Thank you Rene,
your observations are extremely interesting!
I guess that by “erbario alchemico” one should properly mean the set of 98 plants listed by Segre-Rutz and the associated text. The examples you provide highlight two phenomena:
I think that four of the five plants you discuss could derive from Egerton 747 (1300 ca). The exception is Consolida Minor: this symmetric plant with two large flowers is very different from the plant in Egerton 747 (the Consolida at the bottom). As you say, Casanatense 459 can hardly have copied some plants from the Bodleian ms: one can think of an intermediate copy of Egerton 747. If I understand correctly, Egerton 747 was likely in Lombardy at the end of the XIV Century, when both the Bodleian and Casanatense manuscripts where written in that area.
I can think of no precedent for the Consolida Minor illustration, but possibly we could find something in other traditions (e.g. Pseudo-Apuleius, since the shape is so schematic).
In my opinion, a major problem is that late-medieval Italian herbals (in particular those of lower artistic quality) have only been studied in monographs. Since by now several of these “popular” manuscripts have been published, it would be time that some scholar tried a synthesis, discussing in detail the connections between the different manuscripts.
your observations are extremely interesting!
I guess that by “erbario alchemico” one should properly mean the set of 98 plants listed by Segre-Rutz and the associated text. The examples you provide highlight two phenomena:
- some of the illustrations of the “alchemical herbal” are related with illustrations appearing in the Tractatus de Herbis tradition;
- several manuscripts combined different traditions; the “alchemical herbal” was often followed by a subset of the Tractatus de Herbis.
I think that four of the five plants you discuss could derive from Egerton 747 (1300 ca). The exception is Consolida Minor: this symmetric plant with two large flowers is very different from the plant in Egerton 747 (the Consolida at the bottom). As you say, Casanatense 459 can hardly have copied some plants from the Bodleian ms: one can think of an intermediate copy of Egerton 747. If I understand correctly, Egerton 747 was likely in Lombardy at the end of the XIV Century, when both the Bodleian and Casanatense manuscripts where written in that area.
I can think of no precedent for the Consolida Minor illustration, but possibly we could find something in other traditions (e.g. Pseudo-Apuleius, since the shape is so schematic).
In my opinion, a major problem is that late-medieval Italian herbals (in particular those of lower artistic quality) have only been studied in monographs. Since by now several of these “popular” manuscripts have been published, it would be time that some scholar tried a synthesis, discussing in detail the connections between the different manuscripts.