06-02-2016, 09:43 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-02-2016, 09:52 AM by Diane.
Edit Reason: to add postscript.
)
David,
No - I tend to research what the manuscript contains, and it contains no evident allusion to Latin culture until what I estimate to be its last or next-to-last version. These I date to the late thirteenth or earlier fourteenth century, and the early fifteenth century, respectively.
So although Dante is possible, the imagery doesn't look at all like something produced by a Latin Christian of his time.
About the introduction of works translated from the Arabic into Latin, I've just been re-reading Dorothee Metlitzki's, The Matter of Araby in Medieval England (Yale Uni Press, 1977). I'd quite forgotten her fascinating discussion of the role played by 'Petrus Alfonsi'. Well worth a look, if you can get it.
It is especially good in showing that to imagine that what was known in Spain wouldn't be known in England, and France, and Italy is inappropriate for those times. It's extraordinary how readily, often and far people did.
Diane
I see that a copy is listed with Google books, but whether it will show you all the pages about Petrus, I can't say. These things seem to change from day to day, or region to region.
David
I don't suppose that you're the same David who recently left a comment on my blog?
The blog is voynichimagery.wordpress.com
Perhaps you'd like to leave your second initial as well if you visit? It's lovely to be invited to read other people's work, but difficult when you're not quite sure who's doing the invitation.
Thanks
Diane O'Donovan
No - I tend to research what the manuscript contains, and it contains no evident allusion to Latin culture until what I estimate to be its last or next-to-last version. These I date to the late thirteenth or earlier fourteenth century, and the early fifteenth century, respectively.
So although Dante is possible, the imagery doesn't look at all like something produced by a Latin Christian of his time.
About the introduction of works translated from the Arabic into Latin, I've just been re-reading Dorothee Metlitzki's, The Matter of Araby in Medieval England (Yale Uni Press, 1977). I'd quite forgotten her fascinating discussion of the role played by 'Petrus Alfonsi'. Well worth a look, if you can get it.
It is especially good in showing that to imagine that what was known in Spain wouldn't be known in England, and France, and Italy is inappropriate for those times. It's extraordinary how readily, often and far people did.
Diane
I see that a copy is listed with Google books, but whether it will show you all the pages about Petrus, I can't say. These things seem to change from day to day, or region to region.
David
I don't suppose that you're the same David who recently left a comment on my blog?
The blog is voynichimagery.wordpress.com
Perhaps you'd like to leave your second initial as well if you visit? It's lovely to be invited to read other people's work, but difficult when you're not quite sure who's doing the invitation.
Thanks
Diane O'Donovan