Vol.:(0123456789) Journal of the History of Biology https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-025-09822-x REVIEW ESSAY Plants, Pictures, and People Andrew Griebeler, Botanical Icons: Critical Practices of Illustration in the Premodern Mediterranean, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2024, ISBN: 9780226826790, 344 pp. Sophia Rhizopoulou 1 Accepted: 6 May 2025 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2025 The book Botanical Icons places premodern botanical illustrations from the Medi- terranean region—one of the earth’s biodiversity hotspots in the present era (Medail and Quezel 1997; Comes 2004; Kougioumoutzis et al. 2024)—in scientific, cultural, and intellectual context. Pursued for both knowledge and delectation, the craft of botanical illustration in the ancient, medieval, and early modern Mediterranean requires meticulous and rigorous scientific and historical analysis. The book there- fore emphasizes the links between the evolution of botanical icons and develop- ments in cultures around the Mediterranean Sea. It also celebrates the illustrated botanical tradition with a selection of a millennium’s worth of outstanding works, from Byzantine manuscripts through to 19th-century editions. Richly illustrated with ninety-six color plates, the book covers the history of botanical representation from many angles. Illustration, after all, was an important way (along with plant names and descriptions) for people to convey plant knowledge visually ever since late antiquity. Griebeler analyzes interactions between texts and illustrations using selected manuscripts, and demonstrates the advantages of explor- ing the “visual knowledge” of plants through an interdisciplinary approach. The botanical icons have their own tales to tell. The first chapter, entitled “Rulers and Root-Cutters” discusses the relationship between the medical value of botany and political power. In the pre-printing era, herbal manuscripts represented a chain across generations, centuries, and cultures, constituting an enduring witness to botanical knowledge. The ancestors of medieval herbals, commonplace throughout Europe, were ancient Greek manuscripts recopied countless times (Touwaide 2009). Ancient herbals portraying practical botany, phar- macopoeia and medicine were originally crucial tools of root cutters or rhizotomoi * Sophia Rhizopoulou srhizop@biol.uoa.gr 1 National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece