Johannes Hartlieb's Book of Herbs (1462) | Hacker News Reader

Johannes Hartlieb's Book of Herbs (1462)

publicdomainreview.org

113 pointsbenbreen22 comments

How could Hartlieb have illustrated a potato or Jerusalem artichoke in 1462?

Anyways, original text is here:

https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07492/?st=gallery

It’s a bad translation using a more modern meaning of “erdapfel” instead of a medieval one. Could easily be a very local colloquialism instead of a widespread name.

To my eye it looks like a melon or gourd plant. It’s definitely not a tuber (the next drawing shows an underground bulb).

Some deductions:

>>potato

grows in the earth

>erdapfel

I know a few French words, so I know that potato in French is pomme de terre (fruit of the earth)

I am learning German.

I know that apfel means apple in German.

I know that Erdbeere means strawberry in German.

beere sounds like berry.

straw sometimes lies on the earth (after it is cut).

I just Googled for the word earth in German and it shows erde.

so it seems like erdapfel means "earth apple", which sounds like the French "fruit of the earth".

how's that for a bit(te) of logical deduction?

I feel a bit(te) like a human Prolog interpret-a.

now I'll go and finish my Bier(e), which inspired me-a.

;)

But it can't have in 1462, when potatoes (and Jerusalem artichokes) weren't known to Europeans yet.

Yep, they weren't introduced to Europe until the late 16th century: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00029633

At that time, "erdapfel" meant something else entirely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdapfel

The reason I think it's a heirloom melon variety is threefold: a) "earth apple" fits because melons grow on the ground, b) there are green melons with yellow and pink stripes/patches, with the same elongated fruit shape, c) vines and leaf shape.

You're right. Only after the Columbian Exchange were those plants known to Europe.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange

I just googled a bit more and saw this:

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Etymological_Dictionary_...

> I know a few French words, so I know that potato in French is pomme de terre (fruit of the earth)

"pomme" means apple, so it's even closer to the german etymology.

good to know, thanks.

joke: from now on, whenever anyone asks what type of computer i have, I will say:

pomme! non! merde!

meaning: Apple! no! https://www.dictionary.com/browse/merde

;)

If I trust Wikipedia, even today the term "Erdapfel" is used to refer to topinambour in some regions: "Mancherorts in Baden wird Topinambur als Erdapfel bezeichnet." https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topinambur#:~:text=Mancherorts....

Topinambour would have been available in the middle ages. Confusion with potato by the modern reader is understandable, as a topinambour does look similar to a potato, and some German dialects (e.g. Swiss dialects) name potatoes "Erdapfel".

> Topinambour would have been available in the middle ages.

No, Helianthus tuberosus [1] aka "topinambur" is Jerusalem artichoke which would not have been available at the time. It's a New World crop just like the potato.

We're talking about a book written in 1462, before the Columbian exchange. The plant wasn't introduced to Europe until the early 17th century.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helianthus_tuberosus

Wiktionary says of Erdapfel (which OP admittedly with '?' wasn't sure how to translate):

> From Middle High German ertapfel, erdapfel, ertöpfel, erdöpfel, ertaphel (“mandrake, cucumber, pumpkin, melon”), from Old High German erdapful, erdaphul (“pumpkin, squash, melon”)

Hello, OP here. We didn’t yet have access to a proper critical commentary and did our best with the image captions, although our best was a rather poor job in this case — much trickier than anticipated. I went to the Berlin Staatsbibliothek today for research and new captions will go live tomorrow. (Although even the experts are confused as to what the “Jerusalem artichoke” image is supposed to be — they suggest watermelon or cucumber.)

I see they have updated the post now, showing English translations for all the images. The "erdapfel" one is now displaying as "Possibly watermelon or cucumber": https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/hartlieb-book-of-h...

I wish they'd sell prints of these

go complain about it to the dept., maybe they will, complaintdept :)

They're public domain and the images in the article are pretty high res I don't think anything is stopping you from getting a print made

> I don't think anything is stopping you from getting a print made

Only if you know German or have enough time to translate individual images to your language

The pictures don't have text in them.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07492/?sp=7

Saw the pictures of the animals and thought, 'hope the pictures of the herbs are better than the animals' and then read below "The botanical imprecision of the 160 pictures, in any case, would have made identification of particular plants in nature difficult."

Doesn't seem like the book would have been real useful.

I believe the commenter who I was originally responding to was talking about prints of the art in the article, not a reprint of the book.

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