For some years, I’ve been wondering about Italian vernacular recipe collections similar to the one by Alcherio translated into Latin by Jehan le Begue in Paris in 1431. This is simply because I have a strong suspicion that the Voynich Manuscript’s Q20 (which is made up of starred paragraphs, each of broadly recipe-like size) contains a set of (you guessed it) Italian-language vernacular recipes. And if I can identify an Italian plaintext for a good selection of these recipes, I might be able to use that as a way to launch a “block paradigm” attack on Q20 (i.e. figure out a probable plaintext for even one of the paragraphs).
But… the problem here was always not about what I want to know, but about how to find it out. Even if you dive into the De Coloribus et Mixtionibus (“DCM”, a well-known family of Latin recipe mss) literature (e.g. Rozelle Johnson in the 1930s), the overwhelming majority of that relates to textual derivations between Latin recipes. (Johnson mentions briefly that an Italian-language copy of DCM recipe A1 appears in MS Ashburnhamiana 349, but never goes further than that.) Even Travaglio doesn’t really delve significantly into Italian vernacular translations of DCM recipes, essentially taking Johnson’s Latin-centric framework as a given only to be explored.
However, a few days ago I suddenly remembered that a few years back I had bought a copy of Mark Clarke’s (2001) “The Art of All Colours”: and when I (finally) read that properly, this whole unclear research landscape fell into sharp focus. Clarke lists more than 400 medieval manuscripts, giving proper shelfmark and language notes, plus references to textual editions and references where he is aware of them. (This is a biiiiig landscape for a single book to cover.) And so I now have a modest (but usable) set of 14th-15th century Italian language recipes to try to understand.
Italian-language recipe mss listed in Clarke (2001)
Here’s my work-in-progress list of pre-1500 Italian-language recipe mss extracted from Mark Clarke’s most excellent (2001) “The Art of All Colours”. The numbers (155, 160 etc) are Clarke’s numbering scheme.
- Lehigh University
- 155: Ms. 57 – in Latin, Catalan, and Italian (see Wilson 1936)
- Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria
- 160: Ms. 1536, the “Bolognese Ms.”, 249 fols, in Latin and Italian (ED and TR in Merrifield 1849)
- Ferrara, Biblioteca Communale Ariostea
- 582: Ms. Cl. II 147 ff. 64r-194 (pseudo-Savonarola) in Italian and Latin. ED: Torresi 1992
- 585: Ms. 861 ff. 84r-95v, in Latin and Italian. ED: Torresi 1993b
- Florence, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana
- 590: Ms. XXIII, plut 78. Cennino Cennini, “Il Libro dell’Arte” (For TR, see Thompson 1933a)
- 630: Ms. Ashburnhamiana 349. ff. 55f & 84r have ink recipes in Italian
- 655: “Ms. 2558” (in Brunello): dyeing recipes
- Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
- 660: Ms Magliabacchi XV 8 b
- 700: “Magliabacchi 60” (?) (in Brunello): dyeing recipes
- 705: Ms. Palatina 567, (in Brunello): dyeing recipes
- 708: Ms. Palatina 718, recipes to dye wood, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 720: Ms. Palatina 763, in Italian and Latin, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 750: Ms. Palatina 796, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 755: Ms. Palatina 811, in Latin and Italian, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 770: Ms. Palatina 850, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 790: Ms. Palatina 857, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 800: Ms. Palatina 860, recipes from the Mappae Clavicula, in Italian and Latin, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 810: Ms. Palatina 862, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 820: Ms. Palatina 865, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 825: Ms. Palatina 885, in Italian and Latin, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 830: Ms. Palatina 886, in Italian and Latin, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 840: Ms. Palatina 916, (ff. 50r-162v), ED. Pomaro 1991
- 870: Ms. Palatina 934, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 875: Ms. Palatina 945, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 878: Ms. Palatina 949, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 900: Ms. Palatina 1001, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 905: Ms. Palatina 1021, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 912: Ms. Palatina 1026, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 920: Ms. Palatina 1072, in Italian and Latin, ED. Pomaro 1991
- 928: “Strozziano 181” (?), dyeing, in Brunello
- Florence, Biblioteca Ricciardiana
- 990: Ms. 1246, ff. 13r-92v
- 1000: Ms. 1247, ff. 9v-49r
- 1020: Ms. 2190 (late copy of Cennino Cennini)
- 1032: Ms. 2142, dyeing, in Brunello
- 1034: Ms. 2558, dyeing, in Brunello
- 1036: Ms. 2580, dyeing, in Brunello
- British Library
- 1770: Ms. Sloane 416 “The Venetian Manuscript”, in Netherlandish, Italian, and Latin (ED Italian in Tosatti 1991)
- London, Victoria & Albert Museum
- 2007: Ms. A.L. 1496/1893, ff. 13-16v, in Italian (said to be Venetian dialect)
- Lucca, Biblioteca Statale
- 2055: Ms. Cod. 1286, ED: Arrighi 1967
- Oxford, Bodleian Library
- 2460: Ms. Canonici Ital. 183
- Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale
- 2945: “Paris BN No. 916” (??), dyeing, in Brunello
- Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense
- 3040: Ms. 1477 (no language specified)
- 3050: Ms. 1793, ff. 10v-13v and 15v-20v
- Siena, Biblioteca Communale degli Intronati
- 3110: Ms. I.II.19, ff. 99r-106r, Ricepte d’Affare piu Colori, by Ambrogio di ser Pietro da Siena, 1462 (ED: Thompson 1933b and Torresi 1993b)
- 3120: Ms. L.XI.41, ff. 34v-41, ED: Tosatti-Soldano 1978 pp. 139-149
- Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
- 3300: Ms. Vat. lat. 6852, Praecepta Colorum of Felice Feliciano, in “Italianate Latin”, 1433-1479
- “Location Uncertain”
- 3580: “a treatise in Italian on several art techniques…”, ED Malaguzzi Valeri (1896)
As I’m sure you’d guess, this is the point in my research where I typically start to fill up a bookshelf with obscure monographs. Oddly, here, most appear to be tightly clustered around 1991-1993 (so it’s clearly what all the cool kids were researching back then):
- For most of the recipes in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, see:
- Pomaro, G. (1991) “I Recettari del Fondo della Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze. Inventari e cataloghi toscani: 35″
- For the Italian parts of the Venetian Manuscript, see:
- Tosatti Soldano, B. S. (1991) “Il Manoscritto Veneziano“
- For Pseudo-Savonarola (later, but I believe the book looks backwards to Alcherio etc)
- Torresi, A. P. (1992) “A far littere de oro“
- For Ferrara Ms. 861 ff., see:
- Torresi, A. P. (1993) “Il taccuino Antonelli : un ricettario ferrarese del Quattrocento di tecnica artistica e fitoterapia“
Unfortunately, these are all obscure/rare enough to make Bookfinder weep. Sure, I was able to order Tosatti Soldano’s “Il Manoscritto Veneziano” from FirenzeLibri, but as for the rest? Fat chance.
