Pomegranate by Damien Stone

Author:Damien Stone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reaktion Books

Elizabeth Boleyns Embroidery, c. 1530 (A Fictional Embroidery That May or May Not Have Existed). Sewn, damaged and restored by the artist Suky Best in 2003, and presented as though it were a real artefact.

Robert Peake the Elder, portrait of a woman traditionally identified as Mary Clopton wearing a pomegranate-textile dress, 16th century.

Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I holds a pomegranate as his globus cruciger in this portrait by Albrecht Dürer, 1519.

Medieval medical thought held the pomegranate in high esteem. The fruit is the attribute of the fifteenth-century saint and medical doctor San Juan de Dios (St John of God), who devoted his life to the service of the poor and sick from his hospital in Granada. Statues of the saint depict him holding a pomegranate with a cross coming out of its calyx. The sixteenth century saw the Royal College of Physicians of London adopt the pomegranate into their coat of arms. The restorative fruit rests beneath an outstretched arm, gripped by a hand descending from the heavens. It is still their logo today. In medieval humour theory, the pomegranate was considered warm and moist in nature, the same traits attributed to the human male. Pomegranates were thus prescribed by medieval physicians to counterbalance phlegm and coughs, which were cold and dry in nature. When eaten before a meal, pomegranates supposedly stimulated the appetite, and were considered to have aphrodisiac properties. In medieval thought, the womb of a woman was a beast with a mind of its own, with the ability to wander around a woman’s body causing ailments; for example, when it moved up into the head, it would cause headaches. The Trotula, a medieval medical text, specifies that a wandering womb that had descended from the body could be restored by bathing in water that had been blended with various berries, nuts and seeds, including pomegranate arils and rinds.8 Throughout the Trotula, the pomegranate is linked with conditions unique to the female experience, another passage recommending rubbing pomegranate on the feet to reduce the foot swelling that occurs during pregnancy. The text even notes the fruit’s use in cosmetic treatments, claiming that a mixture of ground pomegranate, water, vinegar, oak apple and alum could be used to dye one’s hair black.

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