The overarching objective of the programme is to contribute to the current crisis of medicine development and procurement. To this end, it will recover the knowledge developed in the ancient Mediterranean World contained in old documents to be found in libraries. Relevant information extracted from such documents will be systematic searched for, recorded, and organized, and interpreted with all relevant keys, so as to make the knowledge accumulated by trial and error through millennia available for renewed research ascertaining the efficacy and safety of ancient practices.

The Chair is built around 4 long-term specific objectives:

• Inventorying, rescuing and preserving the library patrimony (ancient manuscripts in Greek, Latin, and Arabic) containing the knowledge of medicinal plants developed in the Mediterranean world in the past and suffering unavoidable damage.
• Interpreting ancient data with the scientific keys of biology, molecular biology, pharmaco-chemistry, pharmacology, botany, pharmacognosy and natural medicines.
• Making this tangible and intangible patrimony known and accessible for possible renewed applications, and contributing to the development of a new strategy, economically and environmentally sustainable, in modern pharmacotherapy, phytocosmesis, and nutrition
• Teaching to the next generation of scholars and scientists the contents and methods for the preservation of the tangible and intangible medico-scientific patrimony