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Sergio Toresella is a scholar who published several works about ancient herbals. In 1996, he published a paper about "The Herbals of the Alchemists" (in Italian "Gli erbari degli alchimisti"). The article appeared in the catalogue of an exhibition in Genoa (" Arte farmaceutica e piante medicinali: erbari, vasi, strumenti e testi dalle raccolte liguri" - Pharmaceutical Art and Medicinal Plants: Herbals, Vessels, Instruments, and Texts from Ligurian Collections).
Quote from Toresella's paper: "col nome di erbario degli alchimisti sì indica una collezione di figure di erbe, quasi sempre fantastiche, che non è riconducibile a nessuno degli erbari di cui si è detto finora. Il nome fu dato dal grande naturalista bolognese Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) chè aveva raccolto un certo numero di questi erbari e li aveva rilegati assieme proprio con questa etichetta: Piante degli alchimisti e in mancanza di una migliore definizione anche io userò questo termine. Da un lato quindi gli erbari degli alchimisti sono molto elusivi perché non sembrano connettersi a nessuna tradizione iconografica o testuale conosciuta, dall’altro lato però sono immediatamente riconoscibili perché le loro rappresentazioni fantastiche sono di un tipo inconfondibile."
Translation: -the term "Herbal of the Alchemists" refers to a collection of plant illustrations, almost always fantastical, which cannot be traced back to any of the herbals mentioned so far [i.e. Dioscorides, Pseudo-Apuleius, Tractatus De Herbis]. The name was given by the great Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605), who had gathered a certain number of these herbals and bound them together with this label: "Plants of the Alchemists." In the absence of a better definition, I will also use this term. On the one hand, the herbals of the alchemists are elusive because they do not seem to connect to any known iconographic or textual tradition. On the other hand, they are immediately recognizable because their fantastical representations are of an unmistakable type.-
The most extensive study of the Alchemical Herbal tradition is Vera Segre Rutz "Il giardino magico degli alchimisti" (2000) ISBN: 8870504492. The book includes the edition of the copy of the text in manuscript Aldini 211, Pavia. The name "Alchemical Herbal" is somehow misleading, since actual alchemical operations are only mentioned for a minority of plants, but it is now consolidated by the many references by a number of authors. The work survives in several copies. This web page by Philip Neal repeats the incomplete list provided by Vera Segre-Rutz (24 manuscripts). Neal also lists the 98 plants that appear in the "alchemical herbal". The earliest known copy is Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Can. Misc. 408, written in Milan in 1378.
Toresella stated that "Tra gli erbari degli alchimisti si deve anche annoverare quello contenuto nel codice Voynich. ... Tra queste pergamene, [...] si allineano decine di erbe simili a quelle degli alchimisti, ma che non appartengono a quella tradizione iconografica" -Among the herbals of the alchemists, we must also include the one contained in the Voynich manuscript. ... these pages [are] lined with dozens of herbs similar to those of the alchemists but not belonging to the same iconographic tradition-. I understand he is saying that the two works are related but clearly different (he is not claiming that the Voynich manuscript is one more copy of the AH).
Alain Touwaide has published hundreds of books and papers about the history of medicine in general and illustrated herbals in particular. For instance, he edited the edition of British Library ms Sloane 4016 (Latin, Tractatus de Herbis), but he also wrote extensively about Greek and Arabic medical works.
In 2015 Touwaide published his article "Il manoscritto più misterioso - L'Erbario Voynich" included in the book "Villa Mondragone. Seconda Roma", Marina Formica ed. (ISBN-10 : 8860606853 / ISBN-13 : 978-8860606853). He confirmed the connection between the Voynich manuscript and the alchemical herbal: "Numerose rappresentazioni di piante del Manoscritto Voynich presentano una corrispondenza con le illustrazioni botaniche dei secoli XIV e XV, particolarmente -ma non solo- con i cosiddetti manoscritti alchimici." ("Many plant illustrations in the Voynich manuscript correspond with botanical illustrations of the XIV and XV Centuries, in particular -but not only- with the so called alchemical manuscripts"). This passage is followed by a bibliographical reference to Toresella's paper.
The parallels that can be detected are about the overall non-naturalistic style. Would Toresella and Touwaide say is that there appears to be a relationship between the Voynich manuscript and the AH, not that plants in the Voynich manuscripts can be matched with plants in the AH. I am not sure I can upload images here, so I uploaded to imgur a few examples of parallels between the Voynich and Alchemical herbals: https://imgur.com/a/cYh3oqr
The following is a list of features that this tradition has in common with the Voynich manuscript. The list is based on the observations by Toresella and Touwaide and analysis of the primary sources (in particular BNF Lat. 17848):
P marco ( talk) 10:42, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
The article gives Villa Mondragone, Frascati as the place where the VM rested until offered for sale to W. M. Voynich. But apparently, that's not right and the actual place was Villa Torlonia in Castel Gandolfo (near Rome again). There was some secrecy around the sale that perhaps led to this confusion. (source: [1]) Mandevil ( talk) 19:23, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
The text in the Voynych Manuscript could be Greek Italics. Lara3030 ( talk) 09:02, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
The manuscript is a major plot point in a play - Spake, by David L Williams. See https://newplayexchange.org/plays/14094/spake. 66.76.14.59 ( talk) 15:35, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Voynich manuscript article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Voynich manuscript is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed. | |||||||||||||
This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 20, 2004. | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Current status: Former featured article |
This
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article has been
mentioned by a media organization:
|
Voynich manuscript has been linked from multiple high-traffic websites. All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.
|
This article is substantially duplicated by a piece in an external publication. Please do not flag this article as a copyright violation of the following source:
|
|
||||||||||
This page has archives. Sections older than 28 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present. |
Sergio Toresella is a scholar who published several works about ancient herbals. In 1996, he published a paper about "The Herbals of the Alchemists" (in Italian "Gli erbari degli alchimisti"). The article appeared in the catalogue of an exhibition in Genoa (" Arte farmaceutica e piante medicinali: erbari, vasi, strumenti e testi dalle raccolte liguri" - Pharmaceutical Art and Medicinal Plants: Herbals, Vessels, Instruments, and Texts from Ligurian Collections).
