Quote:Mark Knowles: Yes, all the references to the Sloane image say Cairo, but the text appears to have been copied from the BL source. It is possible the description is correct, but I would be inclined to question it as the accompanying text doesn't seem to quite fit that description and neither do the drawings including the swallow-tailed merlons. Maybe I will contact them, if I can be bothered.
It didn't matter to them that the architecture didn't match the real thing. Most of them had never seen the real thing and even if they had, this was the Middle Ages, the line between fact and fiction was a lot different then. People believed the stories of "John de Mandeville".
The balsam trees (the real balsam, not the various species that are sometimes substituted and sometimes called balsam) exuded a rare and expensive resin that was used in medicine and perfume (which is why it is frequently drawn within walled guarded gardens).
It did not grow in the colder climates (it's from around the Arabian sea), so it is indeed an interesting juxtaposition (and a good example) of a southern plant drawn with northern themes (like Ghibelline merlons, northern clothing, etc.).
This is very common in manuscripts, northerners drawing southern themes with northern attributes (probably to make it easier for themselves, and also so they didn't alienate their reading audience). I see it very frequently.
It still happens today. Look at all the paintings of Jesus with light skin, light brown hair and blue eyes.
------------
If the rosette folio is a map, it's more likely the merlons are literal, but if the rosette folio is something else (a fairytale world, a cosmological diagram, an engineering diagram, or a journal (which could be part truth, part myth in those days)), then maybe the merlons are just embellishments.
I still lean toward it being a map, but... that doesn't mean all of it is necessarily a map.