RE: The herbal of Giovanni Cadamosto da Lodi
Diane > 18-03-2017, 09:12 AM
-JKP-
Not sure it would be on topic to respond to a comment you make above, so will send as a PM.
Otherwise - [not directed to JKP or any individual but to the theme of this thread] he effort to shift the manuscript's dating from the radiocarbon range does not agree with 'everything' and certainly not with the internal evidence of the primary source. What it would suit is a particular hypothetical narrative which has been promoted pretty consistently over time, though not always in a way consistent with best practice.
If you begin with a preference that the manuscript should prove to be e.g. entirely the work of a western Christian author, but from a region or time which doesn't require study of (say) thirteenth century Franciscan sermons, but rather (for example) sixteenth century alchemical texts, and only include in your preferred medium (blog, web-page, comments to same) such items as create a positive impression of your storyline, then of course it is helpful to have a way of shifting the manuscript's generally-accepted date to one that allows your narrative to seem plausible.
But of course, if your initial, ill-founded hypothesis is wrong, and you've simply 'blanked' any evidence from the primary source, or other research done which shows it .. flawed... then shifting the dates can only add to the likelihood that those who genuinely want to understand the manuscript AND its written text will endure more decades of frustration, mis-direction, unbalanced bibliographies and all the rest.
So no - let's take the dates provided as solid; admit that there are some fairly deep flaws in the 'Latin central European Germanic Franco-German Germanic-Greek alchemical herbal' line of enquiry, and go back to the basic issue of correctly attributing and describing what the manuscript ACTUALLY contains. Otherwise the linguists are going to be as misled as Bax was in relying on the recommendation of Edith Sherwood's identifications, or as so many others have been for similar reasons.
In fact, this matter of 'realism' versus 'signification' for imagery in the Vms has been one that should have been addressed formally some time ago... perhaps in 1931, but certainly since 1999.. so I shall publish something on it in the next day or two, all being equal.