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The herbal of Giovanni Cadamosto da Lodi
- The herbal of Giovanni Cadamosto da Lodi
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RE: The herbal of Giovanni Cadamosto da Lodi
Koen G > Yesterday, 10:17 AM
(Yesterday, 08:57 AM)Philipp Harland Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is a very old thread, Marco. Why are you returning to ti?
This is not a celebrity forum where the talk of the town changes every other day. There's a lot of good stuff in old threads that deserves a bump every once in a while.
That's a fantastic collection, Marco. I wonder if all manuscripts that shape roots into beings are related somehow. Or of we are rather looking at parallel evolutions that take their cue from the mandrake, for example. I mean, if you've got a root shaped like a man, you might as well shape other roots as other things. -
RE: The herbal of Giovanni Cadamosto da Lodi
MarcoP > Today, 08:34 AM
(Yesterday, 10:17 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I wonder if all manuscripts that shape roots into beings are related somehow. Or of we are rather looking at parallel evolutions that take their cue from the mandrake, for example. I mean, if you've got a root shaped like a man, you might as well shape other roots as other things.
Hi Koen,
in my opinion, those root images largely derive from a single tradition. I think the most extensive discussion of the subject I have seen is Sergio Toresella’s 1996 paper “Gli Erbari degli Alchimisti”. At the end of the paper, he provides a graph showing how the different manuscript traditions are connected to each other (I reproduced it You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
I don’t think that Toresella was aware of Trinity O.2.48, which however could be (a copy of) one of the herbals of Fredrick II that appear in the bottom-right corner of the graph. It is not clear if the copy was made in Southern Italy or in Germany, but the swallow-tail merlons suggest an Italian origin.
Most of the late-medieval evolution of illustrated herbals took place in Southern Italy: in about one century (1280-1380) “Tractatus de Herbis”, Trinity O.2.48 and the Alchemical Herbal were probably all created in that region. The Alchemical Herbal was the most popular illustrated herbal in XV Century Italy and Cadamosto was certainly aware of it.
However, as you say, the idea is quite simple and individual artists probably played with it, adding animal-roots that did not appear in their sources. The Occitan / Provençal herbal Firenze Palatino 586 clearly takes this to an extreme, more in the style of marginal drolleries than other illustrated herbals.
