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+--- Thread: [Trinity] Plant identification in Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium (/thread-1888.html)
RE: Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium - Koen G - 06-05-2017
Might it be easier if we have a couple of thread about this MS and I put them all in the same subforum? I've got a feeling that this thread will become large and unwieldy soon
About the palma Christi, is it normal that "palma" is written like "plam"? It looks like the scribe swaps consonants.
Also, does this say that the roots contain a stone? Is that common? This MS has a thing for stones, it seems.
RE: Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium - ReneZ - 07-05-2017
The first 'fantasy herb' is on f61v. This is immediately after the end of the 'Ex herbis femininis' section, and still before the pages with Galen and Hippocrates.
Nomen herbe gelosia:
I think there can be little doubt that this is a 'free style' interpretation of 'galesia' see for example fol. 75v of Paris BN Lat 6823 (Manfredus), from 1330 - 1340:
RE: [Trinity] Plant identification in Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium - MarcoP - 07-05-2017
Hello Rene, you are certainly right about the identity of Gelosia / Gelloxia and Gelesia.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a 1887 book about a manuscript in the Estense library. It says that Gelesia is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
This You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. gives "Fior di Gelosia" as a name for the same plant.
I think it is very interesting that the spelling "gelosia" (jealousy) only occurs in a few languages, such as Italian and Catalan. This is likely a relevant hint to the origin of this chapter.
The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Egerton 747 you previously pointed out says that the source for the information about this plant is unknown. The plant is said to be a cure for epilepsy (caducos sive lunaticos). The Trinity College ms has a much longer text, which also gives "lunaticos" as a medical application (line 6). But the text really does not seem related with that of Egerton 747 or BNF Latin 6823.
The Trinity College ms also provides additional names. They are all abbreviated, so I am not sure of how they read: gionos? vulpentes? solutiosis?
PS: once again, the illustration appears to be strictly derivative from the text. Line 4: it has leaves of four colors: green?, yellow, blue and red. The leaves have been schematically split in four parts, with two orthogonal lines, and painted in the four different colors. Egerton 747 and Lat.6823 both state that the leaves have three different colors (as represented in the illustrations).
RE: [Trinity] Plant identification in Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium - -JKP- - 07-05-2017
(07-05-2017, 02:19 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hello Rene, you are certainly right about the identity of Gelosia / Gelloxia and Gelesia.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a 1887 book about a manuscript in the Estense library. It says that Gelesia is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
...
I know that this plant drawing is widely identified as Amaranthus tricolor.
The only problem is that A. tricolor was not widely known in Europe, the Meditteranean or even northern Africa in the middle ages, as far as I've been able to determine. It is a Far East, New World, and tropical African plant—indigenous to hot climates.
I've been trying to sort this out for a while and I suspect that some of the drawings are Solenostemon (Coleus) which has many species similar to Amaranthus tricolor.
Have you noticed that these drawings of "A. tricolor" almost never show the distinctive Amaranthus plumes and that many of the drawings do not match each other in terms of the color pattern? When they do, the plant is usually not as colorful and is probably a different species of Amaranth more adapted to temperate climates.
Coleus not only has similarly shaped leaves, but it has a wider range of colors, including green, red, yellow, deep violet and violet-blue. The blues are not typically found in Amaranthus. They are mostly green with some red, most are not as colorful as A. tricolor which also has yellow. In contrast, there are many Coleus species that have a variety of colors.
If you look at the Trinity plant, the flower stalks are more similar to Coleus spikes than to Amaranthus plumes.
Now, there's a wrinkle in the Coleus idea also. I'm not 100% sure, only about 85% sure... It is native to the same region as Amaranthus tricolor, which means it may not have been known in medieval Europe but... it is in the mint family and more cold-tolerant than Amaranthus tricolor, and thus did have a broader distribution in the 15th century, including Sri Lanka and Tibet and possibly also Pakistan. A number of the flora of Pakistan came into Europe during the Roman occupation and began to be cultivated in the west around the 3rd century or so, so it is possible that Coleus had been brought west by the 1200s.
