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flat-top / hollow roots - MarcoP - 06-03-2017
The subject of “flat-top roots” was previously discussed in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
The point is that there are cases in which the roots are represented with a “flat top”, as if they had been horizontally cut, with the stem or stems of the plant rigidly ticking out of this flat surface.
This can be seen, for instance, in f36r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. posted an extensive list of roots of this kind (links to the scans added by myself):
(27-01-2016, 04:06 AM)Oocephalus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.... in many plants, the stem is separated from the root by a horizontal line. This occurs in "grafted" plants, where the stem is placed on a much thicker root that appears to have been cut off (but not in all of them), but also in ones where the stem and the root have the same thickness. With one exception, this only appears in plants where the text is Currier A.
The following pages have "grafted" plants with such lines: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (?), You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. pointed out the online link to some illustrations from Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Ashb. 731, XV Century.
The illustration from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is particularly relevant. It represent Master Aloysius from Palermo standing next to a flowering plant with a “flat top root”.
As far as I remember, this is the closer parallel I have seen to some of the peculiar roots in the VMS.
These are my tentative transcription and translation of the Latin inscription in the Florence ms:
“Magister aloisius erbolarius et medicus depalermo
Ista erba vocatu[r] jusclamor quod dicitur panem malu[m] ter[r]e et valet co[n]tra adolore[m] capitis et g[?] esplena”
Master Aloysius herbalist and physician from Palermo
This plant is called “jusclamor” also said “bad earth bread” and is helpful against headaches and [...]”
While I am very uncertain about the end of the second sentence, it seems clear that the illustrated plant is cyclamen (jusclamor) which was commonly known as You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
For comparison, I attach on the right the illustration of Cyclamen fromYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (XI Century).
I hope that others will suggest other illustrations featuring similar roots.
RE: flat-top roots - Sam G - 06-03-2017
I don't think that example from the alchemical herbal is really a "flat top root" - more like a "hollow root" (which we can find in the VMS as well).
RE: flat-top roots - MarcoP - 06-03-2017
(06-03-2017, 04:27 PM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't think that example from the alchemical herbal is really a "flat top root" - more like a "hollow root" (which we can find in the VMS as well).
Thank you, Sam. I think I understand what you mean: the Florence ms illustration is ambiguous and it could also be read similarly to Voynich You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I suspect that the "flat-top" and "hollow" roots are two similar attempts to render the three-dimensional volume of the roots. In the Voynich ms they appear as two distinct types of roots.
In the case of the Florence ms, what makes me prefer the flat-top interpretation is that the central stem does not go down to the hypothetical rim of the hollow root, so giving the impression of sticking out of a flat top. The ambiguity derives from the shading that suggests that the root is hollow (while Voynich flat tops are white, with no shading).
I will ask the moderators if they can rename the thread to include "hollow roots".
RE: flat-top / hollow roots - davidjackson - 06-03-2017
Subject changed as requested.
RE: flat-top roots - ReneZ - 06-03-2017
There's folio 42v in Wellcome MS 336.
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RE: flat-top / hollow roots - Davidsch - 06-03-2017
Rene et Marco: grazie per 12 o 13 grado e calda e secca !!
RE: flat-top / hollow roots - -JKP- - 07-03-2017
Marco, I agree the middle picture is probably Cyclamen—it is labeled as such—but I don't think the flat top on the VMS picture on the left has the same meaning as the one in the middle...
Cyclamen has a very broad, round potato-like bulb that is sometimes somewhat flattened on the top. I have them in my garden. So the picture somewhat reflects the actual shape of the bulb. It may be stylized, but it is based on the basic shape in real life.
But the VMS picture, I'm pretty sure, does not mean these plants have large, roundish flattened bulbs. I'm quite sure they are not cyclamen or any other plant with large corms. The VMS illustrator would have drawn the leaves and the corm differently.
