Historical notes on manna / by Daniel Hanbury.

  • Hanbury, Daniel, 1825-1875.
Date:
[1869]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical notes on manna / by Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Vetere, who relate how they caused some of the trees to be covered with sheets, so that nothing could fall upon them ; and that notwithstanding this precaution, manna was produced as before.1 But this reasonable conclusion was regarded as scarcely orthodox, and the loarncd Matthioli was at much pains to supply an explanation more, as he thought, in accordance with Scripture. The special point however which I desire to discuss in this paper, relates to the period at which ash-manna began to be collected. Manna is mentioned more or less particularly by most of the Arabian physicians with whose works we are acquainted, but the allusions are all to Oriental manna and not to that of Italy or Sicily. This is manifest from the writings of Ebn Beithar2, one of the most eminent and learned men of his time and a great traveller ; and who being a native of Malaga, would probably when speaking of manna, have named that of Sicily, the more so as that island, having been for nearly 250 years under Saracenic rule, must have been familiar to the Arabs of Spain. Ebn Beithar is moreover in the habit of quoting extensively from other authors. He died about a.d. 1248. One fact may be held to prove that the Saracens could not have been entirely ignorant of the production of manna in Sicily, and it is this:—There exists a mountain near Cefalu which is called by the Arabic name Gibil-rnanna, literally Manna-mountain3. Other mountains in the island retain the Arabic name of gibit: whether the word manna was affixed subsequently to the Saracenic occu- pation, or whether, as is more probable, the whole name was bestowed by the Arab population in virtue of the trees of the mountain yielding manna, is a point I am unable to decide.'1 In the 13th century, Sicily was under the dominion of the Emperor Frederic II., a sovereign who appears to have been very solicitous to develop its resources, as is proved by many documents extant, relative to the affairs of the island. Thus in a letter dated a.d. 1239, he directs that certain Jews settled at Palermo are to farm his date plantations at Favara, and to cultivate them after their own manner. He also writes about the cultivation of his vineyards and the intro- duction of indigo and henna, and of divers other plants of Barbary, not then known to grow in Sicily. But so far as I can discover, there is no allusion to manna.* 5 Pegolotti, an Italian who wrote a sort of mercantile handbook circa a.d. 1340, has a chapter on Messina and Palermo, but does not mention manna as a pro- duction of Sicily ; yet in enumerating the articles sold by the pound at the former city, he names manna apparently as a foreign production, since he couples it with cloves, cubebs, rhubarb, mace and long pepper. Further evidence of a negative sort is afforded by Giovanni di Antonio da Uzzano, who in his work called Libro di Gabelli, written circa a.d. 1442, men- tions the exports of Naples and of Calabria as wine, oil, corn, cheese, salted meat, nuts, chestnuts, soap, and oranges, but makes no reference to manna.6 The earliest actual mention of manna as an Italian drug that I have found, is in 1 Geoffroy, Tractatus de Mat. Med. II. 687. The whole disquisition of this author Be Manna solutivd, is replete with information. 2 Ed. Sontheimer, 1840-42., I. 207., II. 633. 3 Amico, Lexicon topographieum Siculum, III. (1760). 242. 4 Colonel Yule lias remarked that Salmasius in his Fxercitationes Plmiana alludes to ’SuceKiicbv pavva as mentioned by the Medici recentiores Graci, but without specifying more particularly who tlioy are. , T, ,, „ Tir oi q . v k7i 5 Historia diplomatica Friderici Secundi, par J. L. A. Hiulhu'd-Breholles, I \ . 214, V. o/i. 6 Pcgolotti’s work forms the third volume and Da Uzzano’s the fourth, of the book published anonymously by Gian Francesco Pagnini under the title of Della Retinae divantaltrt Gravezze imposte dal Commune di Firenze etc., Lisb. e Lucca, 1765-6, 4o, ill. 96-98. Some valuable information on Pegolotti and his writings may be found in Doionei Yule’s Cathay and the way thither, Loud. 1866. (Hakluyt Society) Vol. II. 279.