A couple of months ago, we saw an album of hand-coloured allegorical illustrations about a festival held on the occasion of the baptism of Princess Elizabeth of Hessen in 1596.
It turns out that there are three related works held by the Munich State Library. They are: BSB Cod.icon. 340 (we saw last time); BSB Cod.icon. 27(1 {the present botanical album} [translation] and BSB Cod.icon. 27(2 {I haven't had much of a look at this due to the present bandwidth problems, but it seems to be another allegorical festival work relating to an Essen royal parade}.
I *think* the present florilegium was painted onto pages from both of the Essen tournament works, hence making up a kind of scrapbook. The binding bears a date of 1606 and the volume is made up from pages out of the books from 1596 and 1598 by Wilhelm Dilich. The botanical artist is not known and their lush naturalistic watercolour flowers are accompanied by latin taxonomic names.
It was surely an eccentric editorial choice to paint beautiful flowers alongside such striking imagery as beheadings and dragons!
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