientific knowledge and cultural exchange by transcending individual linguistic traditions or political boundaries, while also underscoring the diversity and vitality of medieval Mediterranean pharmacology, which, through its close ties to cookery, alchemy, magic, religion, and philosophy, had to adapt to various contexts, including shifting social and political realities, such as the use of drugs as diplomatic gifts.