The Voynich Ninja

Marco's observation in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , with respect to the text and the drawing of Musa in the Manfredus MS (BN Lat 6823) seems to me to be an important one, and entirely correct.

The herb is mentioned in the earlier herbal BL Egerton 747, on fol.66r (right). Its transcription has been published and says:

Quote:Musa calida est in medio primi gradi, humida eiusdem fine. Fructus sunt similis citroli, quod alii pomum paradisi vocant. In ultramarinis partibus crescunt. Cuius folia similatur enula campana, sed sunt triplex mariores. Ventrem humectat, pectoris asperitatem lenit et pulmonem. Est nutrimenti multi et crossi, que assuefacta stomachi generat gravitatem et splenis et epatis oppilationem. Unde necesse est illam sepe comedentibus, ut post comestionem zinziber conditum detur aut oximelle, si manducantes sunt frigide nature, quod si calide, oxizachara accipiant.  

I more or less understand it, but won't attempt a translation. The beginning is the same as what Marco read in the Manfredus MS.

Since there is no illustration, it also does not appear in Firenze Pal. 586.

I also add the illustrations of Musa in Casanatense 459 and in Munich clm 28531.
[attachment=1898]   [attachment=1899]
The former is from around 1400, and the style is quite similar to that of the Tacuinum Sanitatis MS that was already shown by VViews. The CLM manuscript looks very similar to Sloane 4016.

Interestingly, the edition of Egerton 747 ("PS. Bartolomaeus Mini de Senis: Tractatus de herbis (MS London, British Library, Egerton 747) A cura de Iolanda Ventura") gives references to earlier copies of the text, though they are only partial.

In 'Liber de naturis rerum' of Pseudo-John Folsham (13th Century) ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ) it says:

Quote:Muza calida est in medio primi gradus, humida in  eiusdem fine, pectoris et pulmonis  lenit asperitatem. Hec arbor fit per infixionem ossis dactili in herba quadam , que dicitur colcasia. Et dicitur, quod in pomo huius arboris, quod iocundissimi et gratissimi saporis est,  deceptus erat primus parens noster

Another reference is: Arabismos botanicos y zoologicos en la traduccion Latina (s.XII) del Calendario de Cordoba
By Joaquin Bustamante Costa. 1996. In this 12th Century work the tree and its fruits are mentioned, and the name Musa is said to derive from Arabic 'Mawz(a)'.

(12-01-2018, 03:46 PM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I am struggling to find a medieval Arabic depiction of a banana plant. These might be more realistic. Any ideas?

Hi VViews, it was not terribly easy, but I could find the illustration of Banana in two copies of the Wonders of Creation by al-Qazwīnī. It was easier to find the less interesting image: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a XVIII Century Turkish copy, but the site provides page descriptions (banana is on f218). We are lucky that there are libraries with such great websites!


Using the Walters ms as a reference, I browsed the most ancient copy of the text (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Iraq, completed in 1280). Banana is at the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

Plant names are conveniently written in red, so I was able to check that the name is consistent with what Rene mentioned ('mawz' / 'muz').

(14-01-2018, 02:02 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The herb is mentioned in the earlier herbal BL Egerton 747, on fol.66r (right). Its transcription has been published and says:

Quote:Musa calida est in medio primi gradi, humida eiusdem fine. Fructus sunt similis citroli, quod alii pomum paradisi vocant. In ultramarinis partibus crescunt. Cuius folia similatur enula campana, sed sunt triplex mariores. Ventrem humectat, pectoris asperitatem lenit et pulmonem. Est nutrimenti multi et crossi, que assuefacta stomachi generat gravitatem et splenis et epatis oppilationem. Unde necesse est illam sepe comedentibus, ut post comestionem zinziber conditum detur aut oximelle, si manducantes sunt frigide nature, quod si calide, oxizachara accipiant.  

Thank you, Rene! I checked Egerton 747, but I couldn't spot the unillustrated paragraph.
Here is my rough translation:
Musa is hot in the average of the first degree and wet at the extreme of the first degree. Its fruits are similar to cucumber, some call them "the apples of paradise". They grow beyond the sea. Its leaf is like that of elecampane, but thrice as large. It keeps the bowels wet, cures coarseness of the chest and lungs. It is an abundant and thick nourishment: when ingested, it causes heaviness in the stomach and the spleen and blocks the liver. For these reasons, it is necessary that he who often eat [the fruits], after eating take ginger or oximel. if he is of a cold nature or, if of a hot [nature], he should take oxizachara.

If I understand correctly, oximel is vinegar and honey. Oxizachara could be vinegar and sugar.

(14-01-2018, 02:02 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Interestingly, the edition of Egerton 747 ("PS. Bartolomaeus Mini de Senis: Tractatus de herbis (MS London, British Library, Egerton 747) A cura de Iolanda Ventura") gives references to earlier copies of the text, though they are only partial.

In 'Liber de naturis rerum' of Pseudo-John Folsham (13th Century) ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. )  it says:

Quote:Muza calida est in medio primi gradus, humida in  eiusdem fine, pectoris et pulmonis  lenit asperitatem. Hec arbor fit per infixionem ossis dactili in herba quadam , que dicitur colcasia. Et dicitur, quod in pomo huius arboris, quod iocundissimi et gratissimi saporis est,  deceptus erat primus parens noster

The first part is the same as Egerton 747, but the rest is surprising!

