The Voynich Ninja

So, here is a major omission on my part in not posting the comparative counting of the undulations for VMs You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and the Oresme cosmos (BNF fr. 565)
Original comparison by E. Velinska in 2014.

This nice comparison posted to an earlier thread by nablator.



Having 43 undulations in both illustrations is either a highly unusual coincidence or a strong indication that the VMs artist was very familiar with the illustration in the Oresme text.


Comparative points of similarity:
Same type or style of cosmos: a simplified version rather than the more common complex representation with all the concentric planetary orbits.

Similar comparative parts.
1.  The central Earth is an inverted T-O representation
2.  The Earth is surrounded by stars
3.  The cosmos is bounded by a cloud band or nebuly line consisting of 43 undulations. There is an etymological equivalence between the words "nebuly" and "cloudy."

Does the VMs cosmos 'mimic' or derive from the Oresme illustration?

Comparative points of difference:
1.  The T-O earth in Oresme has a pictorial representation. In the VMs, the representation has labels.
2.  The stars in Oresme are scattered. In the VMs, the stars are line up in a circle. (Is this serious, or a play on the idea of "surrounded"?)
3.  The visual differences between the Oresme cloud band and the VMs nebuly line are obvious.
4.  The VMs cosmos has a circular wheel and curved spokes consisting of textual banners. (Textual banners are ephemeral. This is the big fake out- a total distraction for the sake of visual difference.)

The structural similarities confirm that the VMs cosmic representation was derived from the Oresme image. The differences are part of an intentional disguise by the VMs creator.

Do you agree or disagree?

I did think it was unusual that the number matched (it was not something I had noticed on my own) but it's hard to say if it's coincidence. The star arrangements (both number and orientation) are significantly different.

I don't know. If this were a formal poll I would probably abstain.

It's certainly striking that the number of undulations is the same. Would this number have any significance? 
Let's assume both drawings are related, either by direct copying, intermediate steps or even common ancestry. Why, then, did the Voynich artist make sure the number of undulations was the same - a seemingly trivial detail - while at the same time changing the appearance of everything else, adding and removing stuff?

The number 43 is prime.

Most medieval illustrations in western tradition are based on 4, 8, 12 etc. (and sometimes 3 for the Trinity).

Those in the Semitic tradition usually focus on 12 and 7.


The 12 is a very popular, in particular, because it can be divided by 6, 4, and 3, which makes it very easy to divide a circle into sections that can be further divided into sections that come out to multiples of 4 (which fits in with the medieval obsession with Galenistic philosophy).


Humans show evidence of knowing about prime numbers for thousands of years, but serious study and discussion of primes doesn't appear to have occurred in the west until Greco-Roman times.

There are three possibilities. Either :
- both illustrations have the same origin or template, that we haven't found yet, either symbolic or graphic
or
- one is derived from the other. The illustration is more recent than the rest of the book, dated ca. 1410 in the BNF description, just barely inside the 2 sigma range for the VMs C14 dating
or
- the two are unrelated, just a coincidence.

I don't know which option is more likely. I would like to believe that there is some meaning there, a subtle nod to Oresme's work maybe...

... or the two are unrelated but both chose to represent a prime number.

----------------------------------------
Or, there's a further possibility...

Levi ben Gerson (1288–1344),  (his Greek/Provençal names were Gersonides and  Leo de Balneolis), wrote mostly about philosophical subjects, but he also wrote about judicial astrology (which was popular in the late Middle Ages), planetary movements, and eclipses, and he produced astrology/astronomy tables that apparently diverged from Ptolemaic tradition (based on his own empirical studies).

He wrote in Hebrew, but his astronomical tables were translated into Latin and at least one copy exists in Provençal.


This is the part that intrigues me... in the section on eclipses, Levi details a 43-day period of transition:

Item dies prime tabule et quarte transeunt per unam diem in 43 annis. Et ideo transactis 43 annis reduces equationem secunde diei ad primam et sic de singulis, et eodem modo erit in quibuslibet 43 annis fiendum.




See Bodley Sefer Milhamot Ha-Shem You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. MS. Pococke 376 (written in 1391) for a scan of a page of the manuscript.


Unfortunately, it's not one of the ones the Polonsky Foundation has had digitized. The most relevant section is Book 5, part 1. There is, however, a 1397 Hebrew copy on BNF Gallica:

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(02-03-2018, 12:02 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is the part that intrigues me... in the section on eclipses, Levi details a 43-day period of transition:

Item dies prime tabule et quarte transeunt per unam diem in 43 annis. Et ideo transactis 43 annis reduces equationem secunde diei ad primam et sic de singulis, et eodem modo erit in quibuslibet 43 annis fiendum.

