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Dioscorides and Tacuinium sanitatis as sources of VM imagery

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• Dioscorides and Tacuinium sanitatis as sources of VM imagery

• Dioscorides and Tacuinium sanitatis as sources of VM imagery

  Bernd > 26-12-2024, 10:52 PM

  There are several similarities shared between the history of the Dioscorides and Tacuinium sanitatis manuscripts and both appear to have served as templates for VM imagery. Both manuscripts most likely were prestigious luxury objects created for bibliophile nobles rather than tools to be used for practicing medicine or another profession. All existing copies of both manuscripts appear to have been derived from now lost precursors and both manuscripts appear to have been copied by individually compiling text and images instead of copying existing books page by page. Which means that stock image collections must have existed in the workshops carrying out the deed.
  Furthermore it is extremely unlikely any commoner ever had access to those books which were considered treasures (that also explains the extraordinary shape they are in today, they were never used). There must have been much simpler budget copies for mere mortals which did not survive the centuries. If illustrations created for such masterpieces became available to a broader audience than probably through workshops which reused them in other works.
  
  

  Quote:As the two late 14th-century Tacuinum manuscripts, Vienna 2644 and Rome 4182 are similar to one another but contain different inaccuracies, it seems to us that they must have been derived from a common, more accurate model. Based on other similarities and differences between Vienna 2644 and Rome 4182, Hoeniger (2006) arrived at the same conclusion. Not only did more Tacuinum manuscripts exist, one of them must have predated the Vienna 2644 and Rome 4182 manuscripts. Moreover, the artists who drew this hypothesized model manuscript must have been familiar with the plant material, as it is drawn with a good degree of detail and accuracy in these two manuscripts.

  
  

  Quote:According to Hoeniger (2006), a hypothetical reconstruction of the relationships among these manuscripts would run like this: Giangaleazzo had a lavish Tacuinum sanitatis created in the first place for his own personal enjoyment and that of his wife, but this version has not survived. Soon afterwards, he commissioned the Paris and Vienna manuscripts as beautiful gifts to be bestowed on family and friends on highly politicized occasions. As the manuscripts came to be admired at courts in northern Italy and in Vienna where Verde Visconti resided, other rich nobles desired their own copies.
  By comparing Rubus L. (Rosaceae) images appearing in extant medieval Dioscoridean manuscripts, Hummer and Janick (2007) offered an analogous hypothesis, that is, a lost Dioscoridean manuscript furnished with accurate images must have antedated and served as the template or inspiration for the extant manuscripts.

  
  There is another striking parallel between Dioscorides and Tacuinium manuscripts: While illustrations are often extremely similar, some have been switched or mislabeled. This again suggests that at least some of the Tacuinium and Dioscorides copies were not copied book-to-book but that text and images were compiled independently by the workshop and that this workshop had a collection of stock images, most likely in the form of pinakes, larger images on wooden boards that served as templates for the artists illustrating the book. This actually makes sense. Those books were luxury items for nobility and copying such book would take significant time, thus making it unavailable to the owner and subjecting it to the risk of damage. Therefore it is highly likely that those high-profile manuscripts produced by workshops were never copied directly but from the source material present in the workshop that had originally made the book. The owner or another potential buyer merely requested an additional copy to be made.
  
  

  Quote:The labels used for the images of Cucurbitaceae and Solanaceae have been conserved across the archetypal
  Tacuinum manuscripts, except for a few spelling variations.
  The variant orthography occurs mostly in the Liège 1041 manuscript, from which Segre Rutz (2002) concluded that this manuscript was not derived from Lombardy, but rather from the neighbouring Veneto region. Nonetheless, there occurred a major error in assigning two of the cucurbit labels to the correct illustrations. Vienna 2644 folio 22r and Paris 9333 folio 19r, each labelled Melones indi i palestini, depict a person smelling a large, yellow round fruit, consistent with a melon, Cucumis melo. The illustrations in Rome 4182 folio 36r and Rouen folio 18v, which show similar large, yellow, round fruits, are instead labelled Melones insipidi. On the other hand, Vienna 2644 folio 21v and Paris 9333 folio 18v, each labelled Melones insipidi, depict plants bearing dark-green fruits, consistent with Citrullus lanatus as do the illustrations in Rome 4182 folio 37r and Rouen 3054 folio 19r but labelled Melones indi et palestini. The Latin text of Vienna 2644 is longer and more descriptive than those of the other manuscripts and it indicates that the Melones indi i palestini fruits are yellow (Cogliati Arano, 1976), consistent with C. melo. Therefore, the labelling of the illustrations would be correct in the Vienna 2644 and Paris 9333 manuscripts and misplaced in the other two.

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  We have similar mismatches in the early Dioscorides copies
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• RE: Dioscorides and Tacuinium sanitatis as sources of VM imagery

  bi3mw > 28-12-2024, 08:37 AM

  Hello Bernd, I have made some comparisons here:
  Comparison of the structure of plants in the Materia Medica and the VMS.
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• RE: Dioscorides and Tacuinium sanitatis as sources of VM imagery

  Barbrey > 29-12-2024, 05:15 AM

  (28-12-2024, 08:37 AM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hello Bernd, I have made some comparisons here:
  Comparison of the structure of plants in the Materia Medica and the VMS.
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  @bi3mw. I just looked at your comparison. They are too close to be a coincidence in my opinion. And because of the pattern, even more convincing.  I pay little attention to the plants because my interest is in semiotic patterns and one plant picture does not a pattern make. You’ve just proved me wrong. Congratulations!  The most compelling similarity I’ve yet seen.
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