Re: VMs: Faces at the roots

[Wayne Durden <wdurden@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks Luis:

It is an amazing world we live in now where so many pairs of eyes can  
be put to bear on a problem whereas a decade ago no single researcher  
could possibly discover such a diversity of sources.

I have seen several references to anthropomorphic shaped roots, most  
often related to ginseng panax and mandrake.  Usually, the  
distinguishing feature is that the root is shaped like the human form  
as a whole although the occasional reference to a human form with a  
head appears.  The general thrust is the similarity of form is what  
makes them useful or valuable.  I scrutinized the folios in the VMS  
against those plants and can't say they look particularly like mandrake  
or ginseng on a close basis, but old herbals in general don't seem to  
be particularly accurate in the plant forms.  Too me the one on f101v2  
more closely appears as a radish, but I am at the point where I don't  
think they are meant to be real plants.  It is even possible that the  
f33 one is a radish in the flowering stage but the leaves aren't really  
correct.

  As between the two folios in question the remainder of the plant  
parts of those with faces don't appear at all alike in the VMS.  I  
think it was the cumulative effect of this "face example" with other  
examples of exaggerated features like a root that appeared "topped off"  
with shoots growing from it, serpentine forms with a head, segmented  
triangular forms, and lion or bear claw forms, that made it seem that  
the exaggerated forms were perhaps meant instead as pointers to a key  
page (a page with labels).  Some feature of the plant on a text page  
was so exaggerated that the recipient could easily link it to its key,  
as for example the bizarre pointy capped looking leaves.

The bigger problem to me is the short length of those plant labels  
simultaneous with the recycled nature of the syllables across subject  
pictures.  This suggests null syllables or numeric codes.  The problem  
with numeric codes is if the number is based on the leaves or number of  
plant parts, there is inconsistency across folios, and if only one of  
the two syllables is the numeric code in two syllable plant labels,  
again those syllables have been recycled in such a way that would be  
inconsistent (i.e. if the first syllable, OT represented seven per  
plant item 3 on f101v2, it has been used in another instance as a first  
syllable where the image doesn't appear to have seven elements of  
anything?)

This was a part of the reasoning leading to the nulloes hypothesis as  
well....

Wayne


On Sunday, April 24, 2005, at 10:36  PM, Luis Velez wrote:
> >
>
> This erbario from the late XV Century (c.1460), Florentine School,  
> fits the general
> idea of the VMS: all the plants have roots, and there is even a sample  
> with the proverbial split root with two faces.
>
> There is also a certain similitude in the drawing style. Seeing this,  
> one can well understand why the VMS origin has been identified so far  
> as of "Northern Italy":
>
> http://www.istitutodatini.it/biblio/images/en/riccard/2174/htm/ 
> elenco.htm
>
> I'm glad the Biblioteca Riccardiana decided to make it digitally  
> available to the public.
>
> However,  note that "faces at the roots" were not an exclusive feature  
> of the herbals of the Scuola Fiorentina - see this picture from  
> another Erbario (Scuola Bolognese - XV Century):
>
> http://www.dipbot.unict.it/Erbario/erb_maXV.jpg
>
> On the issue of roots: drawings of plants with roots is a trend that  
> dates back to Dioscorides, and perhaps before him, since most of what  
> he did came from others. But it would be interesting to see what sort  
> of plants these "faces at roots" hint of.
>
> I'm interested to see what comes out of JH's plant identification  
> efforts and if there are any comments out there for Elmar's 'graphic  
> decomposing' approach.
>
> Also, I've followed up on suggestions made by Petr regarding  
> Carrichter and Thurneisser, and
> have wondered if Dodoens, a Belgian physician to Rudolph II with a  
> penchant for botany books with an astrological-medical tone (he wrote  
> some himself), ever got to see the VMS. Tsk, a futile speculation,  
> since it is more than likely that we'll never find out.
>
> Luis
>
>
>
>
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