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Turnsole
Turnsole or folium was a dyestuff prepared from the annual plant ''Chrozophora tinctoria''. History Turnsole became a mainstay of medieval Illuminated manuscript, manuscript illuminators starting with the development of the technique for extracting it in the thirteenth century, when it joined the vegetable-based woad and indigo in the illuminator's repertory. Its use was mostly as substitute of the more expensive Tyrian purple, the famous dye obtained from Murex molluscs. However, the queen of blue colorants was always the expensive lapis lazuli or its substitute azurite, ground to the finest powders. Turnsole was downgraded to a shading glaze and fell out of use in the illuminator's palette by the turn of the seventeenth century, with the easier availability of less fugitive mineral-derived blue pigments. According to its method of preparation, turnsole produced a range of translucent colors from blue, through purple to red, depending on its reaction to the acidity or alkalinity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heliotropium
''Heliotropium'' is a genus of flowering plants in the heliotrope family, Heliotropiaceae. There are around 325 species in this almost cosmopolitan genus, which are commonly known as heliotropes (sg. ). It is highly toxic for dogs and cats. Etymology The name "heliotrope" derives from the old idea that the inflorescences of these plants turned their rows of flowers to the Sun.Chittenden, Fred J. Ed., Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening, Oxford 1951 Ἥλιος (''helios'') is Greek for "Sun", τρέπειν (''trepein'') means "to turn". The Middle English name "turnsole" has the same meaning. A Classical myth, told in Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'', imagines that the water nymph Clytie, in love with the sun god Helios, was betrayed by him. Wasting away, she transformed into the heliotrope, whose flowers supposedly always face the Sun. Morphology Like other members of the Heliotropiaceae, plants in the genus ''Heliotropium'' have 5-merous, tetracyclic flowers and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illuminated Manuscripts
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories and deeds. While Islamic manuscripts can also be called illuminated, and use essentially the same techniques, comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as ''painted''. The earliest illuminated manuscripts in existence come from the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire and date from between 400 and 600 CE. Examples include the Codex Argenteus and the Rossano Gospels, both of which are from the 6th century. The majority of extant manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiqu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illuminated Manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories and deeds. While Islamic manuscripts can also be called illuminated, and use essentially the same techniques, comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as ''painted''. The earliest illuminated manuscripts in existence come from the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire and date from between 400 and 600 CE. Examples include the Codex Argenteus and the Rossano Gospels, both of which are from the 6th century. The majority of extant manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiqu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbs
In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typically distinguishes herbs from spices. ''Herbs'' generally refers to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant (either fresh or dried), while ''spices'' are usually dried and produced from other parts of the plant, including seeds, bark, roots and fruits. Herbs have a variety of uses including culinary, medicinal, aromatic and in some cases, spiritual. General usage of the term "herb" differs between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs; in medicinal or spiritual use, any parts of the plant might be considered as "herbs", including leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, root bark, inner bark (and cambium), resin and pericarp. The word "herb" is pronounced in Commonwealth English, but is common am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The British Library is a major research library, with items in many languages and in many formats, both print and digital: books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, videos, play-scripts, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings. The Library's collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial holdings of manuscripts and items dating as far back as 2000 BC. The library maintains a programme for content acquis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbal
A herbal is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their medicinal, tonic, culinary, toxic, hallucinatory, aromatic, or magical powers, and the legends associated with them.Arber, p. 14. A herbal may also classify the plants it describes, may give recipes for herbal extracts, tinctures, or potions, and sometimes include mineral and animal medicaments in addition to those obtained from plants. Herbals were often illustrated to assist plant identification.Anderson, p. 2. Herbals were among the first literature produced in Ancient Egypt, China, India, and Europe as the medical wisdom of the day accumulated by herbalists, apothecaries and physicians. Herbals were also among the first books to be printed in both China and Europe. In Western Europe herbals flourished for two centuries following the introduction of moveable type (c. 1470–1670). In the late 17th century, the rise of modern chemistry, toxicology and pharmacology reduced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