This tree is produced by implanting the seed of a date in a certain plant called colocasia. They say that the fruit of this tree, which is very pleasant and deliciously tasting, deceived our first ancestor.

The forbidden fruit was a banana

Many thanks Marco!

The illustrations in the 1280 copy of the "Wonders of creation" are far better than any Arabic copy of Dioscurides I have ever seen. This banana tree is quite credible.

I would agree, René. If I saw that drawing without any text, one of my first hunches would be banana. Even though it's a small and fairly simple drawing it somehow conveys the basic elements and sense of scale via the proportions.

Could I just chip in here - 

Edith Sherwood identified the picture as a single-portrait image of the ordinary banana plant.

This causes certain historical problems because while there are various members of what our taxonomy groups as the Musaceae, the 'ordinary banana' plant and its appearance were - by all accounts - unknown in medieval Europe.

I am not speaking of schematic drawings such as those which occur in some copies of Ibn Botlan's work, known to the Latins as the Tacinum Sanitatis: the image in the Vms is very detailed, very accurate and nothing at all like those.

What is shows, as do the great majority of the botanical folios, is not a single member of the group but a number of them.

Now, I notice that Vviews takes as his 'default' for knowledge of non-European plants, the later Latin taxonomic system (which of course we now use as a matter of course in modern discussions of any plants).

However, he seems to believe that until something occurred in western Europe, or in western botanical imagery, it could not occur, and thus my recognising these plant pictures as composites is an 'anachronism'.

He is mistaken in both his basic assumption, and in supposing me unware of the history of botanical drawing and plant-pictures as art, whether within or outside the Mediterranean.

The point is not that the depiction of composites is an 'anachronism' but that the fact of such practice being used only in decorative arts of medieval Europe (not in herbal manuscript), shows as so much else does that to presume the content an expression of Latin European culture or learning is a mistake.

I did not try to 'identify the plant'.  What I did (and do) is explain what is on the page, why it appears in the very non-European form it does, and to what time and place such customs in art properly belong.

As I said in the highly detailed analysis of that folio - there can be no surer proof than the drawing's accuracy that this picture and most others cannot have been first enunciated in Latin Europe.   Like so much else ... in the astronomical section, in the root-and-leaf section and in the astronomical diagrams... the manuscript contains matter which historians of the relevant sciences KNOW beyond doubt were not part of the Latin scientific corpus by 1438.

It is far better to accept the primary document's testimony to its origins, and the body of relevant knowlege in historical, scientific, cultural, and iconographic studies than to keep trying to force-fit everything in the ms to a theory.


But then attempting to talk methodology in Voynich studies is usually considered not-done, so  - please continue.

(13-01-2018, 10:29 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

JKP: Banana does produce several stalks from the same corm. Admittedly, these take on a more separate look than they do in the VM, but they are still growing from the same base.



...

I guess I can't help looking at this from a gardener's point of view. To me, each of those is a corm. It's like garlic, you pull off the bulbs, plant them individually, and they grow.

So I still see that as one stalk per corm, not as many leaves coming from one corm.


I guess for this kind of thing, it comes down to how accurate the drawing is. The VMS is many stalks per corm, the banana is one stalk per corm, even the new banana stalks that form along the edge of the "mother" stalk have one stalk each.



Petasites leaves are harvested for medicinal purposes, even now, by cutting them near the base but it's best to leave some of them uncut so the plant will live, grow and propagate, as in the VMS drawing. The rhizomes are also selectively harvested.

Banana corms are split apart, like a garlic plant, each corm starting with a single stalk (which then splits into leaves). As far as I know, the young banana leaves are not harvested at the base to use the leaves... but there is a possibility they are pruned so that the energy goes into the main stalk. I haven't had time to look to see if that is actually done with banana plants. If the lower leaves are pruned, then they would match more closely to the VMS plant.

Petasites is harvested like Rhubarb, except the leaves are used instead of the stalks (both medicinally and for wrapping food).

Petasites hybridus:


[image credit: Elfi isiskristall on youtube]


The leaves are mostly used for swollen sinuses, coughs, and digestive complaints.

The root sometimes is swollen like the VMS drawing, but most of the time it looks like fat ginger roots, but perhaps the VMS root is drawn this way as a mnemonic for a plant used for a heart tonic (which is true for Petasites) or for a variety of heart ailments (which applies to quite a few plants but not necessarily Petasites).


Bananas were traditionally used for diarrhea and heartburn. Plantains (slightly unripe ones) for Type II diabetes (I'm not sure how far back this particular use goes. Long ago, diabetes was called "sugar sickness" but whether they would have used plantains to treat this ailment in the Middle Ages seems doubtful).


Unfortunately, even if the root is a mnemonic for the heart, it doesn't help in distinguishing Musa from Petasites if one was used for heartburn and the other as a heart tonic.  

I'm not sure what's going on with the root either. There's a hole in the middle, which makes me doubt that it can represent a solid lump like a heart. 

The way the two pieces overlap reminds me more of a large crab claw or scorpion. No idea what that means if it's the case.

If you trace the pencil lines you see clearly that it's meant as two overlapping parts with a hole in the middle. I'd show it now but I'm on my phone..

Edit: I don't mean this as an argument for or against banana, just that there may be some minor mnemonic aspect of the root.