Quote from Toresella's paper: "col nome di erbario degli alchimisti sì indica una collezione di figure di erbe, quasi sempre fantastiche, che non è riconducibile a nessuno degli erbari di cui si è detto finora. Il nome fu dato dal grande naturalista bolognese Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) chè aveva raccolto un certo numero di questi erbari e li aveva rilegati assieme proprio con questa etichetta: Piante degli alchimisti e in mancanza di una migliore definizione anche io userò questo termine. Da un lato quindi gli erbari degli alchimisti sono molto elusivi perché non sembrano connettersi a nessuna tradizione iconografica o testuale conosciuta, dall’altro lato però sono immediatamente riconoscibili perché le loro rappresentazioni fantastiche sono di un tipo inconfondibile."
Translation: -the term "Herbal of the Alchemists" refers to a collection of plant illustrations, almost always fantastical, which cannot be traced back to any of the herbals mentioned so far [i.e. Dioscorides, Pseudo-Apuleius, Tractatus De Herbis]. The name was given by the great Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605), who had gathered a certain number of these herbals and bound them together with this label: "Plants of the Alchemists." In the absence of a better definition, I will also use this term. On the one hand, the herbals of the alchemists are elusive because they do not seem to connect to any known iconographic or textual tradition. On the other hand, they are immediately recognizable because their fantastical representations are of an unmistakable type.-
The most extensive study of the Alchemical Herbal tradition is Vera Segre Rutz "Il giardino magico degli alchimisti" (2000) ISBN: 8870504492. The book includes the edition of the copy of the text in manuscript Aldini 211, Pavia. The name "Alchemical Herbal" is somehow misleading, since actual alchemical operations are only mentioned for a minority of plants, but it is now consolidated by the many references by a number of authors. The work survives in several copies. This web page by Philip Neal repeats the incomplete list provided by Vera Segre-Rutz (24 manuscripts). Neal also lists the 98 plants that appear in the "alchemical herbal". The earliest known copy is Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Can. Misc. 408, written in Milan in 1378.
Toresella stated that "Tra gli erbari degli alchimisti si deve anche annoverare quello contenuto nel codice Voynich. ... Tra queste pergamene, [...] si allineano decine di erbe simili a quelle degli alchimisti, ma che non appartengono a quella tradizione iconografica" -Among the herbals of the alchemists, we must also include the one contained in the Voynich manuscript. ... these pages [are] lined with dozens of herbs similar to those of the alchemists but not belonging to the same iconographic tradition-. I understand he is saying that the two works are related but clearly different (he is not claiming that the Voynich manuscript is one more copy of the AH).
Alain Touwaide has published hundreds of books and papers about the history of medicine in general and illustrated herbals in particular. For instance, he edited the edition of British Library ms Sloane 4016 (Latin, Tractatus de Herbis), but he also wrote extensively about Greek and Arabic medical works.
In 2015 Touwaide published his article "Il manoscritto più misterioso - L'Erbario Voynich" included in the book "Villa Mondragone. Seconda Roma", Marina Formica ed. (ISBN-10 : 8860606853 / ISBN-13 : 978-8860606853). He confirmed the connection between the Voynich manuscript and the alchemical herbal: "Numerose rappresentazioni di piante del Manoscritto Voynich presentano una corrispondenza con le illustrazioni botaniche dei secoli XIV e XV, particolarmente -ma non solo- con i cosiddetti manoscritti alchimici." ("Many plant illustrations in the Voynich manuscript correspond with botanical illustrations of the XIV and XV Centuries, in particular -but not only- with the so called alchemical manuscripts"). This passage is followed by a bibliographical reference to Toresella's paper.
The parallels that can be detected are about the overall non-naturalistic style. Would Toresella and Touwaide say is that there appears to be a relationship between the Voynich manuscript and the AH, not that plants in the Voynich manuscripts can be matched with plants in the AH. I am not sure I can upload images here, so I uploaded to imgur a few examples of parallels between the Voynich and Alchemical herbals: https://imgur.com/a/cYh3oqr
The following is a list of features that this tradition has in common with the Voynich manuscript. The list is based on the observations by Toresella and Touwaide and analysis of the primary sources (in particular BNF Lat. 17848):
P marco ( talk) 10:42, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
The article gives Villa Mondragone, Frascati as the place where the VM rested until offered for sale to W. M. Voynich. But apparently, that's not right and the actual place was Villa Torlonia in Castel Gandolfo (near Rome again). There was some secrecy around the sale that perhaps led to this confusion. (source: [1]) Mandevil ( talk) 19:23, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
The text in the Voynych Manuscript could be Greek Italics. Lara3030 ( talk) 09:02, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
The manuscript is a major plot point in a play - Spake, by David L Williams. See https://newplayexchange.org/plays/14094/spake. 66.76.14.59 ( talk) 15:35, 28 May 2024 (UTC)