The Voynich Ninja

(11-12-2016, 07:49 PM)Searcher Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.O, Linda, I understand! I'm just amazed at that late Tarot card, which could be so good candidate for the VMs illustration! Of course, it is not necessary to be a Tarot card, but quite to be the Temperance, as virtue in classical iconography. Why not: water - blue, wine - red?

I agree it is a good fit, and in line with the NeoPlatonism movement of the time. Again I find it coincidental that Florence was the home of the Platonic Academy, and in fact the same person who was in charge of translating Plato's works has been thought to be the inventor of the Tarot de Marseille, which was the basis for the later versions of the 19th century. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. He was born too late to be likely involved in the MS per se, but You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. who was instrumental in the academy having been founded, or his students, might have been. I note that the example of Pletho's manuscripts on the wiki page somewhat resembles You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of MS 408 in its inclusion of mismatched red coloured symbols, don't know if that's relevant, but he was also involved in the Ecumenical Councils, another theme that seems to me to be relevant somehow, even if only for the resulting exchange of ideas among various peoples of disparate parts of the world.

Back to the rainbows, I was searching for "medieval Christ rainbow art" and found out that such art generally falls under the term "doom paintings". Whether the "doom" might have to do with plagues, floods, volcanos, war or whether they thought it was all leading to armaggedon, I don't know, but a lot of that sort of thing was happening at the time, the Council of Florence came to be held there because of plague elsewhere, and it was about combining the Orthodox and Christian churches, which failed. It seems to me that if you thought your way of life was in danger, you might want to collect up the knowledge for rebuilding. Many of the plants in the MS seem to me to be those which will grow anywhere and may be presented as a way to feed a displaced civilization. Maybe the pharmaceutical section is about preserving, so you can bring some sustenance with you while you set up to restart the food supply. Maybe quire 13 is about philosophical aspects of rebuilding a society, one without some of the problems they were facing themselves, one without religion perhaps, maybe that's why the rainbows do not have the associated religious iconography included. Or, it could be that it is implied that this would be the only religion, as the "armies of the beast" would be defeated as part of the prophesy. I see it as a tour of the world, perhaps it shows examples of successful ways of life that could be combined into a new utopia. The inclusion of what seems to be pregnant women seems like society building symbolism as well.

Here's one from 1435 which is concurrent with the timing of those councils and our MS:

This one won't teach us much but I thought I'd share because it's cool:


The British Library, Royal 6 E VI f. 100v. James le Palmer, Omne Bonum (Absolucio-Circumcisio). London, c.1360 - c.1375

“Detail of an historiated initial ‘A’(ntechristus) of Antichrist seated on a rainbow, a parody of God seated on the rainbow, flanked by two men; each of the figures has a third eye in the centre of their foreheads.”

Note how that image has the same motif running down the right side (the repeated square box with lines at the cardinal points) that appears on some of the circles in the VM.

Good eye! Just turn the brown lines into ink and ignore the white pattern. Sometimes the bown interior lines are just lines, but often they are loops, long 'U' shaped forms with the open end connected at the midpoint on the interior of each side.
I tried calling this a '4U' pattern, but it didn't catch on.

This is another unusual thing that the VMs contains. And if we could find a set of circumstances where such unusual factors were all combined, it might provide some useful insight.

Unfortunately, I can't find a better closeup of these "rainbows", but they are from f 104r of Oxford Bodleian Ms Digby 98 (end of 12th and first half of 15thC), a compendium of mathematics, astrology and natural philosophy. Apparently they represent the orbits of planets?

Here's another pair of "rainbows". Here they are used to illustrate Aristotelian categories.
From BL Harley MS 3627, f 18r. France/Germany, 9-10th C.

I've just been re-reading this thread.

Quote:Linda It seems to me that if you thought your way of life was in danger, you might want to collect up the knowledge for rebuilding. Many of the plants in the MS seem to me to be those which will grow anywhere and may be presented as a way to feed a displaced civilization.

The whole concept of the apocalyptic tradition is that the world would end by Divine judgement. There was no thought of a post-apocalyptic world in which survivors struggled on - that's entirely a 20th century invention.

God would order the trumpets to be sounded and the Final Battle would begin. Humanity would either be elevated to paradise or thrown down to Hell. I don't think anybody ever suggested that some people would be ignored - even the non-Christians would be sent off to Limbo.

(OK, that's entirely a Christian tradition, but both Judism and Islam have their own versions of how the world would end)

Quote: Vviews Here's another pair of "rainbows". Here they are used to illustrate Aristotelian categories.

Aristotle had 10 categories - that scribe only has eight colour bands. Did he run out of ink?   He didn't get them matching up, either.

I think it's important to use correct terminology here to see what we are looking for. In the 15/16th centuries (terminology mine and off the top of my head):

A pure rainbow would be a religious motif.

Colour bands usually depict the cosmos, the geo-centric model with the spheres above, and are usually shades of black and blue (because of the sky concept) ie:

Image source:  Luminarium,You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.; From Les Echecs amoureux ("Amorous Chess") Manuscript made for Louise of Savoy, 15th c.You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

and


And then you have classification systems (which link concepts out to text) such as in VViews example above.

Any other I've missed?

I'd also point out that colour was often symbolical in its use - the colour was usually chosen for a reason, not because the scribe just liked it.

(19-03-2017, 05:34 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I've just been re-reading this thread.

Quote:Linda It seems to me that if you thought your way of life was in danger, you might want to collect up the knowledge for rebuilding. Many of the plants in the MS seem to me to be those which will grow anywhere and may be presented as a way to feed a displaced civilization.

The whole concept of the apocalyptic tradition is that the world would end by Divine judgement. There was no thought of a post-apocalyptic world in which survivors struggled on - that's entirely a 20th century invention.

God would order the trumpets to be sounded and the Final Battle would begin. Humanity would either be elevated to paradise or thrown down to Hell. I don't think anybody ever suggested that some people would be ignored - even the non-Christians would be sent off to Limbo.

(OK, that's entirely a Christian tradition, but both Judism and Islam have their own versions of how the world would end)

I was thinking of it from the point of view of, let's say, a set of people who had experienced personal/societal tragedy of some sort, where they had gone through a rebuilding process and wanted to improve on that process, should it happen again. perhaps a time without their gardens caused them to start collecting every plant they could find and see if they could grow them. some of the diagrams seem as though they depict plants that have been grown from some sort of root stock from which extends new growth. rainbows could indicate places with the type of weather you'd want? If rainbows relate to waterfalls, again an indication of water? If indicating deities, a good omen?

Interesting. But you're taking the concept out of the European Christian tradition and into no man's land as far as manuscript tradition is concerned. Almost pagan.