RE: alchemical herbals
Antonio García Jiménez > 29-08-2025, 04:15 PM
I have just read Bryce Beasley's interesting thesis, in which he not only expands the corpus of so-called alchemical herbs but also invites us to delve deeper into them as an important part of the history of medicine and natural magic. For him, as for others who think alike, these herbals that Aldrovandi called those of the alchemists could equally be called magical or astrological herbals.
These herbals are not stylistically comparable to the Voynich, as has often been said, but in my opinion they do share the same spirit, in addition to having all been created around the Alps. This spirit is none other than that of astrological magic. The Voynich is not just a herbal, it is an astrological herbal, unless we think that the cosmological and zodiacal pages were added to it as an encyclopedia of different subjects, which I don't think anyone thinks anymore.
It's very clear to me that the artist who drew the Voynich herbs had sufficient knowledge and skills to draw real plants if he had wanted. But that wasn't his intention. His intention could have been to create a caricature, a kind of game, as Alain Touwaide said in his 2019 lecture. Or, as I believe, to recreate a magical garden, a garden not only possible in his imagination but perhaps also real in some unknown place on Earth.
That in the author's mind these were herbs of great value, of hidden virtues and powers, seems clear to me from the section of the Voynich in which roots and leaves appear linked to luxurious vessels, vessels that we later see surrounded by stars in the central circle of the Rosettes as a vivid graphic representation of astrological magic.