[Trinity] General discussion of Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium

[Diane]

I wonder if we should be looking only at the two standard Latin traditions here.  Since the second part of the manuscript doesn't include Latin or Arabic names, but does include the 'Jewish' name, mightn't that suggest we should be looking rather at non-Latin, and non-Arabic sources.

Since Alain Touwaide found the Vms reminded him of Byzantine hospital/pharmaceutical handbooks, I wonder if we shouldn't be looking for precedents among them, and among such Jewish works as may remain to us.
Or this this infeasible?

Also - Marco - have you noticed reference to botanical 'stones' before? It's new to me.

D.

[-JKP-]

I've been looking at the old Jewish names but many have been lost, just as many of the names in other languages have been lost, so even with the information that we have, it's time-consuming to track down any that match.

We are looking for needles in haystacks, especially since the interpretation of the names is often far afield from their original spellings.

[ReneZ]

It is also included in many alchemical herbals, but it is missing from Oxford Canon Misc.408 (dated late 14th C). The latter only has the very similar 'Satirion'.

Shortly after I wrote this, Marco provided an illustration, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , of Palma Christi in the Oxford MS.
I should have been more specific.

I had overlooked the fact that the herb *also* exists as part of the sequence of alchemical herbs, and is nr. 46 in that sequence.

In addition, it is part of the 70 or so herbs from Tractatus de Herbis that is accompanying the alchemical herbs in many of these manuscripts.  Even when the manuscripts show the same herb twice, the illustrations are not the same.
Let me add an example from the Paris MS Lat 17844.
The first (fol. 57v) is alchemical herb 46:

   

and the second (fol. 107r) is part of the additional sequence:

   

[MarcoP]

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

Hi Koen, splitting the thread sounds like a good idea, but I am not sure of the best way to do it. There are at least four themes:
1. general structure of the manuscript
2. the Pseudo-Apuleius collection (first part of the herbal and the final bestiary)
3. the second herbal with mostly recognizable plant names and original images
4. the third (Common-Greek-Hebrew) herbal with mostly unrecognizable plant names and illustrations

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.

In the Common-Greek-Hebrew herbal I have seen two plants with magical stones in their roots: Romeys and Dabelion. I don't think this is common. I think it would be interesting to look for something similar in Alfonso's lapidary.

Apparently, Palma Chisti is called "Pla[n]ta Christi" here. That's an interesting observation: I don't know if this variant appears elsewhere.

The "stone" mentioned here is a reference to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

The text here reads "contra lapidem ubicumque scit et probatur a pluribus" - against stones wherever they are [located]; this has been tried by many. At the end of the main body of the text it says "omnem lapidem ubiqumque scit frangit" (it breaks any stone, wherever it is). Interestingly, this use of the plant doesn't appear in Egerton 747 (which has only a few lines of text) nor in Manfredus. Manfredus actually says that it "resolvit superfluitates crossas", which might also be a reference to "stones", but the word "lapis" does not appear in the text.

[Koen G]

I split the thread as good as possible in four parts, which are all in the Codicology subforum labelled [Trinity]:

- Questions/discussion about the script
- Proposal and discussion of parallels with the VM plants. It seemed handy to have this separately.
- Discussion and identification of other Trinity herbal plants
- General discussion of the MS, which is mostly about the structure, behavior of the various sections, art style etc.

This seemed to me the best way to split it up without turning it into too many threads.

[Koen G]

Just out of curiosity, what on earth is this thing? It appears to belong with the "De Tauro" section of the bestiary. If I didn't know any better I'd think it's just marginalia.

   

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[Koen G]

Also, I was looking at Herba Acantina You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

It has a root "shaped like a foot", and it seems like a number of its properties are the kind of benefits one would rather expect of a talisman than a healing herb. This seems to be related to the stones' magical properties in the other herbs, though here as far as I can see there is no mention of a stone. Is this at all something one would find in other herbals? Victory over one's enemies and such?

[-JKP-]

Koen, that may have linked to your start page rather than the page with the plant (I've noticed the viewer is a bit quirky that way).

I only had a couple of minutes to look at it, so I'm not completely sure, but f you mean the plant on 68r, it might be Smilax aspera. It doesn't look like acanthus, which is what one might expect with a name like Acantina. It's not a great representation of Smilax either (which is why I'm not sure of the ID), but it's closer to Smilax than Acanthus.

[Koen G]

Strange, for me it does link to 68r, which is indeed the one I meant. Just glancing at the bits of Latin I understand I see talk of winning wars etc, which is not what I'd associate with something like smilax aspera

[-JKP-]

Strange, for me it does link to 68r, which is indeed the one I meant. Just glancing at the bits of Latin I understand I see talk of winning wars etc, which is not what I'd associate with something like smilax aspera

The site might be storing a cookie for the page you were on which unfortunately would not transfer to the rest of us when we link to it. Bummer. Unfortunately, I have to run. I wish I had more time to look at this plant. It's an interesting one.