¹ For books of herbals, see Arber, Agnes, Herbals, Their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany 1470–1679 (Cambridge, 1953)Google Scholar; Reeds, Karen, Botany in Medieval and Renaissance Universities (New York, 1991)Google Scholar. For Renaissance Italian selfhelp manuals, see Bell, Rudolph, How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians (Chicago, IL, 1999). For the vernacular book of secrets and its impact on science, medicine and attitudes towards nature CrossRefGoogle Scholar, see Eamon, William, ‘Science and Popular Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy: The “Professors of Secrets” and their Books’, Sixteenth Century Journal 16 (1985), 471–85; idem, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton, NJ, 1994).Google Scholar

² ‘j ^a roxa di Jericho da dona di parto’: Florence, Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Magistrato dei Pupilli del Principato [hereafter: ASF, MPP], 2646, fols 330^r-341^I [estate of Pagholo di Jacopo, funaiuolo, Io May 1535], at fol. 339^v.

³ See Musacchio, Jacqueline, Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy (New Haven, CT, 1999), 141 Google Scholar; Gélis, Jacques, History of Childbirth: Fertility, Pregnancy and Birth in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1991), 117; 145–46.Google Scholar

⁴ See Morren, Charles.‘The Rose of Jericho’, in The Annals of Horticulture and Year-Book of Information on Practical Gardening (London, 1850), 333—34 Google Scholar; Conway, Moncure, ‘The Sacred Flora’, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, vol. 42, no. 247 (December 1870), 87–95 Google Scholar; Crowfoot, Grace and Baldensperger, Louise, From Cedar to Hyssop: A Study in the Folklore of Plants in Palestine (London, 1932), 119–25 Google Scholar; Liitzenkirchen, Guglielmo and Simoni, Maria Doretta, ‘Utilizzazione magica e terapeutica dell’Anastatica hierochuntica’, Storia e medicina popolare 9 (1991), 192–204 Google Scholar; and Gasparroni, Alessandra, ‘La rosa di Gerico. Tratti di un’indagine fito-magico-religiosa dalla tradizione ai nuovi contesti’, Etnoantropologia 1 (2007), 143—49.Google Scholar

⁵ The word ‘amulet’ will be used here to describe an object that is treasured for its powers to protect against harm or encourage good fortune and health. For textual amulets used in birthing rituals, see Skemer, Don, Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages (University Park, PA, 2006), 235–50.Google Scholar

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⁷ e.g. Siena, Bernardino da, Predica volgari sul Campo di Siena, 1427, ed. Delcorno, Carlo, 2 vols (Milan, 1989), 2: 29, 824.Google Scholar

⁸ This was in his Tractatus de matricibus, cap. 24 in Opera omnia (Pavia, 1481), at fols 2.3^r-v, quoted in Larson, Wendy R., ‘Who is the Master of this Narrative? Maternal Patronage of the Cult of St Margaret’, in Erler, Mary C. and Kowaleski, Maryanne, eds, Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 2003), 94–104 Google Scholar, at 94. For Guianerio, see Helen Rodnite Lemay, ‘Anthonius Guainerius and Medieval Gynecology’, in Julius Kirshner and Wemple, Suzanne F, eds, Women of the Medieval World (Oxford, 1985), 317–36.Google Scholar

⁹ See Forbes, Thomas, The Midwife and the Witch (New Haven, CT, 1966), 64–79 Google Scholar; and Cardini, Franco, ‘Tra scienza e magia’, in Gabriele Borghini et al., eds. Una Farmacia preindustriale in Valdelsa: la spezieria e lo spedale di Santa Fina nella città di San Gimignano, Secc. XIV-XVIII (San Gimignano, 1981), 153–71 Google Scholar. For the displacement of midwives by male physicians in the early modern period, see Wilson, Adrian, Tîie Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England 1660–1770 (London, 1995)Google Scholar; McTavish, Lianne, Childbirth and the Display of Authority in Early Modern France (Aldershot, 2005).Google Scholar

¹⁰ A practice branded superstitious by Scipione, Fra (Girolamo Mercurio), the former Dominican friar turned physician in his De gli errori popolari d’Italia (Verona, 1645), 382; cited in Bell, How to Do It, 108.Google Scholar

¹¹ Bell, How to Do It, 114. For other examples of female ritual, see The Trotula: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine, ed. Green, Monica H. (Philadelphia, PA, 2002).Google Scholar

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¹³ For the importance of this relic to Florentine women, see Cassidy, Brendan, ‘A Relic, some Pictures and the Mothers of Florence in the Late Fourteenth Century’, Gesta 30 (1991), 91–99.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See Saint-Aignan, Laurent de, ‘Recherches sur la Rose de Jéricho’, Annales de philosophie chrétienne 93 (1877), 348–63, at 348.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Friedman, Jacob and Stein, Zipporah, ‘The Influence of Seed-Dispersal Mechanisms on the Dispersion of Anastatica Hierochuntica (Cruciferae) in the Negev Desert, Israel’, Journal of Ecology 68 (1980), 43—50.Google Scholar

¹⁶ It was given this name by Gronov, Gronov Johann Friedrich (1611—1671): Lutzenkirchen and Simoni,‘Utilizzazione magica’, 195.Google Scholar

¹⁷ For Ludolph von Suchem’s description, see his ‘Description of the Holy Land’, in Library of the Palestine Pilgrims’Text Society, ed. Steward, Aubrey and Conder, C. R., 14 vols (London, 1887-97), 12: 91, cited in Crowfoot and Baldensperger, Cedar to Hyssop,123.Google Scholar

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¹⁹ See Haines, Herbert and Busby, Richard James, A Manual of Monumental Brasses (Oxford, 1861), cxi. A Rose of Jericho features in Matthias Grünewald’s St Cyriacus panel, which forms part of the Heller Altarpiece (1509—11), at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt.Google Scholar

²⁰ Other areas in Italy refer to them as roses of St Anne or St Margaret: Gasparroni, ‘rosa di Gerico’, 145.

