A bridge to the underworld : digging up plant roots in Renaissance vernacular medical "fictions" : Un pont vers le monde souterrain : creuser la terre et récolter les racines des plantes dans les fictions médicales de la Renaissance En Fr

Résumé En

To fully understand the making and meaning of an early modern botanical or medical theory concerning roots and plants, the historian can grasp their symbolic and folkloric stories. This cultural dimension of the underground plant serves as a comprehensive tool for writing a “natural history” of plants such as Mandrake or Deadly nightshade. The description of their harvest is often a narrative “topos” used in herbals to foster devotion, faith and morality, as remedies of the Renaissance pharmacopeia to some specific illnesses, particularly those related to sexuality, fertility, melancholy and social behaviors. Thus, the “underground” plant is linked to the “underwold”, through the axis mundi imagery, the root being the bridge with the mundus subterraneus, reversed world. The act of digging the soil is structured with magical rituals and gestures around the roots, rhizomes or tubers which are dedicated to ward off threats related to death or evil spirits.