Toresella

["Dennis Stallings " <tsalagi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm pleased that we now have people who can identify the plants in the VMs.  For most of the list's history, we've assumed that the plants were
imaginary.  

I'd be interested in our biologists' opinion of Prof. Sergio Toresella's 
paper on "alchemical herbals".  These actually have nothing to do with alchemy, spagyric or otherwise.  They were shamanistic props or quacks' implements that showed many drawings of plants.  

Below I'm attaching a summary of Toresella's article, taken from my
Historical Precedents list.

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Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 08:46:29 -0700
From: Dennis Stallings
To: VOYNICH-L 
Subject: Toresella on the VMs

Rene and I have translated Toresella's remarks on the VMs in his
paper on alchemical herbals:

    Toresella, Sergio. ``Gli erbari degli alchimisti. [Alchemical
herbals.]'' In Arte farmaceutica e piante medicinali -- erbari, vasi,
strumenti e testi dalle raccolte liguri [Pharmaceutical art and
medicinal plants -- herbals, jars, instruments and texts of the
Ligurian collections], Liana Saginati, ed. Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1996,
pp.31-70. [Profusely illustrated. Fits the VMS into an ``alchemical
herbal'' tradition.]

-------------------------------------------------------------

    "Among the alchemical herbals we must include the one contained in
the Voynich codex [45].

    "It is the strangest, most mysterious, and enigmatic herbal known,
because it is written in an enciphered language that has resisted the
attacks of the most powerful American electronic computers [46].  It
is almost eighty years that the best cryptographers, paleographers,
and specialists in the most obscure languages have tirelessly tried to
penetrate the mystery of this herbal, but in vain.

    "Rudolph II of Habsburg, king of Bohemia, who constructed the
'alchemists' quarter' in Prague, paid for this codex attributed to
Francis [sic] Bacon (1214-1292), the fantastic sum of 600 gold ducats:
remember, in comparison, that the Juliana Anicia herbal [the Vienna
Codex of Dioscorides] was bought for only 100 ducats.

    "Some have seen on these parchments, on which dozens of plants
similar to those of the alchemists' herbals are drawn, but which do
not belong to that iconographic tradition (fig. 25, 26), some
fantastic discoveries:  the sunflower and the pepper represented
centuries [sic] prior to the discovery of America;  drawings of parts
of the cell seen through the microscope; the Andromeda nebula [sic] in
the astrological part of the codex, and others still.  Even so the
mystery of these plants remains unfathomable.

    "Personally I think that the person who drew and wrote this herbal
was profoundly impressed by the exhibition of some charlatan at the
market place and thought that he had discovered the secret of the
world; a secret to entrust to a language and a cryptic script such as
is often found in certain forms of insanity [47].

    "One really has to wonder about the strong fascination contained
in this message from the past where Master Ghino [who commissioned an
alchemical herbal that Toresella discusses] would have us believe that
someone was held prisoner of a spell by the herb 'ghalias retiuola':

    'Whoever has anointed his hands with the lotion of this herb, then
touched whomever he wanted, would obtain from that person any favour
that he might like.

    'And in that way he would obtain much friendship.

    'And he would cause peace and concord between enemies.

    'And he who would wash himself with it would drive away the thief
from within himself.'"

-------------------------------------

    "Fig. 25, 26:  Drawings from the Voynich herbal [f41v, f42r,
f65v].  The codex is difficult to date but the greater part of its
students think that it dates to the years 1460-1480.   These fantastic
plants have no relation with those of the usual alchemical herbals;
some botanists think they have recognized the pepper and even the
sunflower; some believe they have discovered marvels even more
surprising.  As you will have noticed, the writing is very clear and
regular, but totally incomprehensible.  The best American experts have
searched and are still searching to crack the code with an apparatus
of truly impressive electronic computers.  Every now and then it
happens that someone believes he has solved the mystery and reads in
the book some further wonders; only later to find out that some
objection renders the decryption improbable.  New Haven, Yale
University, Beinecke Rare Book Library, MS 408, c. 41v-42r, c. 65v."

---------------------------------------------------

    NOTES:

    "45.  Currently kept in the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale
University (Conn.), USA, as MS 408.

    "46.  The best exposition of the research on the Voynich codex is
in M. E. D'Imperio, *The Voynich Manuscript.  An elegant enigma,
Laguna Hills (Ca.) 1976.  A good summary, also easily available in
Italy, may be found in D. Kahn, *The Codebreakers.*  There also exists
an Internet site dedicated to this issue on which about forty students
from all over the world communicate their discoveries.

