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Add MS 22332
- Record Id:
- 040-002034809
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002034808
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000197.0x00039e
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100165146591.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 22332
- Title:
- Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Discorsi, a herbal assembled and illustrated by Gherardo Cibo
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 2r-2v: Index of plant names for the Discorsi;
ff. 3r-184v: Pietro Andrea Mattioli, the Discorsi, assembled and illustrated by Gherardo Cibo.
This manuscript contains the Discorsi, an Italian herbal that provides a commentary on De Materia Medica by the Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides (d. 90 BC) by Pietro Andrea Mattioli (b. 1501, d. 1577), a naturalist and physician to Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria, and of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. Mattioli used the works of Arabic scholars and discoveries made in the Orient and America, to add a large number of plants (not all for their medical uses) to those of the Materia Medica.
This manuscript of the original Italian text was assembled and illustrated by Gherardo Cibo (b. 1512, d. 1600), a botanist in Arcevia and nephew of Caterina Cibo, Duchess of Camerino. He illustrated the plants he collected and in many illustrations the botanist is depicted at work, discovering, collecting and studying nature.
A companion manuscript, now Add MS 22333 contains further illustrations by Cibo and includes a copy of a letter from Mattioli in which he praises Cibo for his work.
Decoration:
131 full-page framed watercolour images of plants on a background of landscapes or pastoral scenes with people, animals and birds on recto folios (ff. 1-57, 59, 61-65, 67, 69-75, 77-83, 85-87, 89-101, 103-115, 118-124, 127-141, 143, 144, 146-148, 150, 152, 154, 155) and 5 on verso folios (ff. 176-179v, 181v). 25 water-colour botanical drawings with no background (ff. 58, 60, 66, 68, 76r, 84, 88, 102, 116, 117, 125, 126, 142, 145, 149, 151, 153, 163, 164, 166, 173v, 175v, 180v, 182v, 183v).
The plants have been identified as:
f. 12r: Cyclamen purpurascens;
f. 13r: Asplenium scolopendrium;
f. 16r: Asplenium trichomanes (maidenhair fern);
f. 35r: Galanthus and Ipheion (?);
f. 37r: Daphnoides;
f. 46r: Abronia arenaria and Solidago virga-aurea;
f. 47r: Eryngium;
f. 50r: Plantago maior;
f. 56r: Mercurialis annua;
f. 72r: Gladiolus Italicus;
f. 85r: Paeonia mascula;
f. 92r: Asarum europaeum;
f. 95r: Helleboris viridis;
f. 96r: Polygonatum;
f. 104r: Viola odorata;
f. 111r: Galium cruciatum;
f. 121r: Fumaria;
f. 130r: Origanum;
f. 131r: Poligonum aviculare;
f. 133r: Scrophularia nodosa;
f. 143: Phyllitis hemionitis;
f. 148r: Iris;
f. 150r: Callystegia soldanella;
f. 154r: Euphorbia characias or Thithymalus characias I (primus Dodonaei);
f. 160r: Crocus sativus;
f. 181v: Olea europaea.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002034808
040-002034809 - Is part of:
- Add MS 22332-22333 : COLOURED DRAWINGS of plants, copied from nature in the Roman States, by Gerardo Cibo. Two volumes, the latter of which…
Add MS 22332 : Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Discorsi, a herbal assembled and illustrated by Gherardo Cibo - Hierarchy:
- 032-002034808[0001]/040-002034809
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 22332-22333
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
Paper codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100165146591.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Italian
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1559
- End Date:
- 1584
- Date Range:
- c 1564-1584
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper.
Dimensions: 265 x 195 (text space: approximately 235 x 175).
Foliation: ff. 185 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); + 3 unfoliated paper leaves following f. 89; + 1 unfoliated paper leaf following f. 130, f. 152, f. 155, f. 169, f. 173. f. 185 is a paper paste-down inside the lower binding. f. 107* is a blank leaf following f. 107.
Script: Italian cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. 17th-century gold-tooled and –stamped black leather binding, the spine inscribed in gold by the British Museum: ‘P. A. MATTHIOLO. ERBARIO. TOM. I.’
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Italy, Central.
Provenance:
Painted by Gherardo Cibo (b. 1512, d. 1600): a sketch of the vision of St Augustine with an inscription stating that it was copied from designs by Cibo's son (‘figliuolo’), Antonio (in the companion manuscript, Add MS 22333, f. 58r). Some of the drawings are dated 1564-1584 and there is a date of 1597 on f. 185 (rear past-down).
Inscriptions relating to the contents on the pastedowns inside the upper and lower bindings have been torn and are illegible.
Marchese Giovanni Battista Costabili Containi and his grand nephew Marchese Giovanni Costabili Containi: their sale, 27 June 1850, lot 2127 (note on f. 1); bought by the British Museum.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum, 1854-1860 (London: Clowes, 1875), pp. 634-35.
E. Celani, 'Sopra un erbario di Gherardo Cibo conservato nella R. Biblioteca Angelica di Roma', Malpighia, 16 (1902) 181-226.
Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi, 'Gherardo Cibo: visions of landscape and the botanical sciences in a sixteenth-century artist', Journal of Garden History, 9.4 (1989), 199-216 (p. 201).
Arnold Nesselrath, Gherardo Cibo, alias Ulisse Severino da Cingoli: disegni e opere da collezioni italiane (Florence: S.P.E.S, 1989), pp. 211-22 [exhibition catalogue].
J. Bolten, 'Review: Gherardo Cibo, alias Ulisse Severino da Cingoli', Master Drawings, 28.2 (1990), fig. 2.
Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp 166-70, fig. 11.
Erma Hermans, 'A 17th century Italian treatise on Miniature Painting and its Authors', in Historical Painting Techniques, Materials and Studio Practice, Papers from the Leiden Symposium, ed. by A. Wallert , E. Hermans and M. Peek, Leiden, 1995), pp. 48-57 (p. 53).
Pamela H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), pp. 42, 44, 45, figs 1.13-1.15.
Gherardo Cibo: Dilettante di Botanica e Pittore di 'Paesi', ed. by Giorgio Mangani e Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi (Ancona: Il lavoro editoriale, 2013), pls 1, 6-8, 12, 25, 134-68, p. 244.
Cristina Bellorini, World of Plants in Renaissance Tuscany: Medicine and Botany (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), figs 3.2, 3.3, 3.11.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)