The Voynich Ninja

Hello, 

I have researched to try find if this is a long found and now dead argument regarding this topic but I couldn't see much apart from some articles showing "volcano images" (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) and (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) also on the page I am talking about (hopefully that is a good sign!). This is an image link to my comparison. Hopefully this is a good topic for discussion. 

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I have some pretty wild theories regarding this fold out page but putting them aside, I think this particular comparison of the central image is very striking. The right side image is from Kircher entitled on wikipedia as "earths internal fires"  (Kircher was said to be very interested in the Voynich Manuscript and also had it donated to him, the validity of this letter within the manuscript is obviously up for debate).

I feel tempted to note the way both images have 4 "Volcanoes" in the north west and 3 in the north east, breaking the symmetry of both images, and that the most north west "Volcano" on each images is nearest the central north "fire?" (Edit: I think this is meant to be water?), but the page fold is as such that it may be a false conclusion, still, interesting. 

Kirchers version shows 11 "Volcanoes" where the VM shows 12. 

Also note the castles in the south east and west of Kirchers images and the castles present on the full foldout. I'm yet to properly evaluate this and (obviously) lack the historical base knowledge to draw comparisons, but again an interesting similarity. [EDIT: These are not castles. I have managed to find a much higher quality images and they are boats!] 

High quality image - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Worth noting the images are believed to be over 200 years apart (1404-1436 and 1640-1660).


Very interested to hear what you think.




Thanks Vviews and Koen GH for making me feel welcome to post . Hopefully this is decent material.

Kircher was quite prolific and his books well illustrated, with many of them drawn by some of the better illustrators of the time. He was definitely a man with connections and one with access to resources (including the Jesuit library).

I have often wondered where the illustrators/engravers got their ideas and whether there might be a common thread between them and the VMS in terms of history and expression.

It doesn't seem likely that Kircher dictated every detail of the drawings. More likely he set out a general theme and the work was "subcontracted" to people who knew what they were doing (and those who knew what they were doing, in the book industry, are constantly looking to earlier precedents for ideas, and ways to speed up production). In conveying his preferences to the craftsman, I wonder how often he pulled a book off a shelf and said, "I want something like this but [instructions for updating the idea here]."

It's certainly interesting to think about and I'll dig about see if it's possible to find who illustrated this piece. 

What really interests me about Kircher is that if he did send several letters requesting the manuscript, and he did own it for a while.. why did he never mention it after that point. I don't know the answer to that but it has sent me down a research rabbit hole I am enjoying right now. 

I'm currently looking through a few of Kirchers books as I think if he did own the manuscript maybe there's more examples of images matching up. Or maybe the key lies with the illustrator... back down the rabbit hole for a bit!

Maybe I am miles off, but I think the VM page shown could be about "Hydrology" (the effect of the tides and gravitational pulls of the moon etc). This is another comparison of the VM and Kircher's work. I believe the big "Star" symbol in the VM image is showing the sun over the earth. I believe the comparison shown below could at least be interesting. Also note the filled in sections around the suns rays in Kircher and filled in sections around the rays in the VM. They could represent different things, sun light if the most obvious but interested if anyone has another theory. For example, the VM showing oceans or the night sky doesn't seem out of the world of possibility. 

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Hi bluetoes101,
I'm currently, and for a while, in a country where access to imgur, among many other sites, is blocked. I wish I could see the pics you link to.
Is there any way you could add these images in another form? Yes, I know, I should just do the VPN thing... I guess I haven't adapted yet... I'll get there.

In any case, as you note in your OP, there have been suggestions before that there is a volcano depicted in the 9 rosette foldout page. I remember that after reading Ellie Velinska's post, I had tried to find medieval depictions of volcanoes, and came up empty handed.  
This was really surprising to me: I would have thought that such a spectacular phenomenon as volcanic eruptions would have been something worth depicting, especially considering the well known etna, stromboli, etc... but I was never able to find a single medieval image of them.
If we are going to consider the possibility of a volcano in the Voynich, it would be very helpful to have a contemporary (15thC) image of one to compare it to. Does anyone know of any?

This is not medieval, it's early 19th century, a picture of the Almolonga volcano in Guatemala, but the star and the way it is drawn is interesting, and the rough terrain (the VMS "map" has always looked to me like fairly craggy/bumpy terrain, especially moving up toward the volcano thingie) is represented.


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The first time I looked at the VMS map, rotum 1, it looked to me like either a volcano or the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem (I also considered that it might be a colosseum, as Jerusalem had a "hippodromus", or perhaps a regio mortus (a crater-like burial area), and a few other things and, a little while later, a hell-mouth). Since so many had taken pilgrimages to Jerusalem in those days, I spent months looking at volcanoes (in general) and specifically the topography around Jerusalem to see if I could find a physical match.

 

Left, 15th-century map of Jerusalem drawn from the Mount of Olives (above the Garden of Gethsemane). I considered whether old tomb traditions in Jerusalem (right) might represent "the tower in the hole" except they were typically square.

I never was able to find a really good geographical correspondence to the area around Jerusalem, even though many individual pieces seemed to fit, so I became skeptical that the map (or parts of it) represented Jerusalem (the actual Jerusalem, not the mythical "new Jerusalem" of medieval fame) and put that idea on the back burner (quite a way back).