So, the good news is that there is a pre-existing literature for me to grind my way through. The bad news is that it seems I can’t buy my way into it at any price. *sigh*
Back in 2022 after mentioning a couple of Nick’s posts ““Parchminers, scriveners, lymners, bookbinders, stationers…” (Jan.21st., 2010) and another from 2022, I also recommended then – and do still – for any interested in comparative studies:
David J. Roxburgh, ‘The Study of Painting and the Arts of the Book’, Muqarnas, Vol. 17 (2000), pp. 1-16. [accessible via JSTOR]
https://www.jstor.org/journal/muqarnas
also still going since 2022 is a page from the University of Georgia which I’m sure Nick knows but others may not:
https://ctcamp.franklinresearch.uga.edu/medieval-pigments-creation-and-analysis
Yeah, but does he do a passable bolognaise?
Here’s a nice example from the Wellcome Collection
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ewew4tsu/items?canvas=87
Take a look at folios in their 30s/40s – an absolute dead ringer for the recipes section..
Ed – nicely short-shanked ‘4’s too. Have you found any more to explain what is meant by the catalogue’s “formerly” in.. “formerly identified (by S.A.J. Moorat) as a translation of Guy de Chauliac, Chirurgia parva.” ? Perhaps only that Laura Nuvoloni in 2016 was unable to agree, for reasons unspecified?
Hi D,
I’m afraid I’ve not looked much further, although looking at Laura’s work, I think there’s a lot to be mined. Assuming (and I know you have some doubts) the manuscript is Italian, Padua seems to me most likely, and she’s done a lot of research on potentially relevant individuals. I’ll email her and see what else she knows about this particular manuscript.
Thanks
Ed
Ed,
Just for the record. What troubles me is not the question of where the quires were inscribed, which may well have been in some part of Italy for all I know. That’s a matter of codicology, palaeography and conservators as specialists in the materials science side of things. What troubles me is when a Voynich theory focused on one smaller part of Latin Europe, presumes an historically inappropriate exclusivity, as if a manuscript made in, say, Florence or Padua or Milan must contain only material composed there by a fifteenth-century native and an idea of that sort I have found inconsistent with the primary document’s evidence overall. Given the population-movements of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, the presence of Italians (merchants and those temporarily or permanently exiled or dedicated to a peripatetic profession, even proving Italian style of handwriting or Italian manufacture would not prove the contents itself ‘Italian’ in any definitive sense. For mine, I can go no further than to say that my conclusion has been, so far, that the immediate exemplars or copied precedents had been brought together by the mid-fourteenth century and within the south-western Mediterranean. But that is a conclusion from studying the drawings across all sections of the mss, not the Voynichese text. I have looked at the Adriatic-Veneto possibilities but on balance found they do not answer the case well for a period much earlier than 1470. These are just conclusions from my own research to date of course and which may be changed by new discoveries and insights.
Hi,
I fully agree. Northern Italy as a production millieu does not necessitate that the images or text originated there. An Arabic influence would seem to me the most logical choice, but if we open up that milieu, it could be anywhere, and indeed much much older. I had the notion that the text may be a kind of Latinised pseudo-kufic, but that doesn’t seem to stack up unfortunately.
Ed,
I think some adherents to the ‘all Latin European origin’ theory are now trying to argue that the script – the set of glyphs – is some variation of the Latins’ scribal shorthand, but it has never been a question simply asked and explored theory-free. The Ars notoria was a very early guess, discussed already in the first Voynich mailing list and then, in other places including Nick’s research. More recently, I was interested to hear at second remove about a manuscript containing more than a 100 cipher scripts which was brought to Voynich researchers’ notice by someone writing to the ‘ninja’ forum as Bluetoes 101.
I can’t see the point, myself, in creating or adopting a theoretical narrative in my sort of work. No-one in a museum or any collector wants to hear one’s speculations and historical daydreams when they’ve asked for a report on ancient or medieval images and artefacts, so I tend to question, then investigate, and then form conclusions without bothering too much with theoretical schema. 🙂