a north italian herbal of the fifteenth century

A North Italian Herbal of the Fifteenth CenturyAuthor(s): Robin FlowerSource: The British Museum Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Sep., 1928), pp. 55-56Published by: British MuseumStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4420958 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 13:02

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

British Museum is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The British MuseumQuarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.213.220.138 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 13:02:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=britmu

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4420958?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


from about 1750. It is in the work of the Primitives, always rather neglected in England, that the Museum is weakest; this fine example of Masanobu is therefore a welcome accession. An excellent actor- print in two colours by another Primitive, a rare and hitherto un- represented artist, Yamamoto Yoshinobu, has also been acquired: and among other purchases may be mentioned the rare but well- known book Waka no Ura, by Takagi Sadatake, from the Odin sale in Paris; the set of five illustrations to Ehon Ginseki, by Utamaro; and a kakemono of a Beauty, unsigned, but probably by Shunsh6, formerly in the de Goncourt Collection. L. B.

44. A NORTH ITALIAN HERBAL OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

AMANUSCRIPT herbal, lately added to the rich collection of the kind already in the Museum, is of unusual interest both

from the naturalistic treatment of the plants and from the fact that the place of origin can be identified with certainty. A note on a page containing a representation of a plant of the Senecio genus states that the chaplain of 'dominus Leopoldus' told the compiler that the herb was called 'herba vulnerum' in his country. Below this is written: 'Invenitur circha locum sancti Baldi', the habitat indicated being, no doubt, Monte Baldo, the mountain range between the Lago di Garda and the valley of the Adige, still famous for its rich flora. Leopold III, Duke of Austria, held Belluno and Feltre from 1376- 86, and references to Belluno as the habitat of several plants shows that the herbal was compiled there. A later note referring to Belluno and Feltre as 'huius civitatis' confirms this. The script is of the early fifteenth century. Various plants are noted as growing at Treviso and Cividale, so that the book is an early contribution to the descrip- tion of the flora of the Venetian province. To this interest in the local flora is no doubt due what is perhaps the earliest known representation of a plant which has been identified as edelweiss (leonto- podium Alpinum, here called philago .i. ancipatus maior). The white blooms are well shown relieved against a red shield.

The Latin text, which is largely drawn from Dioscorides with additions from other compilations (Macer Floridus, Serapion,

55



Theodorus, &c.), is entirely subsidiary to the illustrations. These are on a large scale, a picture of one plant usually occupying the whole page, notes on the character, locality, and uses of the herb, with full lists of synonyms, being inserted in the blank spaces round it. The drawings are well designed and broadly and freely executed in water-colours. They have every appearance of being taken from the actual plants, and the book is thus an early forerunner of the modern science of botany. Two of them are reproduced on Plates XXXI and XXXII. R. F.

45. PERABO COLLECTION OF MUSICAL AUTOGRAPHS.

T HE Department of Manuscripts has recently acquired the valuable and important collection of musical autographs made

by the late Mr. Ernst Perabo, of Boston, U.S.A. (1845-1920), through the generosity of his former pupil and friend Mr. E. Perry Warren, to whom he presented them in x904. The collector himself had previously in his lifetime (1902) presented to the Museum the MS. of Schubert's Sonata in G (op. 78), Additional MS. 36738, and it is fitting that in the year of the centenary of Schubert's death this recent gift should be particularly rich in autographs of that composer, viz. his Mass in B, (op. I41), 'Three Italian Songs' (op. 83), 'Wanderers Nachtlied' (op. 4, No. 3), 'Der Fischer' (op. 5, No. 3), and a fragment of 'Die Sehnsucht' (op. 39).

Of no less interest is a manuscript of selections from the church music of Johann Ernst Eberlin, Court-Organist to the Prince- Archbishop of Salzburg, and Johann Michael Haydn, in all seventy- nine leaves, in the hand of Mozart. It is probably this manuscript to which Mozart refers in a letter to his father dated 4 January 1783 (L. Schiedermair, Die Briefe W. A. Mozarts, ii, p. 208).

Beethoven is represented by the pianoforte part of his Grand Triple Concerto (op. 56), with autograph title 'Klavierstimme kon- zertante Konzert' and corrections in score by the composer; and also by a copy of the first edition of the Three Pianoforte Sonatas

(Eb, F minor, and D), published by Bossler (Speier, 1783), with a scribbled note, probably by the composer, 'Noch vor diesem Werke

56



XXXI. A NORTH ITALIAN HERBAL



XXXII. A NORTH ITALIAN HERBAL



a north italian herbal of the fifteenth century

Documents