The Voynich Ninja

It is an interesting question. I found these:
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Dante and Virgil follow a group of souls towards the mountain of Purgatory, from a manuscript of the Divine Comedy made in Naples, c. 1370: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
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Catone Sacco's "Semideus" manuscript. Sacco presented this copy to Duke Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan in 1438. (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.)

Also those structures remind me the "layered" rocks in the Byzantine Orthodox icons:

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(06-08-2022, 06:05 PM)Searcher Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is an interesting question. I found these:
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Sorry for being a bit off-topic, but I simply need to point out that this MS was owned by Wilfrid Voynich. It was one of the manuscripts that he bought from the Jesuits together with the Voynich MS, and one of the most expensive that he ever sold.

This is an interesting manuscript indeed, it also defaults to green for water and has several scenes of people being baptized or otherwise submerged. Searcher's image is about Wetti of Reichenau, who had several visions of hell, purgatory and heaven. I assume the buildings on a hill may represent heaven in this case.

(It's an interesting genre, an evolution of biblical visions like Daniel, Ezekiel and especially Revelation. And clearly preparing the way for Dante).

(07-08-2022, 01:30 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is an interesting manuscript indeed, it also defaults to green for water and has several scenes of people being baptized or otherwise submerged. Searcher's image is about Wetti of Reichenau, who had several visions of hell, purgatory and heaven. I assume the buildings on a hill may represent heaven in this case.

(It's an interesting genre, an evolution of biblical visions like Daniel, Ezekiel and especially Revelation. And clearly preparing the way for Dante).

Hi Koen,
it seems that the castles are part of Purgatory. I found the Latin text in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

The passage appears to be: "qoddam opus, in modum castelli ligno et lapide valde inordinate conjectum..." - some kind of building, similar to a "castellum", disorderly made of wood and stone.
The words above in the manuscript posted by Yulia:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. describes this part of the visions. First, damned in fire:

Quote:The first scene is a river of fire in and around which “an innumerable multitude of the damned” were punished, including many of Wetti’s unnamed acquaintances. Only one group is described and explained:
He saw among these many clerics, both in major and minor orders, who were standing in clinging fire, tied in back with straps. The women defiled by them were tied in a similar way in front of them. They were immersed in the same fire up to their genitals. The angel said that every other day without fail they were beaten on their genitals with rods. Wetti said that he knew many of them.
Although their sin is not named, it may best be termed clerical concubinage.

Next our passage (possibly):

Quote:Wetti eventually is shown another example of eternal damnation, it appears that in his afterworld, purgatory is a specialized region of hell rather than an independent realm.
Wetti is first shown the place where monks from all over are gathered together “in one congregation for their purgation.” This place is a roughly constructed stockade (castellum) from which sooty clouds emerge, suggestive perhaps of fumigation, though tradition suggests a more ardent affliction. All forms of monastic laxity are apparently expiated here, but only one is specified, namely the use of community funds for personal purposes, which is appropriately punished by being shut up in a lead strongbox until the Last Judgment.

The following scene (a high mountain) is illustrated in the next page.

So I guess that the illustrator was mislead by the contemporary meaning of "castellum" and represented the "stockade" as castles. Anyway, the following pages still illustrate devils: the discussion of heaven appears to start at 122r.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., a fortified city is part of hell.

Thanks, Marco, I think you are right. This sounds like it must be a rather unusual image of Purgatory, the way it was reinterpreted as a castle. The later scenes in heaven are entirely focused on God's throne and surrounding figures.

(24-08-2017, 02:15 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(24-08-2017, 01:42 AM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I thought it was an artificial or semi-artificial seawall.

Terracing happened frequently in medieval times (building stone jetties was common, also). Terracing so that grape vines or rice could grow on slopes was a common practice.

Terracing also happened on paths. Everything was by foot (whether animal or human). Many paths weren't wide enough for a cart. Paths that were used frequently were even worn down through stone.

Terracing could create layers or loops, depending on whether the object was  to flatten steep areas (for farming) or to climb them.


Because the VMS has a limited palette, it's hard to tell where water ends and blue is used to mean other things. The bottom-left rosette looks like it might be rivers or rivulets, the top-right one may have waves, but blue might mean something else in the three center rosettes (from top to bottom), so it's difficult to know whether the blue that is at the base of the dune-like shapes is meant to represent water or some other texture (like stone).

In the center rosette, blue is used on a cloud band, which variously represents air or sky or divinity or the division between us and stars or imagined sky dwellers or spirits. Based on how they used and combined cloud bands with other things, it doesn't appear as though they expressly associated cloud bands with water (condensation—as in real clouds) as much as with something more like air or spirit or a "force-field" or invisible fence.

The blue semi-circular bumps under the dune-like shapes look very regular, as though they were stacked like building stones, so I would be hesitant to assume they were water, even if there's water by the rosette to the right of them. So it may be natural or artificial terraces (they were common), but not necessarily above water, unless.... each rosette is perhaps a different "snapshot" or viewpoint of the same place and the blue is symbolic of water in an abstract way. I suppose that might be possible. But it's also possible that each rosette represents something fairly distant from the others. If they are real topological features, and not metaphysical ones, there might be miles between them.

I would be cautious about assuming blue is water unless the shapes of the lines themselves add support.


So, maybe not a sea wall, but quite possibly an artificial (or semi-artificial) wall.

I've been assuming, at least for the time being, that they are escarpments carved or created out of some softer material... dirt, sand, sandstone, which might be shaped that way due to wind or erosion. The part under the dune-shapes looks more artificial to me than the dune-shapes themselves.

I have been giving a little thought to the illustration of what look like stepped terraces in the top left corner of the causeway between the top left rosette and the top centre rosette.

I would associate these as probably being a depiction of vineyard terraces in the lower alps in South Western Germany/North Eastern Switzerland. Which specific or general terraces they may refer to requires more thought.

I think the idea that the Rosettes folio is a map is about the only thing that JKP and I seemed to be agreement on.

Mountain paths

Kaiserstuhl Vineyard Terraces

I have a preference for using photos from real places or buildings in real landscapes rather than the more conventional approach among some Voynich researchers of finding an image from a different medieval manuscript with a loosely similar drawing.