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Hosted by: SIMS and Kislak Center
Although the medieval history of the textual transmission of Dioscorides' De materia medica from the Greek to Syriac to Arabic is well-documented, the text's early modern translation from the Arabic (Khawass al-Ashjar) to Persian (Kitab-i Hashayish) has been little studied. Likewise, scant attention has been paid to the few illustrated copies of the Persian version known today. By good fortune, a portion of one such rare Kitab-i Hashayish--probably datable to the seventeenth century and with its folios totally out of textual order--belongs to the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (LJS 278). This presentation introduces the manuscript's codicology, production, iconography, and painting styles, as well as the methodology employed in an effort to reconstruct its original textual sequence. Also under consideration here is the uncertain attribution of LJS 278, a problem directly related to its provenance.
The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies Online Lecture Series presents regularly scheduled lectures related to the study of premodern manuscript books and global manuscript culture.
Marianna Shreve Simpson is a historian of Islamic art and has published, taught, and lectured widely on medieval and early modern Islamic art in general and the arts of the book (especially Persian illustrated manuscripts) in particular. Her books include Princeton’s Great Book of Kings: The Peck Shahnama (Princeton University Art Museum, 2015), Persian Poetry, Painting, and Patronage: Illustrations in a Sixteenth-Century Masterpiece (Yale University Press and Freer Gallery of Art, 1998), and Sultan Ibrahim Mirza’s “Haft Awrang”: A Princely Manuscript from Sixteenth-Century Iran (Yale University Press and Freer Gallery of Art, 1997).
Featured image: Opening leaf of a copy of Dioscorides, Kitab-i Hashayish, the Persian translation of De materia medica. The manuscript has been attributed to the Deccan region of India, A.H. 1004 [1595] or 1054 [1645]. (LJS 278, fol. i)