08-04-2017, 10:32 AM
Indeed, the oak twigs in both manuscripts are fascinatingly similar. It's hard to imagine that there isn't any relation between these two illustrations, however distant or close. The point remains that both are twigs. The VM even reinforces this by having two slightly alternated leaves on the twig itself, instead of only the grouped terminal buds.
This is not something I've looked into before, but it seems like representing trees in herbal manuscripts was difficult because usually they'd want to draw the leaves in a recognizable way, but trees are too large to do that. I think the Manfredus herbal shows two different strategies to cope with this. The Ivy example just uses a twig. On the other hand, the acorn and ficus example use a strategy I've noticed before in a similar depiction of an almond tree. The tree is drawn in its basic shape with branches and all, but the leaves and fruits are enlarged.
The Manfredus herbal doesn't draw roots, as we can expect because twigs don't have roots and on full oak trees the roots are not important. But the VM stubbornly adds roots to everything, even an oak twig. This is why I'd consider the possibility that many more of the supposed herbs are actually tree twigs with added roots.
This is not something I've looked into before, but it seems like representing trees in herbal manuscripts was difficult because usually they'd want to draw the leaves in a recognizable way, but trees are too large to do that. I think the Manfredus herbal shows two different strategies to cope with this. The Ivy example just uses a twig. On the other hand, the acorn and ficus example use a strategy I've noticed before in a similar depiction of an almond tree. The tree is drawn in its basic shape with branches and all, but the leaves and fruits are enlarged.
The Manfredus herbal doesn't draw roots, as we can expect because twigs don't have roots and on full oak trees the roots are not important. But the VM stubbornly adds roots to everything, even an oak twig. This is why I'd consider the possibility that many more of the supposed herbs are actually tree twigs with added roots.