Das 'Debrecener Pflanzen- Und Tierbuch': Die Illustrierte Deutsche Ps.-Apuleius Handschrift Debrecen R 459. Faksimile, Edition, Ubersetzung Und Kommentare
English summary: The Debrecen Book of Plants and Animals is an illustrated manuscript on parchment from the second quarter of the fifteenth century in the Library of the Reformed Theological University in Debrecen (Hungary). Largely ignored by earlier scholarship, it is the only illustrated German tranlsation of the most broadly disseminated corpus of herbal medicine from the Latin Middle Ages. The compendium, a collection of prescriptions for the treatment of various illnesses, contains four late classical texts: the ...
Read More
English summary: The Debrecen Book of Plants and Animals is an illustrated manuscript on parchment from the second quarter of the fifteenth century in the Library of the Reformed Theological University in Debrecen (Hungary). Largely ignored by earlier scholarship, it is the only illustrated German tranlsation of the most broadly disseminated corpus of herbal medicine from the Latin Middle Ages. The compendium, a collection of prescriptions for the treatment of various illnesses, contains four late classical texts: the first two, Ps.-Musa's De herba vettonica and the herbal of Ps.-Apuleius, treat plant-based medicines, while the following two, the Liber de taxone and Sextus Placidus's Liber medicinae ex animalibus, discuss medicines derived from animal material. In contrast to the schematic illustrations of the Latin transmission, the Debrecen manuscript contains colored pen-and-ink drawings of extraordinary quality. The illustrator's attempt to concentrate on the distinctive characteristics of individual plants and to represent them as lifelike as possible resulted in a hitherto unequaled precision in German-speaking regions. The central part of the book presents a facsimile of the manuscript, with the facing page containing a transcription and an English translation, so that facsimile, text, and translation can easily be compared. The edition and translation are accompanied by a commentary explaining problems of the Latin sources and the German translation, and are further enhanced by a glossary of the Bavarian vocabulary and an index of plant names. This edition is preceded by an extensive group of studies, which establish a new basis for the transmission and reception history of the Latin base text, attempt to trace the sphere of the source manuscript, and discuss the translation strategies of the German adapter. Marian Polhill (Professor and Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature, University of Puerto Rico) undertakes a contextualization of the 'book of animals' within the hitherto little studied transmission of animal-based medicines in Arabic and Western cultures. Irmgard Muller (Professor of History of Medicine, Ruhr University Bochum) presents a medical-pharmacological study of the texts and examines the illnesses and their treatment in the context of medieval medicine. This multi-disciplinary collaboration combines literary, philological, medical-historical, pharmaceutical and art-historical research. German description: Das 'Debrecener Pflanzen- und Tierbuch' ist eine illustrierte deutsche Pergamenthandschrift aus dem 2. Viertel des 15. Jahrhunderts, die sich im Besitz der Bibliothek des Reformierten Kollegiums zu Debrecen (Ungarn) befindet. Von der Forschung wurde das Werk bisher kaum beachtet. Zu unrecht, handelt es sich doch um die einzige illustrierte deutsche Ubersetzung des am verbreitesten Herbarienkorpus des lateinischen Mittelalters. Das Korpus, eine Sammlung von Rezepten fur die Behandlung verschiedenster Krankheiten, enthalt vier spatantike Texte. In den beiden ersten Werken, Ps.-Musas, De herba vettonica' und Ps.-Apuleius', werden pflanzliche Arzneimittel behandelt, wahrend die beiden folgenden Schriften, Liber de taxone' und Sextus Placidus', Liber medicinae ex animalibus', tierische Drogen zum Gegenstand haben.Im Gegensatz zu den schematischen Illustrationen der lateinischen Uberlieferung, enthalt die Debrecener Handschrift kolorierte Federzeichnungen von einer ausserordentlichen Qualitat. Das Bestreben des Malers, sich bei seinen Illustrationen auf die Darstellung der distinktiven Merkmale der einzelnen Pflanzen zu konzentrierten und diese so naturgetreu wie moglich darzustellen, hat dazu gefuhrt, dass die Genauigkeit seiner Abbildungen ein im deutschsprachigen Raum vorher noch nicht erreichtes Mass erzielte. Das Kernstuck des Buches ist ein Faksimile der Handschrift: der faksimilierten Seite wird jeweils auf der anderen Seite in zwei Spalten der bereinigte Handschriftenabdru
Read Less
Add this copy of Debrecener Pflanzen-Und Tierbuch to cart. $154.00, new condition, Sold by ISD rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Bristol, CT, UNITED STATES, published 2018 by Dr Ludwig Reichert Verlag.
