VMs: Re: Nice medieval pictures ...

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Petr Kazil <kazil@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> To be honest - I don't know what to make of the
> striking likeness - I wasn't
> looking for any VMS-like pictures and these took me
> by surprise. I'm still
> recovering from the shock. Maybe there's no real
> likeness to speak of ...
> 
> Lambert of St. Omer, Liber Floridus
> Lille and Ninove; 1460

Indeed, I had forgotten all about the Liber Floridus.
I think it has some "real" plant figures as well.

> Rosette like thingies:
> A plant thingy:
> An imaginary castle thingy:
> And there are about 108 of these "astrological"
> pictures around here:

The rosettes are really nice, quite a bit more
naive than those found in most other astrological
and meteorological illustrations, and therefore
indeed much closer to the VMs.
The main difference with the VMs is that the
subject matter of each of the  pictures in the
Liber Floridus (at least the ones I checked in
you E-mail) is fairly clearly identifiable.

But who knows, the Liber Floridus may well 
have inspired our VMs author.
Your mail reminded me that there is a whole list
of books and MSS I still wanted to take a look
at, for various reasons. I had hoped to do it
myself, but for the time being that seems not
feasible. Since there are a few people now
searching various major libraries, let me list
a few key ones.
I guess you have been in the Koninklijke
Bibliotheek in Den Haag so far? Leiden should
also have an important collection of MSS, and
in particular one called 'De Alchimia' has some
very nice pictures with VMs themes. Different 
style than the VMs though.

The most elusive book so far, and I have not yet
identified a single library that has it, is:

  Lazzari S.J., Pietro: Miscellaneorum ex mss.
  libris Bibliothecae Collegii Romani Societatis
  Iesu tomus primus, Romae, 1754; ... tomus
  secundus, Romae, 1757

which should be a summary of some interesting books
in the Gregorian Library, where Kircher's 
correspondence is also being kept.

Then there is a very extensive catalogue of Kircher's
collections by Filippo Buonanni (more often
spelled as Bonanni). It's 600 pages (while the one
by De Sepi, checked by W. Voynich, which doesn't
mention the VMs, has only about 70 pages).
There are many copies of it around, but none within
400 km from me. There simply has to be one in NL 
somewhere.

There's much more, if anyone's intersted. It's
not all related to Kircher either.

Cheers, Rene


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