The first volcano I looked at was Vesuvius (using Google Earth) because I knew the crater was eye-shaped, like the VMS shape. Then I checked out pretty much every other volcano on the planet.


Recreation of what Vesuvius may have looked like in late medieval times. Notice the "pipes" in the walkway bottom-left. They reminded me of pipes on the VMS "map". Could they be steam vents???? You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Vol 69


When I looked at colosseums, as another possibility, I discovered that they were sometimes flooded for water-sport entertainment. I didn't know that and that was the moment when I realized the shapes that I thought might be flames could be water instead and that sent me off in another dozen directions but didn't completely remove the idea of volcanoes, because the craters sometimes turn into lakes.

 
The colosseum of Pozzuoli [visiteguidatecaserta.it]            A colosseum flooded for water sports (in this case a mock sea battle)



Stromboli is a volcanic island near Sicily. We don't have specific records of eruptions before 1558, but it was simmering and active for a very long time before that.



Stromboli island volcano. Hamilton and Fabris, 1776


I haven't given up the idea that it might be Vesuvius (or one of the many craters around Naples or Sicily). It's craggy there, and there were many thermal baths, and rotum 3 resembles the island of Nisida, which has a semi-hollow center, used to have a castle at the top, and sticks out into rougher water. I thought the map might represent a journey from the southern Tyrol/Alsace or Lombardy (now northern Italy) to the Lombardic colonies in the southern boot, where there were medical schools in Naples and Salerno (medicine = herbs), a volcano, and thermal baths.

Many medieval university students traveled between the universities of Heidelberg, Paris, London, Pisa, and Padua, and the medical schools in the Naples/Salerno/Bari area (sometimes passing through Montecassino if they traveled by land). In those days medical students studied herbs, astrology, anatomy and the philosophies and works of classical sages (Galen, Pliny, etc.), all of which seem to fit the topics represented in the VMS.


Here's a late-15th century depiction of the volcanically active area north of Sicily:



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Many of the apocalyptic manuscripts combined volcano-like themes with hell-mouth (and other) themes. That's actually what brought me to the hell mouth idea (which I think Ellie may also have mentioned). I had been looking at volcanic themes and the way animals were drawn in the various apocalyptic manuscripts and it suddenly dawned on me that volcano-style hell-flames and hell-mouths were often combined.

Some volcanically active areas:

 

Image credits: Wikipedia and Nature magazine.

One of the ideas that intrigued me about this area, is that the baths of Pozzuoli (and a number of other thermal spas) are close to Lake Avernus and Lake Avernus (which is a crater lake) was home to the Sibyl (remember the pose of the nymph that resembles Cassiopeia? could she be an oracle? a sibyl?). Lake Avernus is also considered to be the door to the underworld (essentially a watery hell-mouth).

The center rotum looks like the blue starry part might be a domed structure. There was a domed bathhouse both at Lake Avernus/Averno and at various of the other bathing areas (including Pozzuoli).


"In volcanic terms, modern Britain is rather dull. Our calderas are extinct, our tectonic plates long settled. The best chance you have of seeing lava is trapped inside an ugly lamp."  -- Jamie Lafferty

Hi JKP,
Great pics, but only the last one is 15th C.
I'm really surprised that the earlier ones are so hard to come by.

Here's a slightly later (1555) woodcut representing Mount Hekla in Iceland, from Olaus Magnus' Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus.


Notice the three structures at the bottom: I think that  this image is what your "recreation of what Vesuvius may have looked like" is actually based on. The pipes, and the structure of the 19thC drawing in general, are probably copied from the 16thC image of Hekla, adding Italian towns around it, and not specific to Vesuvius.
19thC sources, while well-meaning, tended to aggregate a lot of disparate things to produce "facts" about the middle ages (see Viollet-le-Duc's architectural "restorations" for example...). I never take them at face value.

The Phlegrean fields (Pozzuoli area you mention) have been on lots of people's radars for a while. They do offer lots of elements that are quite tempting in comparison with what is going on in the Voynich: volcanic activity, craters, vents, thermal baths, etc...
To your last point:
Volcanoes, and volcanic sites in general (not just Pozzuoli and far from it) are often referred to as the gates of hell/the underword. This is true for Hekla, but also for Vulcano in the Eolian islands, as well as the Plutonium in Hierapolis that davidjackson mentioned in a recent post, just to name a few.

Ancient Roman pipe valve from Pompeii:



Since the Romans were engineers, building walls, colosseums, bath houses, and aqueducts everywhere they went, I wonder if they also added steam vents to volcanically active areas.

(10-03-2018, 10:06 AM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

The Phlegrean fields (Pozzuoli area you mention) have been on lots of people's radars for a while. They do offer lots of elements that are quite tempting in comparison with what is going on in the Voynich: volcanic activity, craters, vents, thermal baths, etc...
...

I'm actually surprised the area doesn't get discussed more. It's a natural fit...

Steam vents, craters, bath houses (many with grottoes and domed buildings), the earliest medical schools, the origin of some of the most important herbal illustrative traditions, a direct cultural/political connection to northern Italy via the Lombardic colonies (which led to the transport of classical texts to the north), and a multicultural history that resulted in translators of major languages being particularly active here.