05-06-2025, 12:29 PM
(04-06-2025, 02:18 AM)Cile cile Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hello again everyone, thanks for responding to my thread.
I guess some people will argue about this idea i have, cos it's not consistent with the time when VM was parchment made.
I will share it here anyway
I noticed that many of the plants in the manuscript are primitive plants (a lot have spore capsules), and for example moss is pretty small plant to examine. The creator of VM would have to use some kind of magnifying glass.
I too thought some features of the plants resemble moss. However I don't think one needs a magnifying glass or a microscope to observe the basics of moss sporangia, the naked eye is enough (just try it). And magnifying glasses are known since antiquity, and were surely re-discovered and known in Europe by the 13th century (Roger Bacon describes them, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ).
(04-06-2025, 02:18 AM)Cile cile Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. So, the drawings of objects (that people assume are apothecary cups) could maybe be early versions of microscopes. Any thoughts?
This has already been proposed (sorry but I don't remember by whom and when). One problem is it's very anachronistic, for what I know microscopes of that kind appeared at the beginning of the 17th century. Moreover some of them, those with 'legs', could possibly (improbably) be microscopes, but all the rest cannot because without a support there's no path for light to illuminate the specimen.