The Voynich Ninja

Clearly there is an interesting example of a cloud band in the VMs central rosette. It was brought to my attention by Don of Tallahassee a while back. His investigations were significant (IMO), but not always focused on the definition provided by the VMs example. And the definition is: Scallop. Having seen examples that other investigators have posted, it is clear that the VMs example in the central rosette follows the general representation of a scallop much better than some of the other interesting contributions.

If you take a nebuly line, one that is clearly bulbous, and across the top of these shoulders, you run an engrailed line, like a short series of 'mmmm's, then there you have it - a scallop. An alternating sequence of cloud scallops makes a cloud band. But I have to say, scallops in the sky sounds pretty nebuly to me. A unfortunate choice of etymology, one might say.

Are there better matches to the scallop-patterned cloud band found in the VMs central rosette than those we see in the illustrations of Oresme and de Pizan?

I was just looking at this



it has domes, minarets and the "cloud band" pattern in the crenellations. also has a section of the building with an open roof. not sure of the timing of it all, Mamluk

The al-Azhar mosque in Cairo. It was built in the late 10th century, which is well on time for Voynich consideration. However, as you also imply, buildings like these evolved significantly over the centuries, and a modern picture probably won't tell us much about what the building looked like to any medieval observer. They got damaged, rebuilt and added to all the time. For example, the first versions of the four current minarets were all built in the late 15th century or later according to the wiki.

It would be very interesting though, to see what this building, or Cairo in general looked like during the middle ages.

Anonymous Venetian orientalist painting, The Reception of the Ambassadors in Damascus', 1511



I think some of the minarets are contemporary, but no merlons of the type I was pointing out though, at least in this painting

According to the wiki article, only one of those minarets existed in the early 15th century. The others were built in 1483 and 1509.

Still, there is an undeniable and underestimated resemblance between the towers-rosette and this type of architecture. We also don't know to what extent the VM image is supposed to be a faithful drawing, it may just be an evocation of the style.

Looking at the crenelations on the lower wall, they are not a nebuly pattern, IMO.
This is a nebuly line.



The pattern on the wall clearly has three distinct lobes to each crest and trough. And it now seems that this sort of design is most similar to a trefoil. The Wikipedia article on heraldic lines of division shows a better match with trefly-counter-trefly. The wall looks like a simplified, architectural variation of that pattern.



You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(11-02-2017, 11:31 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Looking at the crenelations on the lower wall, they are not a nebuly pattern, IMO.
This is a nebuly line.



The pattern on the wall clearly has three distinct lobes to each crest and trough. And it now seems that this sort of design is most similar to a trefoil. The Wikipedia article on heraldic lines of division shows a better match with trefly-counter-trefly. The wall looks like a simplified, architectural variation of that pattern.



You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

it is nebuly-counter-trefly in the ms I guess. or perhaps it's counter-flory.

Here is the VMs example of a scallop-patterned cloud band from the central rosette illustration. It is just outside the circular band of text.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

If we could use that band to replace the plain ink version of the nebuly line found in VMs You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - according to the comparison with Oresme's cosmos as found here:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Then there is an even greater similarity with the Oresme illustration.

One structural difference between the cloud band pattern in the VMs example and those of the Oresme and de Pizan illustrations is that the VMs continues the 'bumpy' structure of the primary line all the way along its length, while the others are smooth along the sides of the crests and troughs and only 'bumpy' across the extremities. This is clearly a relatively minor difference when compared with the great variety of designs found in medieval cloud band patterns.