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[Encyclopedic manuscript containing allegorical and medical drawings].

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[Encyclopedic manuscript containing allegorical and medical drawings].

description

Summary

Manuscript on vellum. Gothic script in black and red. Pen-and-ink drawings, some slightly colored, with explanatory text in German or Latin. Subject matter and form of presentation is similar to that in 15th century woodcuts and block books.
Label on cover: Die Kunst Ciromantia von Doktor Hartlieb ...1448, does not refer to this manuscript.
For date and interpretation of the manuscript see the letter by F. Saxl, of April 5th, 1935, laid in. For other manuscripts of a similar type see his "A spiritual encyclopaedia of the Middle Ages: in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute, v. 5 (1942), p. 82 ff.
Library of Congress. Lessing J. Rosenwald collection, 4
Also available in digital form on the Library of Congress Web site.

In the Middle Ages, medicine was very much intertwined with astrology and other nonscientific superstitions. This manuscript on vellum, produced in southern Germany around 1410, contains pen and ink drawings with explanatory texts in German and Latin. The first drawing shows the earth and seven planets. It is followed by Zodiac-man, a naked man shown with the 12 signs of the zodiac, each relating to a specific part of the body. Next are four bloodletting charts of the human body. Such bleeding charts or calendars were widely used in this period. They provided instructions on the optimum days on which to draw blood, and the body points from which to draw it. The very complexity of the instructions offered–they varied for different phases of the moon, different diseases, and different body points– lent a degree of credibility to an essentially worthless and often harmful act. The work concludes with drawings of the Tower of Wisdom (text in German); a man called Microcosmus; a man called Macrocosmus; the Tree of Virtue; Philosophy surrounded by the Seven Arts; stories showing the evil power of women; the Tree of Babylon (or vice); the Tower of Wisdom (text in Latin, on two leaves); and the Wheel of Fortune. This work is from the Rosenwald Collection at the Library of Congress.

date_range

Date

01/01/1410
place

Location

south germany
create

Source

Library of Congress
copyright

Copyright info

Public Domain

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