²¹ ‘j^a chassettina d’arcipresso entrovi … j^a rosa della Vergine Maria’: ASF, Magistrato dei Pupilli Avanti il Principato [hereafter: MPAP], 180, fols 49^r-52^v [estate of Jachopo di Marcho di Marcho, speziale in [Piazza] Verzaia, 1496], at fol. 50^r.

²² ‘i^a rosa della Nostra Donna sopra a done di parto’: ASF, MPAP, 190, fols 71^r-74^v [estate of Piero d’Antonio Quaratesi, 14 May 1527], at fol. 72^r;’i° schatolino entravi i^a; rosa della Vergine Maria’: ASF, MPP, 2649, fols 586^r-590^r [estate of Lorenzo di Bastiano, coriere diVinezia, 21 April 1549], at fol. 588^v.

²³ For an introduction to Mattioli and his work, see Bell, How to Do It, 45–46.

²⁴ ‘Valerio Cordo nel suo volumetto delle compositioni de medicamenti, scrive dell’Amomo assai inconstantemente. Imperoché nella compositione dell’aurea Alessandrina afferma per certo che l’Amomo non è altro, che questa pianta di Hierico’: Pietro Andrea Mattioli, II Dioscoride dell’ eccellente Dottor P.A. Matthioli co i suoi discorsi, con l’aggiunta del sesto libro de i rimedi di tutti i veleni de lui nuovamente tradotto & con dottissimi discorsi per tutto commentato (Venice, 1548), 31.

²⁵ ‘Rose di S Maria portate di Hierico’: ibid., unpaginated.

²⁶ ‘che le nostre Donne d’Italia chiamano Rose di santa Maria, portateci di Hierico da i peregrini, che vanno al santissimo sepolchro del nostro Signore GIESU CHRISTO’: ibid. 31.

²⁷ von Suchem, Description of the Holy Land, 91; cited in Crowfoot and Baldenperger, Cedar to Hyssop, 123.

²⁸ Lutzenkirchen and Simoni,‘Utilizzazione magica’, 197.

²⁹ See Crowfoot and Baldensperger, Cedar to Hyssop, 123.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ See Belon, Pierre, Les observations de plusieurs singularitez & choses memorables, trouvées en Grece, Asie, Iudée, Egypte, Arabie, & autre pays estranges. Redigeés en trois livres, 3 vols (Paris, 1555), 2: 144.Google Scholar

³² Lutzenkirchen and Simoni, ‘Utilizzazione magica’, 198—200. It is this aspect of the Rose’s legend that is the basis of Hess’s, David story about this plant: The Rose of Jericho, trans, and ed. Caroline Norton (London, 1870).Google Scholar

³³ ‘nell’hora del partorire usano di tenere le donne nell’acqua; credendosi, che, come tal pianta s’apre, subito partoriscano’: Mattioli, I discorsi, 31.

³⁴ For a Renaissance Italian interpretation of sympathetic magic, see Porta, Giambattista della, Natural Magick (London, 1658), 16–17.Google Scholar

³⁵ This notion appears in Giovanni Mannello’s late sixteenth-century treatise Delle medicine partinenti all’infermità delle donne (Venice, 1563), 235–40; quoted in Bell, How to Do It, 73.

³⁶ For the continuation of these ceremonies in present-day Abruzzo, see Gasparroni, ‘La rosa di Gerico’, 149.

³⁷ ‘tanta inter christicolae irrespit superstitio’: Mattioli, I discorsi (Venice, 1554), 35.

³⁸ discorsi (Venice, 1557), 38; 1 discorsi (Venice, 1568), 58; Commentaires de Pierre, M. André Matthiole médecin sennois, sur les six livres de Ped. Dioscoride Anazarbeen de la matière médicinale: avec certaines tables médicinales, tant des qualités & vertus des simples mèdicamens, que des remèdes pour toutes maladies, qui peuvent avenir au corps humain, comme aussi des sentences, mots & matières traictées esdicts commentaires (Lyons, 1572), 41; 1 discorsi (Venice, 1597), 50.Google Scholar

³⁹ Bell, How to Do It, ch. 3; Medicina per le donne nel cinquecento: Testi di Giovanni Mannello e di Girolamo Mercurio, ed. Biagi, Maria Luisa Altieri et al. (Turin, 1992).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See the judgements of Belon, Observations, 2: 144; Johannes Sturmius, De rosa hierochuntina liber units: in quo de eius natura, proprietatibus motibus, et causis pukhrè disseritur (Louvain, 1608), quoted in Saint-Aignan, ‘Recherches’, 356—61; Parkinson, John, Theatrum botanicum:The Theater of Plantes or an Universali and Compleate Herball (London, 1640)Google Scholar, 1384; Browne, Thomas, Pseudodoxia epidemica, ed. Robbins, Robin (Oxford, 1981), 148–50, 775–76. See also Caroline Norton’s comments in the introduction to Hess, Rose of Jericho, vi—vii.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See Gasparroni,‘rosa di Gerico’.

⁴² Caroline Norton had encountered the tradition in nineteenth-century Italy ‘among the lower classes’ and followed by ‘the simpler sort of peasant woman’: Hess, Rose of Jericho, vii.