The Mandrake
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The Mandrake is a satirical play by Italian Renaissance philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli. The five-act comedy was published in 1524. Though it is focused on private, non-political affairs, some scholar
Illustrated title page of the 1556 edition
The Mandrake, with Tom Hanks as Callimaco (center), in the Riverside Shakespeare Company production in New York, 1979
Mandrake
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A mandrake is one of several toxic plant species with "man-shaped" roots and some uses in folk remedies. The roots by themselves may also be referred to as "mandrakes". The term primarily refers to ni
The Mandrake
…a rascally marriage broker, and a corrupt priest named Friar Timoteo, Callimaco masquerades as a doctor. He convinces Nicia to drug Lucrezia with mandrake, claiming it will increase her fertility. He adds, however, the dire warning that the mandrake will undoubtedly kill the first man to have intercourse…
The flowers of Mandragora officinarum
A carved mandrake root, 16th or 17th century (Wellcome Collection)
Mandrake illustration and text. Dioscorides De materia medica (7th-century manuscript, Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples).
Euresis (Discovery) handing mandrake to Dioscorides. Note the tethered dog (Cf. Josephus). (Vienna ms., early 6th century).