The containers in the Pharma section

[-JKP-]

Hello VViews, 

Another possibility - or an additional one - is that the composition of the container tells something about the difficulty level or preparation stages of the recipe. 

As if a simple wooden container would mean "just dry the plant parts and ground to powder", and the onces with two levels "mix the powders of the main ingredients first and then add the last powder", and the onces on tripods would need one or more cooking or distillation phases of some kind ... (Perhaps I am just thinking this because the ones on tripods remind me vaguely of samovars). Or some completely different code of course, but I mean some visual reminder of the preparation process, in wich a simple container stands for a simple preparation and an elaborate one for an elaborate recipe. 

I don't know if that kind of illustration procudure would be compatible with the general visual conventions and image language of the time of the VMS.

I think this is entirely possible. The containers have hierarchical shapes and complexity and these kinds of interpretations may well apply.


There is one that appears to be made of glass (it looks to me like the illustrator was trying to draw transparency) and it occurred to me this might be for tinctures, scents, or something precious. Delicately crafted glass is something most people (even very imaginative people) wouldn't think to draw unless they had actually seen a glass container. Many contemporary glass-makers create them, but those fine latticino-style stripes were not common in ceramic, wood, or leather containers, and were rare even in 15th-century glass.

In the middle ages, glass containers of this kind were only available to the very wealthy (usually royalty) and were only made by the finest glass crafters in a very few places (Murano, Turkey/Persia, Egypt). Assuming it's glass, that doesn't help to identify where the illustrator may have seen one, unfortunately, since the wealthy were always on the move (or had emissaries to travel for them) and many of them collected exotic animals, materials, and containers, or received them as gifts from associates trying to ingratiate themselves, and showed them off to sustain their image of being above other people.