[split] f35v parallels "oak and ivy"

[Bernd]

Has anyone ever looked into the source of those wooodcuts?
The mentioned image is from the workshop of Peter Drach and was made in 1493, too late to be a source for the VM.
I have looked into the history of Opus Ruralium Commodorum, and it appears only from the very late 15th century onwards, prints featured woodcuts with such illustrations.

Illustrations
Manuscript copies of Ruralia Commoda were popular (over 100 copies are known), making it an excellent candidate for the new technology of printing. The editio princeps appeared in 1471: in Latin, un-illustrated, it was printed by Johann Schüssler of Augsburg. Another 36 incunable editions exist, most printed in Germany. Peter Drach of Speyer printed a German-language edition in 1493; this edition has 234 woodcuts. Drach's workshop (one of the period's most prominent) also printed a Latin edition that utilized the same woodcuts, and the Library of the Arnold Arboretum's incunable was part of that edition (similar copies exist in the Royal Collection and in the library of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden). The text is arranged in two columns throughout, and blank spaces have been left at the beginning of each chapter for an initial (in the Library of the Arnold Arboretum's copy a previous owner has added the first few initials of Book 1 by hand).

Arnold Klebs describes the plentiful woodcuts - they occur at the beginning of most of the chapters - as "the most remarkable group of middle Rhenish woodcutting in the 15th century." Dating of the illustrated Latin edition is difficult: did it precede or follow the German edition of 1493? Anderson prefers the Latin version to antedate the German version. But the Latin version has more woodcuts (primarily in Book 10, on hunting, fishing, and falconry), which may indicate that it post-dates the German.

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The earlier hand-written copies apparently only featured a few decorative illustrations, like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Apparently what we see in the woodcut is the ancestral form of viticulture dating back to antiquity - to 'marry the vine to a tree'.

The Etruscans grew vines in the same way they saw these plants growing wild in the forests. The vine is a climbing shrub, a type of vine. In a forest, its natural habitat in our latitudes, it tends to climb up a tree to reach the light as best it can (it is a very heliophilic species or in other words they need a lot of light). However, it is not a parasite: the vine does not weaken the tree to which it clings.

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The image of the vine married to the tree was also used as a metaphor for unbreakable love of friendship.
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However why the vine actually penetrates the tree eludes me and I haven't found other illustrations aside from Peter Drach's woodcut of 1493