    "47.  The phenomenon of invented languages is very widespread and
represents a fundamental aspect of some mental pathologies.  For an
approach to the problem see: S. ARIETE, *Creativita`. La Sintesi
magica*, Roma 1986.  A. BAUSANI, *Le Lingue inventate. Linguaggi
artificiali -linguaggi segreti- linguaggi universali*, Roma, 1974.
And the recent B. BUONARROTI & P. ALBANI, *Aga Mage'ra Difura.
Dizionario delle lingue immaginarie*, Bologna 1994."

    [The US Library of Congress catalog has:

    Arieti, Silvano.  Creativity : the magic synthesis / New York :
Basic Books, c1976.  xv, 448 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.  LC CALL NUMBER: BF408
...A64

    The LOC has the Italian version of Buonarroti & Albani but doesn't
have Bausani. ]


Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 08:06:43 -0700
From: Dennis Stallings
To: VOYNICH-L 
Subject: Toresella on Alchemical Herbals

Here is a summary of what Toresella says about alchemical herbals
in his paper:

    Toresella, Sergio. ``Gli erbari degli alchimisti. [Alchemical
herbals.]'' In Arte farmaceutica e piante medicinali -- erbari, vasi,
strumenti e testi dalle raccolte liguri [Pharmaceutical art and
medicinal plants -- herbals, jars, instruments and texts of the
Ligurian collections], Liana Saginati, ed. Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1996,
pp.31-70. [Profusely illustrated. Fits the VMS into an ``alchemical
herbal'' tradition.]

    1)  "Alchemical herbals" is really a misnomer, since these herbals
contain little or no alchemical imagery.  A Bolognese naturalist,
Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) collected some of these herbals and
labeled them "plants of the alchemists".  Toresella calls these
"alchemical herbals" for lack of anything better.  (44-7)

    2)  Some pictures in the alchemical herbals can be traced to
pseudo-Apuleius and the *Circa Instans* of the Salerno Medical School.
However, the alchemical herbal is an autonomous tradition that may
have begun in the XIII century.  No existing specimens predate the
middle of the XIV century, their heyday was the XV century, and they
disappeared at the middle of the XVI century.  (52)  "They all seem
strictly Italian because, except for two cases, all the alchemical
herbals, about seventy, were produced in Italy, in prevalence in
northern Italy, in the Veneto area."  (51)

    3)  They only contain plant images, along with a few human images.
The images are of known plants rendered in a fantastic fashion and
labeled with incomprehensible names.  They contain from 10 to 200
images; there are some imagess found in all alchemical herbals.  (p.
49)

    4)  There are visual puns (human figures for a mandrake root(fig
7), a root like a fish for luccia maggiore (fig 14), a hat for a
teodora plant (fig. 15), a root like a wolf (with goat horns!) for
luparina (17), and a man's head in a testatoris.  Geometric figures
(circles, ellipses, quadralaterals) are also common.  Indeed visual
puns are more common than in the VMs.

    5)  The text varied according to the educational level of the
person for whom the alchemical herbal was made.  Often the texts and
pictures were intended for public display and reading.  "The recipes
found in the alchemical herbals are often absurb and irrational:
spells to become invisible or to find hidden treasures and are
accompanied by incantations and invocations for the most part pious,
but also including some to evil spirits, including the famous magical
quatrain Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas or the more modest
Abracadabra." (p. 57)

    6)  Although Toresella expresses his opinion that the author of
the Voynich Manuscript suffered from insanity, that does not
necessarily mean that the text has no meaning.  Indeed, his statement
that the author "thought that he had discovered the secret of the
world; a secret to entrust to a language and a cryptic script" would
seem to indicate that the text is meaningful.  There are a range of
possible levels of meaningfulness.

    7)  Those who used the alchemical herbals practiced "traveling
medicine." (p. 47)  These healers practiced "demotic medicine, the
offspring of a very ancient medical culture, mostly transmitted
orally, and distinguished from official medicine especially by its
lack of an organic theory of illness." (P. 48)

    Thus saying that they were to impress the ignorant misses the
point.  These various types of practitioners of "travelling medicine"
were medieval folk healers, such as are found in all pre-modern
cultures.  In south Louisiana one still finds a few traiteurs, the
traditional healers of Cajun culture.  In Mexico the curanderos are
quite active.  In many third-world countries these folk healers
operate in addition to physicians trained in Western medicine.  The
alchemical herbals are best understood as shamanistic healing props.
(This last point is more mine than Toresella's.)

    However, some of the users of these herbals were undoubtedly pure
quacks; Toresella calls Master Ghino a charlatan.

Dennis