Re: Catherine Sforza - the author of the VMS?!?!?

[Dana Scott <dfscott@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nick,

This is a very nice plant but so far I have not seen a match for Borrago
officinalis in the VMS.

http://mapage.noos.fr/jkgr/bourach.htm

Regards,
Dana Scott

Nick Pelling wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> Here's Patrizia Catellani's page (a Pharmacy Historian connected to the
> University of Pavia), describing Catherine Sforza's life, alchemy & herbals:-
>
>         http://chifar.unipv.it/museo/Catellani/catSforza/CaterinaSf.htm
>
> This describes how, in 1525, Count Antonio Cuppano da Montefalco made a
> copy of the manuscript, and this is what is still in existence today. It
> contains 454 recipes, of which 358 are medicines, 30 chemistry (alchemy?)
> and 66 cosmetics.
>
> By comparison, the VMS has 20 pharma paragrpahs, plus 323 starred
> paragraphs in the last section, of which folios 109 and 110 are missing. If
> a folio has (say) 15 stars to a side, and we're missing 4 sides, that's
> roughly a further 60 recipes: so 20 + 323 + 60 = 403, which is of the same
> order of magnitude (given that there are probably further recipes within
> the rest of the text).
>
> The transcribed text of some of the recipes (from the same site):-
>
>         http://chifar.unipv.it/museo/Catellani/catSforza/Ric_CatSf.htm
>
> At this point in time, I'm seeing only similarities... :-))))
>
> Another Italian page (from a different site entirely):-
>
>         http://www.dolomiti.it/ita/salute/bellezza/sforza.htm
>
> Any VMS matches for borrago officinalis, anyone?
>
> English:        http://www.dolomiti.it/eng/salute/bellezza/b2.htm
> Italian:               http://www.dolomiti.it/ita/salute/bellezza/b2.htm
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....