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| Apothecary Pot and Cover Italy, 1540-1555 The Victoria & Albert Museum |
During the Middle Ages, as the art of creating medicines become more prominent and standardized, books of the ingredients of medicines were shared by apothecaries, and soon, an increasing demand for appropriate storage vessels for medicines developed.
Pharmacies were, subsequently, a major source of income for
makers of maiolica. As the V&A tells
us, “The pharmacies and dispensaries of monastic orders, hospitals and noble
families required large numbers of jars to store their various herbs, roots,
syrups, pills, ointments and sweetmeats. These were sometimes marked with coats
of arms or other heraldic devices.”
Such drug containers , inscribed with their contents, began
to be produced in the middle of the Fifteenth Century. Non-inscribed vessels continued to be
made. The upside of these were that they could be
washed and refused for other tinctures.
The shape of this Italian, Sixteenth-Century pharmacy bottle
is based on Fifteenth Century glassware.
It is made with a lid. On the
front, in a panel enclosed by a decorative band with leafy scrolls scratched
through a blue ground, is a half-length figure of a bearded man in profile
against a blue sky. Below this panel, a scroll is inscribed in Gothic
characters with the name of the contents: “A. Eufragia.” This was also called “Eyebright water,” a
suspension of roses and herbs which was meant to cure illnesses of the eye,
and, in doing so, strengthen the head and promote better memory.
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