The Voynich Ninja

Hi Koen, "stella diana" is a strange expression and I was puzzled by it as well. As you say, it likely derives from the Latin "dies" (day) and in modern Italian would be "stella diurna" (the star of the day i.e. the morning star).

Peter Lucia published his English translation of the sonnet in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (p.69, translation by Ezra Pound p.89).

Quote:Seen I have the shining star Diana [Venus, the morning star],
which appears before the day renders clarity,
that has taken form of a figure human;
beyond every other to me seems that it gives splendor:

In modern Italian the verse would be:

sovr'ogn'altra me par che dea splendore
sopra ogni altra mi pare che dia splendore
beyond every other to me seems that it gives splendor [Lucia]
Above all else meseems it gives splendor [Pound]

"dea" here corresponds to "dia", the third-person singular present subjunctive of "dare" (it gives). In the sonnet, Guinizzelli identifies the star with his beloved, which of course makes sense with the star being Venus. In the Ham. 390 misogynous "Proverbia", it is much less clear that there is a similar symbolic meaning (unless maybe turned upside down in a sarcastic way?). Anyway, the goddess alluded to, if any, is Venus, not Diana.

Is that meant to be a pupil in the left eye of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. figure? (EDIT: see also first two posts in this same thread)

Given the context it appears in, I assume "stella diana" might be a phrase chosen for rhyme and metre. When I first googled the term, I found some people explaining it with reference to the goddess of the hunt, which makes no sense since she is already associated with the moon. Do you think "diana" was a perfectly normal word to say "of the day", or a bit of a poetic stretch?

I don't know if we can say with certainty that the dot is a pupil. Usually in the MS, pupils are drawn either by thickening part of the curve that makes the eye, or by sectioning off part of it. Now if the dot is placed in the eye with purpose, then I can also see it only as a pupil. One pupil looking straight at us...

I'm also still interested in the bed. In some older manuscripts, you get these beanbag shaped objects, I assume they are like mattresses. They are oval, not framed by a rectangular bed. To my subjective feeling, you wouldn't often see something like this in the later Middle Ages. I think then the visual vocabulary for a bed was a rectangular piece of furniture. But the VM nymph seems to have been inspired by the beanbag type.

A little joke ( the illustration is AI - generated )  

[attachment=9050]

Have you expressed a preference for the 6 fingers?

(19-08-2024, 02:22 PM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Have you expressed a preference for the 6 fingers?

Nope, that's the AI's fault.

(19-08-2024, 10:10 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Given the context it appears in, I assume "stella diana" might be a phrase chosen for rhyme and metre. When I first googled the term, I found some people explaining it with reference to the goddess of the hunt, which makes no sense since she is already associated with the moon. Do you think "diana" was a perfectly normal word to say "of the day", or a bit of a poetic stretch?

Hi Koen,
for what it's worth, my impression about the adjective "diana" is that it's unusual. Dante has "cotidiana" (daily) which is close to the modern "quotidiana". I couldn't find examples of the other forms "diano, diani, diane". It's quite possible that it was Guinizzelli's invention, picked up by the author of the Proverbia.

I agree that the shape of the bed is interesting. But of course the Voynich illustration is totally non-realistic, and that makes comparison with other art more difficult. Though Q13 shows a preference for rounded, biomorphic shapes, there's at least the exception of the cubic throne at the top of f77v, so there's not a total taboo about squared angles.

The supposed pupil could make some of the options more likely than others. Some of the possible interpretations are:

• illness (I guess this is the most frequent subject with similar beds)
  
• sleeping
  
• dreaming
  
• death
  
• resting (though I am not aware of parallels with this kind of bed)
  

Personally, I think that the green paint might be misleading. It seems that the shroud or blanket is wider and less tight (which would maybe make it more blanket than shroud). Also, the lower part of the image has a line marking the space between the two legs that can also be seen in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

Hi, there,
I believe the assumption of 'death and resurrection' is right, however, it pertains to the mystical death of a human soul (female in Latin and many other languages). Even Koen's association with Saturn might be correct, because in the medieval symbolism, the Saturn was associated with extremes (most distant past, when female Goddesses were worshipped). In Slovenian, 'stela Diana' is called ZVEZDA DANICA, the morning star. In mystical artistic symbolism, it has special meaning and represents genuine artists and mystics who are the 'announcers of a new day' expected to arise from the spiritual darkness.
According to medieval understanding of mystical theology the mystical death is the highest point in mystical religious experience - a sort of craziness, because a mystic looses his or her awareness of reality and briefly functions in the subconscious spiritual level. Green colour in the medieval times was a symbol for the earthly things. In the picture, it indicated the 'temporary' death of the body that often resulted in spiritual conversion - from agnostic to religious, and from religious to 'super spiritual' where one feels free to re-examine religious views and call for changes.
In contemporary psychological terms, this state of mind is similar to a schizophrenic episode and a mystic shows similar symptoms: catatonic sleep-like physical state, strange eye-gaze, irresponsiveness to surrounding etc. In his book on Mystical Theology, N. Kempf explained how the eyes in such state of mind are open to see und understand abstract, symbolic biblical writing.
The picture in the VM, where a female is lying in strange contraption that looks like baptism font or a preacher's pulpit is suggestive of such peak mystical experience, a mystical death. It is such experience that the artists and mystics are referring to as a 'divine wedding' - a brief union with the Divine, whatever one considers Divine - when everything is God and God is everything. This pantheistic view was explored in the Middle Ages by early Humanists, like Dante, Petrarch, etc., as well as by Rosicrucians and the Pantheists of the 17th century. In those pictures, there are some clear association with Plutarch's veiw of prophesy, and I also find many Slovenian words pertaining to prophesy and oracles.

I have a nice description about a picture here.
A special challenge are those images whose meaning cannot be guessed without additional background knowledge. These include depictions of animals that occur relatively frequently. They can, for example, stand for the constellations still in use today or have a Christian meaning that has almost been forgotten. Ancient written sources help us to decode the images, such as the book Physiologus, which was written in Egypt in the 2nd century AD. In it we can read what symbolic meanings the animals once had. Over the centuries, this merged with the stories of the Bible, resulting in a completely new symbolic meaning. This gave the tile maker the opportunity to depict familiar stories in a different form, in code, so to speak. For example, Jesus also appeared on tile pictures as a unicorn because, according to medieval tradition, this creature can only be captured by a virgin. This in turn stands for Jesus' mother Mary. The images, which at first glance appear enigmatic, can thus be deciphered. The image of the unicorn and the virgin is therefore also a portrait of Jesus and Mary.

In this way, the tiled stove always contributed to the entertainment of the viewer, as the depictions were usually more complex than we might think at first glance today.