I spent months trying to learn the VMS plant iconography before I started identifying the plants and I'm pretty sure what the VMS illlustrator means is that these plants grow thickly in clumps with shared rhizomes...
Plants that grow like this include the borage/comfrey family, Pulmonaria, some of the mint family, etc. You have to grow them in containers or they will quickly spread via the roots and take over the whole area. I think the VMS is illustrating this kind of plant.
Also, something I've been keeping to myself, but it's hard to talk honestly about these flat-top images without revealing it, is that I think some of the flat-top plant roots might indicate aquatic plants, the ones that grow at the edges of lakes. The flat top could be the water or it could be the soil (depending on the plant) I'm not sure if it's a combination of rhizomous plants and aquatic plants, or if it's specifically wetland plants with a rhizomous habit, because the plants that grow at the edges of ponds often do spread by rhizomes, but that's my interpretation of this iconography. These are plants that grow thickly and probably spread by rhizomes (sideways roots that form new shoots).
RE: flat-top / hollow roots - Diane - 09-03-2017
A couple of notes on rigour in methodology.
Since we must keep in mind the question of later influence from Beinecke MS 408 it's important always to place comparisons appropriately in the historical time-line.
Wellcome MS 336, for example (cited above) is described by the holding library as made "in the late fifteenth century" - which would usually mean c.1485 or later, making it a work which was produced two or more generations after the Voynich manuscript. Very interesting suggestion there of possible cause and effect.
However, the Wellcome library entry also notes that manuscript's style as unusual, so we can't use the later work as an argument that there is anything 'characteristically European' about imagery in the Voynich manuscript's botanical folios.
Just for those who like to read first and form opinions later..
I've already looked into - and very briefly noted online - the range, history and context of this 'flat-top and multiple roots' motif. The work was done ages ago, ignored by those opposed to the very notion of any Asian or Jewish influence in the manuscript, and thereafter of course (as blog-posts are) probably forgotten.
The facts in brief, without bibliography or detail ..
The motif occurs earliest and most commonly in southern China and southeast Asia, particularly the latter.
It is a stock method for denoting water-loving and marsh-loving plants such as the Iris.
Together with the carp, it forms a variant on one constant theme of Asian art: "water-plant and fish" and this was a regular motif on eastern wares, particularly china and blue-and-white porcelain, though also in other media including paintings and some fabrics.
By no later than the middle of the twelfth century, we find this motif (without the carp) in plant-pictures of Persian character. One manuscript of particular interest shows this motif and others also seen in the Voynich botanical section. The stylistics however show certain clear differences. That manuscript is the Mashhad Dioscorides, to which a folio described by Day is also related.
By the mid-thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, we find other motifs comparable to those in the Vms, and not found in earlier Latin herbals, are emerging in works produced in Iberia, France and elsewhere.
By the early fifteenth century, these motifs occur within many other non-Latin customs in iconography, within the botanical imagery of the Voynich manuscript.
About half a century later, such motifs appear to become fairly suddenly popular in some sectors of Latin Europe, and some few are even plainly normalised in imagery used for printed works by the early sixteenth century.
However, the 'water-loving plant' motif shows limited adoption, and only rarely presents naturally or other than awkwardly when reproduced by a Latin draughtsman.
That manuscript from the Wellcome library is the most 'natural' use of this motif I've seen in western plant-pictures so far. May I ask whether anyone remembers the first person to have noticed it, and whether one can still read any comments made at that time?
RE: flat-top / hollow roots - ReneZ - 09-03-2017
By pure coincidence, I saw a (somewhat) similar asparagus illustration in the following short article:
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This seems to be the earliest printed work including herbal illustrations, and it is suggested that the
main source would have been the Montecassino MS Cas.97 which includes several medical
works.
RE: flat-top / hollow roots - -JKP- - 09-03-2017
Asparagus is another plant that sends out rhizomes and spreads through the roots, so a "glob" on the bottom would be appropriate.