The Voynich Ninja

Rene Zandbergen has just posted about this ms in another thread.

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According to the description, the ms was written in Germany in the second half of the 14th Century. 
The ms has several interesting aspects. For instance:

• the colors are particularly varied (usually, not much nature-like)
  
• several scenes represent castles with swallowtail merlons (are these common in German manuscripts?)
  
• many plants feature zoomorphic or anthropomorphic elements (more than in other copies of Pseudo-Apuleius, I think)
  
• some of the roots seem comparable with the hollow or "flat-top" roots in the VMS
  

Browsing through this is a real pleasure! Many thanks to Rene

I do agree that this MS is of potential interest, thanks for pointing this out.

What I find interesting as well is that an unusual amount of plants seem to have an additional illustration of what the plant can be used for. These scenes have clearly been "medievalized" but at the same time I still see some "Greek" background in them, like the way the figures sit on the throne-like chairs etc.



Something else, which plant is this one, bottom right? I have a hard time reading this script and I'm not ashamed to admit it

Edit: link doesn't work, I'm talking about the plant on f43r.

...

• several scenes represent castles with swallowtail merlons (are these common in German manuscripts?)
  

The Guelphs and the Ghibellines were germanic (Bavarian).

Northern Italy was basically Lombardy (which was a mixed Scandinavian/German colony) at the time of the great Guelph/Ghibelline feuds, but it intermixed with Italian culture, so the colonists Italianized their names.

Ghibelline merlons showed support for the Holy Roman Empire (which included Germany, Switzerland, Lombardy, Bohemia, and small bits of eastern France), so it's not uncommon to find them in German manuscripts.

For me, the appearance of these types of merlons (i.e. at least with V-shaped incisions) in a german MS is so unusual, that it may be reason to be sceptical about this proposed origin. However, it should be possible to find out more about this MS, that may or may not explain it.
These merlons are on the one hand a building style, and on the other hand a political statement (though only for a specific region and a specific time period).

The MS really warrants a closer look. The Pseudo Apuleis herbal part seems to end on fol.39r. Someone numbered the herbs and there are about 10 too many, and I have not yet been able to check the order.

A new herbal starts on fol.39v. This is clearly (and as could be expected) the Ex Herbis Femininis.
Its order seems to get seriously disturbed around fol.61-62. All this requires a much more thorough look, as I said.

Another point Marco pointed out was the appearance of animal-shaped roots.
At least one other copy of Pseudo-Apuleius has a number of these, namely Harley MS 4986.
This also originates from Germany, but it is earlier, and I would not yet want to make too much of that.

Trinity MS 0.2.48 is the same tradition as Plut 73 Cod 16 (which is thought to be from northern Italy or Lombardy). The correspondence between the two is very close.

It's thought that the Trinity manuscript might be from Germany, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Trinity MS were from Lombardy (where germanic and Italian cultures intermixed).

Oddly enough, the Cambridge herbal is not included in the otherwise informative summary on the wiki page:
 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
Collins says a few things about the MS, also suggesting a german origin, and listing it in the same group as the two Plutei herbals, group β . 
Apparently it is included in the standard work by Grape-Albers but I haven't seen that.

Harley 4896, which I mentioned above, is listed in different groups by different authors.

Some animal shaped roots appear at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and following, including also a herb with 'eyes in the roots'.

(There is very little in the Voynich MS herbal drawings that isn't also found in one herbal or another).

By the way, it is certainly true that one may find Ghibelline merlons in Lombard manuscripts.

They were even introduced while copying manuscripts from southern Italy, which had straight merlons.

I'm fairly sure I mentioned the case of the illustrations of 'Balsamus' in the various copies of Tractatus de Herbis.
Sloane 4016 is Lombard: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Very interesting to see another manuscript in which imagery akin to some of the VMS botanical images appears.

Looks as if its sources were better known, and better regarded than we thought.

Thanks to Rene for bringing that late fourteenth century German ms to notice.
- and to Koen for commenting on that part of the text; obviously this fits perfectly with other evidence from the VMS.

I think I'd now like to go on record, formally, as saying that I think our present ms very probably gained from earlier works kept in the library at Padua, one of the few universities in Europe which accepted both Christian and Jew.  Until now, writing online, I've been content to speak more generally of the Veneto.

I attach a comparison between some scenes in Cambridge Trinity College MS O.2.48 and Florence Plut.73.16 (XIII Century). My impression is that the author of the Cambridge ms was aware of the tradition represented by the Florence ms, but autonomously produced new scenes. Many of the scenes are similar, but none really seems to be an actual copy. The exception is the Mandrake illustration that (like the Thlaspi illustration discussed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) clearly was copied from a typical Pseudo-Apuleius ms. The plants in the first part of the manuscript seem to be copies from known sources, but the scenes don't.

The illustrations in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are very similar to those in Plut.73.16, so the same considerations apply.

What interests me is the incipit and explicit of the prayer in the Trinity Gale Manuscript O.2.48.

The description says:
"The text begins with a prayer, to recite when preparing plant-based medicines, "

Which I am unable and incapable of reading.


Attempt:
page 001r
Precamceo..? ..om...herbarum ad singulas...

page 001v bottom
red:
Finit plog... fuit corett_a h'rbe beronice.
... ... tidem_: