VMs: Re: The Illustrative Traditions

[Dana Scott <dfscott@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is a beautifully illustrated book, but alas I have found very little if
anything useful in attempts to identify the plant drawings in the VMS. Perhaps
as I learn more about the herbal illustrations in the VMS I will refer back to
it as a reference. The best approach for me seems to be to pick a plant that I
am interested in identifying and then go through a relentless search to track it
down until I come up with an acceptable match. Sometimes I get lucky. Often I am
discouraged. At times I find myself scanning thousands of pictures before I even
get close to a match. My greatest personal challenge at the moment is to
identify the periscope plant in f28r. I will feel greatly releaved when a
convincing match is made for this plant. I would be delighted to be able to
peruse the ancient herbals which I unfortunately do not presently have access
to.

Regards,
Dana Scott

Luis Vélez wrote:

> I'd appreciate any feedback about a book published by the British Library
> Studies about a year and a half ago, entitled "Medieval Herbals: The
> Illustrative Traditions". Does it contribute to our noble cause?
>
> Its website describes it as a "new, wide-ranging and generously illustrated
> study of manuscript herbals produced between 600 - 1450. The book examines
> the two principal herbal traditions of Classical descent: the Dioscorides
> manuscripts in Greek, Arabic, and Latin and the Latin Herbarius of Apulcius
> Platonicus. It shows how, from 1300, the illustrations of the de herbis
> Traetatus treatises, the first of which was British Library, MS. Egerton
> 747, showed a new observation of nature, paving the way in the fifteenth
> century for French Livres des Simples and the magnificent plant paintings of
> later Italian Herbals. Medieval Herbals provides one of the few syntheses in
> English of existing research on the subject and also addresses issues of
> dating, location, production and ownership of the individual codices. Minta
> Collins demonstrates how many herbals were not only codices for medical
> scholars but expensively illustrated books for bibliophiles, of equal
> interest to students of manuscripts, to historians of medicine and botany,
> and to art historians."
>
> Sounds decidedly attractive, but our local library does not have a copy yet
> and it will probably be a few weeks until I get to review one.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Luis