Codicology - Vermont 'Tuscany Herbal'

[-JKP-]

If you are curious about why some of the plants are so distinctively illustrated as a checkerboard... a few years ago, I tried to track down the reason.


What I discovered, that might account for it, is that there are (or were) tiled mosaics of plants at the Salerno medical school that are squarish like this and in multicolors. The mosaic tradition is very ancient and strong in southern Italy and the Levant.

I tried very hard to find pictures of specific plants (they apparently exist at the medical school) to see if one particularly resembled the one that has been reproduced by several copyists in this style, as that would confirm the possibility. It's not easy to find the ones related to plants (there are many mosaics), and it's hard to date many of them, but this one at least gives an idea of what I mean:


Photo of Duomo di Salerno of TripAdvisor