12-10-2016, 08:21 AM
Hi Julian!
A few years ago I went over this link with a toothcomb but couldn't come up with anything concrete. However, I feel sure that there is a tradition link there, inasmuch as the VM author was influenced by the same Arabic traditions that Alfonso X translated, and may very well have seen and read a copy of the Lapidario (and its sister manuscripts, which were all popular in the 15th and 16th centuries across Western Europe).
BTW, Occitania is mainly southern France, not modern day Spain, although its linguistic influence extended slightly into modern day Catalonia. The language has no connection with the MS.
The influences of the book are ancient Greek, Hellenistic and Arabian. These disparate works were collated by Arab scholars into medieval works of reference, which Alfonso X later ordered translated into Castillian. The lapidario contains the reference to Chaldaen because of the compiler Abolays, who compiled part of the source manuscripts in Arab and left that note.
The names of the stones you are looking at are wrong, by the way. You're looking at a Latin translation given by the translators, not the original Arabic names that illustrate the chapters. The original MS always uses a latinized version of the Arabic names, and where possible gives the Castillian or Latin name, or the name given by other ancient races.
Remember that the book was unique in shying away from Latin, and instead being translated straight into the vernacular. Alfonso X refused to translate into Latin, saying that the knowledge gained from the Arabs should be given to all of his people and ensured that everything was written into Castillian (which is still easily readable by any fluent Spanish speaker).
I have a copy of the 1970's critical study of the Lapidario by María Brey Mariano (frustratingly, it only gives partial redrawn copies of the illustrations! but it gives a very complete rendering of the four books) and the ninth stone of Taurus is "zumberic" . Its Latin name is given as esmeril (emerald). No Castillian name is given.
It's not repeated anywhere according to María Brey, although it does reappear in Zamorat, Castillian esmeralda, 12th sign of Taurus (although this is a scribal error, it should be Zamoricaz or "stone of the hermits").
The eighth stone of Taurus, for example, is called meneffi and no Latin name is given, although the text notes the Egyptians "from where the stone is found" also call it mardican "which is the same as calling it adormecedor" (Castillian for "sleep-maker").
The third stone of Libra is given as algueña (second variety of sea foam), which María Brey says is algamarina (a type of seaweed), or in Chaldean gacora. All of the Libra stones appear to come from the sea - the first, for example, is a dried sea sponge.
And the second stone of Aquarius is Marurya (Marunia), "a green stone found in Africa on the banks of a large river in the sands of a large beach".
Hope this helps!
A few years ago I went over this link with a toothcomb but couldn't come up with anything concrete. However, I feel sure that there is a tradition link there, inasmuch as the VM author was influenced by the same Arabic traditions that Alfonso X translated, and may very well have seen and read a copy of the Lapidario (and its sister manuscripts, which were all popular in the 15th and 16th centuries across Western Europe).
BTW, Occitania is mainly southern France, not modern day Spain, although its linguistic influence extended slightly into modern day Catalonia. The language has no connection with the MS.
The influences of the book are ancient Greek, Hellenistic and Arabian. These disparate works were collated by Arab scholars into medieval works of reference, which Alfonso X later ordered translated into Castillian. The lapidario contains the reference to Chaldaen because of the compiler Abolays, who compiled part of the source manuscripts in Arab and left that note.
The names of the stones you are looking at are wrong, by the way. You're looking at a Latin translation given by the translators, not the original Arabic names that illustrate the chapters. The original MS always uses a latinized version of the Arabic names, and where possible gives the Castillian or Latin name, or the name given by other ancient races.
Remember that the book was unique in shying away from Latin, and instead being translated straight into the vernacular. Alfonso X refused to translate into Latin, saying that the knowledge gained from the Arabs should be given to all of his people and ensured that everything was written into Castillian (which is still easily readable by any fluent Spanish speaker).
I have a copy of the 1970's critical study of the Lapidario by María Brey Mariano (frustratingly, it only gives partial redrawn copies of the illustrations! but it gives a very complete rendering of the four books) and the ninth stone of Taurus is "zumberic" . Its Latin name is given as esmeril (emerald). No Castillian name is given.
It's not repeated anywhere according to María Brey, although it does reappear in Zamorat, Castillian esmeralda, 12th sign of Taurus (although this is a scribal error, it should be Zamoricaz or "stone of the hermits").
The eighth stone of Taurus, for example, is called meneffi and no Latin name is given, although the text notes the Egyptians "from where the stone is found" also call it mardican "which is the same as calling it adormecedor" (Castillian for "sleep-maker").
The third stone of Libra is given as algueña (second variety of sea foam), which María Brey says is algamarina (a type of seaweed), or in Chaldean gacora. All of the Libra stones appear to come from the sea - the first, for example, is a dried sea sponge.
And the second stone of Aquarius is Marurya (Marunia), "a green stone found in Africa on the banks of a large river in the sands of a large beach".
Hope this helps!
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