09-03-2017, 11:51 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-03-2017, 11:52 AM by Diane.
Edit Reason: problem with deleting text.
)
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?
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?