(11-01-2017, 10:00 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:If we accept that the real plant might have alternate leaves, rather than opposite leaves as in the VMS plant, then there are about 50 more plants that might match (including many of the thistles).
I think that would be a reasonable admission, because the whole look of the plant is apparently non-naturalistic - the roots are the same as leaves. Also note that in the figure they are not opposite exclusively. They are mostly opposite, but partly alternate still. And those that are opposite are in fact not strictly opposite but look as a single leaf awkwardly "pierced through".
...
The "pierced through" look was a very common way to draw clasping leaves or You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view. (I'm trying to stay away from botanical terms because they can get pretty technical) and it is a distinguishing characteristic of certain plants.
Internet says Pliny wrote upon safflower (as cnicon), but I can't find where.
Anton, I'm not sure where you found mention of Carthamus tinctorius in connection with folio 54r, and I'm not trying to do more than offer the fact when I say that such was my own identification. I published that quite some time ago and will send you a copy of it if you'd like to know the evidence and reasoning behind it.
To judge from the quality of silence which met my opinion, nothing of the sort had been said before, and if anyone else has repeated the id since, I've not had any ping-backs.
But the short story is - yes - you have at least one person to cite for that id.
On this - I might say that while Fr.Petersen's id's are his own, "Steve D" is a source which it is better not to quote - his method was astoundingly inappropriate, and his respect for future researcher as minimal for those whose work he plundered. Unless his supposed "id" is presented exactly as proffered by Fr.Petersen or Dana Scott, it is best not mentioned at all. I'll spare everyone the details. It's enough that anyone hoping to use botanical ids as key to the text should know to avoid it.
Quote:Anton, I'm not sure where you found mention of Carthamus tinctorius in connection with folio 54r, and I'm not trying to do more than offer the fact when I say that such was my own identification. I published that quite some time ago and will send you a copy of it if you'd like to know the evidence and reasoning behind it.
To judge from the quality of silence which met my opinion, nothing of the sort had been said before, and if anyone else has repeated the id since, I've not had any ping-backs.
But the short story is - yes - you have at least one person to cite for that id.
Excellent! I must confess that, to my shame, due to the lack of time, I still haven't looked through your identifications that you sent me a while ago - I should add them to my blog post about the "focal set of plants". So I don't know whether carthamus is there or not. But it's good (and encouraging) that someone (i.e. you) have come to this identification through the imagery analysis. Because how I yesterday came to that was completely other way around. What I did was this:
1) Look at the VMS picture and see if any mnemonics manifest themselves to my eye;
2) Having marked out supposed mnemonics, propose objects that they look like. Basically, I thought of wolf's/fox's tails for the roots and leaves and of skirts for those elements of the stem. I also borrowed the feathers suggestion from the description on Rene's website;
3) Search Pritzel's index for mentions of those objects;
4) Look for the plants which names refer to those object's names and see if they match the VMS picture more or less fine.
Thus I found this Carthamus, only instead of tails or feathers one of its folk names referred to a
brush - and I think that brushes may be exactly what the painter was trying to depict here.
Quote:Plin. Nat. Hist. 21,90
My browser suggests that I already consulted that chapter yesterday, but I can't see anything about carthamus or cnicon there.
It runs:
Quote:The hemerocalles has a soft, pale green leaf, with an odo- riferous, bulbous root. This root, applied with honey to the abdomen, draws off the aqueous humours and all corrupt blood. The leaves of it are applied for defluxions of the eyes, and for pains in the mamillæ, after childbirth.
Hemerocalles is not carthamus.
Anton: following Diane's observations, I also believe that the mnemonics in or near the roots of the large plants (
not the small plants) hint at the plant's usage. This plant - as evident in its name - was traditionally used for all kinds of dying and the oil can apparently even be used for painting. So brushes would be appropriate.
It's always special when people come to the same conclusion independently, using different methods and even completely different views on the manuscript and its cultural background. Perhaps we can write this plant down as Carthamus tinctorius
Quote:Anton: following Diane's observations, I also believe that the mnemonics in or near the roots of the large plants (not the small plants) hint at the plant's usage. This plant - as evident in its name - was traditionally used for all kinds of dying and the oil can apparently even be used for painting. So brushes would be appropriate.
My idea is that the roots reflect anything from Pliny's Natural History's description of the plant that the VMS author considered appropriate. Hence, if the plant is absent in NH or there is no appropriate mnemonic to be associated with that, the root in the VMS will be "commonplace". Like in this case, where roots just repeat mnemonics of the leaves. This, of course, is just an idea yet and needs be validated against a larger set of more or less fitting plant identifications.
I do not consider the pharma section at the moment and can't say anithing about that.
Now, for painting brushes - I did not think of them in that way. I thought of cleaning brushes. In fact, German "Buerste" is the cleaning brush. But you may be right that, while the leaves stand for "Buerste", the roots (according to Pliny or otherwise) stand for
painting brushes. Indeed, looking attentively, they have somewhat more "prolonged" look and resemble painting brushes. Very good observation!
(12-01-2017, 01:53 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:Plin. Nat. Hist. 21,90
My browser suggests that I already consulted that chapter yesterday, but I can't see anything about carthamus or cnicon there.
It runs:
Quote:The hemerocalles has a soft, pale green leaf, with an odo- riferous, bulbous root. This root, applied with honey to the abdomen, draws off the aqueous humours and all corrupt blood. The leaves of it are applied for defluxions of the eyes, and for pains in the mamillæ, after childbirth.
Hemerocalles is not carthamus.
Sorry, my mistake or rather the mistake of Karl Ernst Georges, it is Hist.Nat 21,29,53 (Mayhoff edition, which gives cneorum)
29. [53] Ergo in coronamenta folio venere melotrum, spiraea, <o>riganum, cneorum, quod casiam Hyginus vocat, et, quod cunilaginem, conyza, melissophyllum, quod apiastrum, melilotum, quod sertulam Campanam vocamus. est enim in Campania Italiae laudatissima, Graecis in Sunio, mox Chalcidica et Cretica, ubicumque vero asperis et silvestribus nata. coronas ex ea antiquitus factitatas indicio est nomen sertulae, quod occupavit. odor est croco vicinus et flos, ipsa cana; placet maxime foliis brevissimis atque pinguissimis.
Vide You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.
I guess that is also something irrelevant.
Bostock You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view. footnote 4, saying that
cneorum is "Daphne Cnidia" (I suppose, it should be read "Gnidia").