The Theriaca’s vase can be found at the Antica Spezieria di Santa Maria della Scala in Rome. In this apothecary’s vase, is contained the best-known product, of the pharmacy, the Teriaca, a compound of 57 herbs and viper’s meat.
Produced the first time by Andromachus in the 1st century AD, it was an alexipharmic, or antidote, considered a panacea. In 1600, it became, thanks to the friars of the spicery, a remedy for everything that everyone in Rome used to treat his sicknesses. Patients would use theriac for bites but also as a preventative against any kind of poisoning and eventually against just about anything. It was used in salves and plasters or just eaten in chunks.
- Photos by Camilla Colicchia (January 2014), courtesy of “Antica Spezieria di Santa Maria della Scala”
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