43-year period...

Well, yes, a 43-year period, but isn't the end of a period marked by a transition? Otherwise it wouldn't be a period would it? It would keep going.  

I've been sitting here on the sofa trying to think of a 43 cycle in medieval mythology / knowledge.
Now, IF this is a T/O style map then the undulations represent Oceanus, the world river. What significance could 43 have in relation with Oceanus?
Well, it strikes me that Britain was formally invaded by the Roman Empire in 43AD, but that's probably irrelevant here  

More to the point, the undulations are obviously important to the scribe. Why? He hasn't used his compass to map it out. The inside of the circle is clearly marked out by mechanical means, but the undulations are (not very well) drawn by hand. One would assume that a competent scribe would have marked out the exterior ring and then done the undulations. After all, that's what he's done with the text.

But if we actually examine the circles, we see that the undulations are not a single line. They are doubled up, with an inner and outer line. Almost like a 3D effect.

We can also see that the lines of incoming text that terminate at the exterior radius (2,18,23,34 in Sale's diagram) were drawn at the same time as the undulation, suggesting that they were pre-planned and considered to be important at that point - these could be, we assume, the terminii that JKP suggested. There is no obvious mathematical symmetry to the number of undulations between them.

And the incoming lines of text that terminate at the inner radius of text (at points 7,14,18,27,39) were obviously drawn first.

My point is that the undulations appear to have been forcibly drawn to a set number between the lines of incoming text.

Is there a pattern?

The outer lines transact at undulations: 2,14,23,34
Their degrees of separation are thus: 11,12,9,11

The inner lines transact at undulations: 7,18,27,39
Their degrees of separation are thus: 11,11,9,12

The degrees of separation between inner and outer lines are: 5,7,4,5,4,7,5
[(2,7)5,(7,14)7,(14,18)4,(18,23)5,(23,27)4,(27,34)7,(34,39)5]

Damned if I can see a pattern there. Unless it's something obscure such as lines from the Bible. Nor can I see any matches with other star counts from this section.

The use of the number 43 may well be connected to Gerson, as he is well in advance of Oresme, and apparently lived in southern France. But the real question is why Oresme and the VMs cosmos both have 43 undulation?

Well, there's this thing about comparison. You have to have (at least) two things in order to make a comparison. So we have the VMs cosmos (f68v). What do we compare it to????

The obvious answer is to compare it with something that looks very similar. But then we really don't have a good potential candidate for comparison that is visually similar.

What we have instead, and the 43 undulations are a key part of it, if we know - or whenever we find - the Oresme cosmos (BNF Fr. 565), is a cosmos with a *very similar structure*.

This similarity of structure is an indicator that these two illustrations are the ones that should be compared.

Consider, for example, the other illustration of a cosmos in another work by Oresme, which is BNF Fr. 1082. This illustration omits the surrounding field of stars entirely. And the outer cloud band has a completely different pattern. It is not a good candidate for comparison with the VMs cosmos.

But then we see the excellent discovery of Ms. Velinska.  Oresme's (565) image of the cosmos has 43 undulations. And it has several other structural similarities with the VMs.  Comparison clearly shows these cosmic representations are similar in structure, but differing in appearance. This did not happen by accident. Anyone trying to make a copy of the Oresme cosmos can do a better job than the VMs image.. Even the VMs creator can do a better job with matching the Oresme cloud band. It just happens to be in the Central Rosette.

This is the methodology by which the VMs has retained its mystery. Comparison is too easily based entirely on visual appearance. If the appearance is not sufficiently similar, the comparison is seen as failed. What is necessary is to see that the structure of both representations is the same. This validates the comparison. The Oresme cosmos has been mimicked by the VMs cosmos in its structure, and represented visually by an intentional choice of ambiguous alternatives - see original posting above.

And the value of recognizing this technique is in finding that it has been used elsewhere in the VMS - White Aries. Understanding this trickery is essential to understanding the VMs. It's like being able to understand heraldic canting and its important to the proper interpretation of armorial insignia. The Vms is similar, but raised up a notch or two because there is a clear intent to use ambiguity and disguise. Nevertheless, similarity is validated by structure. That's the reason for 43 undulations in The VMs cosmos. It is necessary to show that the VMs reproduction is being compared to the proper historical image.