François Pierre La Varenne
François Pierre de la Varenne (, 1615–1678 in Dijon), Burgundian by birth, was the author of ''Le Cuisinier françois'' (1651), one of the most influential cookbooks in early modern French cuisine. La Varenne broke with the Italian traditions that had revolutionised medieval and Renaissance French cookery in the 16th century and early 17th century. Historical context La Varenne was the foremost member of a group of French chefs, writing for a professional audience, who codified French cuisine in the age of King Louis XIV. The others were Nicolas Bonnefon, ''Le Jardinier françois'' (1651) and ''Les Délices de la campagne'' (1654), and François Massialot, ''Le Cuisinier royal et bourgeois'' (1691), which was still being edited and modernised in the mid-18th century. The cookbook was still used in France until the French Revolution. The seventeenth century saw a culinary revolution which transported French gastronomy into the modern era. The heavily spiced flavours inherite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chrozophoridine
Chrozophoridin is a chemical used as a dye. It is derived from the plant ''Chrozophora tinctoria'' (commonly known as dyer's croton, giradol, or turnsole), which is a species native to the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, and Central Asia. ''Chrozophora tinctoria'' produced the blue-purple colorant "turnsole" (also known as katasol or folium) used in medieval illuminated manuscripts and as a food colorant in Dutch cheese and certain liquors. The color comes from the plant's fruit, specifically its dry outer coat. The colorant is also obtained from the translucent sap contained in the plant cells when the leaves of the plant are broken off and exposed to the air., s.v. ''Chrozophora tinctoria'' Different shades of blue and purple may also be obtained when the juice extracts are exposed to the vapors emitted from ammonia (NH3), and which in France, during the late 19th century, was produced by applying fresh horse manure and urine to the fabric that was soaked with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthocyanin
Anthocyanins (), also called anthocyans, are water-soluble vacuolar pigments that, depending on their pH, may appear red, purple, blue, or black. In 1835, the German pharmacist Ludwig Clamor Marquart gave the name Anthokyan to a chemical compound that gives flowers a blue color for the first time in his treatise "''Die Farben der Blüthen''". Food plants rich in anthocyanins include the blueberry, raspberry, black rice, and black soybean, among many others that are red, blue, purple, or black. Some of the colors of autumn leaves are derived from anthocyanins. Anthocyanins belong to a parent class of molecules called flavonoids synthesized via the phenylpropanoid pathway. They occur in all tissues of higher plants, including leaves, stems, roots, flowers, and fruits. Anthocyanins are derived from anthocyanidins by adding sugars. They are odorless and moderately astringent. Although approved as food and beverage colorant in the European Union, anthocyanins are not approved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous waste, particularly among aquatic organisms, and it contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to 45% of the world's food and fertilizers. Around 70% of ammonia is used to make fertilisers in various forms and composition, such as urea and Diammonium phosphate. Ammonia in pure form is also applied directly into the soil. Ammonia, either directly or indirectly, is also a building block for the synthesis of many pharmaceutical products and is used in many commercial cleaning products. It is mainly collected by downward displacement of both air and water. Although common in nature—both terrestrially and in the outer planets of the Solar System—and in wide use, ammonia is both caust ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chrozophora Tinctoria
''Chrozophora tinctoria'' (commonly known as dyer's croton, giradol, turnsole or dyer's litmus plant) is a plant species native to the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, and Central Asia. It is also present as a weed in North America and Australia. Description It is an annual, typically found in nutrient-poor ground. It develops a large taproot. The plant is erect and covered with wool-like hairs. The ash-green leaves are alternate. The tiny monecious flowers are grouped in a raceme. The lower, female flowers lack petals and the upper male flowers have five small yellow petals. Pollination is by ants. The fruits are conspicuous and consist of three dark green conjoined spheres. Their surface is decorated with white scales and warty structures. Each sphere contains three seeds, which are propelled away from the plant by the mechanical force of the mature fruit twisting as it opens. Use for dye ''Chrozophora tinctoria'' produced the blue-purple colorant "turnsole" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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