So, due to the color descriptions, the shape, the distribution at the time of the middle ages, the lack of plumes, the plant that is drawn this way in the older herbals is more likely to be Coleus than Amaranth. The plants are similar enough that many people confuse them. Both Amaranthus tricolor and several species of Solenstemon are known as "Joseph's coat" and both are edible species, so it's possible that both are called by Galesia/Gelesia/etc.
I haven't figured out exactly when A. tricolor was introduced to Europe and began to be more widely known (possibly around the 14th century?), but some of the later herbals do refer to it. The earlier ones, however, especially those that have drawn the plant with violet or blue and with flower spikes instead of plumes (like the Trinity plant), are more likely to be You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
RE: [Trinity] Plant identification in Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium - Diane - 08-05-2017
Koen,
This is a bit late in the thread - but I should take "Syrie... etc." to mean Syria and environs, or Syria and regions to which the plant has been introduced/ where it is naturalised.
RE: [Trinity] Plant identification in Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium - Koen G - 08-05-2017
Yes, I think so too. Either way it seems reasonable to take these geographical terms like Cappadocia only as very general indications of origin. I think only Sicily and the handful of south Italian regions are to be taken as relatively exact.
RE: [Trinity] Plant identification in Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium - -JKP- - 09-05-2017
(08-05-2017, 07:02 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, I think so too. Either way it seems reasonable to take these geographical terms like Cappadocia only as very general indications of origin. I think only Sicily and the handful of south Italian regions are to be taken as relatively exact.
On the subject of origins...
Text beside one of the plants says it's from the marine islands of Ethiopia. I think we all know that Ethiopia is landlocked, the seacoast to the west is part of Somalia, and it's easy to think it might be a mistake in transcription, but what some might not know is that Eritrea and many of the islands off Eritrea used to belong to Ethiopia.
So how would plants from remote islands in Eritrea end up in the Trinity manuscript? I suspect it is because there was a significant Italian colony in Eritrea in the middle ages. We have to remember that northerners (even the Scandinavians) colonized quite a few parts of northern Africa and some of them probably kept in touch with families and colleagues "back home".
Unfortunately, it's hard to study native Eritraean plants. The flora were decimated during soviet expansion and occupation and many of them probably became extinct before they were studied by botanists.
RE: [Trinity] Plant identification in Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium - MarcoP - 09-05-2017
Another possible explanation for these exotic sources is that the text relies on Arabic sources. For instance, Egerton 2020 (the Carrarese herbal) is a Latin translation of Ibn Sarabi (Latinized as Serapio / Serapione).
An 1531 printed edition of a Latin translation is available You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
It mentions several different places of origin:
nascitur in Mauritania
nascitur similiter in Syria
nascitur in Babylonia
nascitur in Arabia
nascitur multum in terra qua dicitur Calcedonia
nascitur in Armenia
Nascitur in India
nascitur in Sicilia
....
RE: [Trinity] Plant identification in Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium - -JKP- - 09-05-2017
I noticed quite a few plants in the Latin/Greek/Hebrew name section are alpine plants (Nascitur high mountains) which might explain why they are not represented in other herbals. They may not have been well known outside of remote alpine communities.
RE: [Trinity] Plant identification in Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium - Koen G - 10-05-2017
When going over "feminine" herbs, I was able to match most to a list found here:
Pseudo-Dioscorides' "Ex Herbis Femininis" and Early Medieval Medical Botany
Author(s): John M. Riddle
Source: Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Spring, 1981), pp. 43-81
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
A few plants in this section are still problematic:
41v pontafilos, trifolia
44v bouiantos
46r inantes?
46v text missing?
49r romoys
50v loniasos
53v papau? agste? frias?
61v gelocia
Plants from Riddle's "feminine plant list" which I have not assigned are the following:
13. Sticas
21. flommos
26. melena
33. aizos
40. ficios, hecios, alcidiabios
46. moecon
69. Lachnis
70. Abrotonum
71. aparine, filantropos
Also, Marco has started on the "standard" Apuleius part. Is there also like a standard plant list here that can be used for reference?