(09-11-2018, 08:22 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Elsewhere I pointed out sometime ago that it's certainly not astrological in nature - there is no attempt to use medieval systems of fortune production - and so care must be taken with using specific terms.
Hi David,
I cannot find your earlier post, I would be curious to read your argument. It seems to me that you often encouraged "keeping and open mind" when approaching the manuscript; but here you totally exclude an astrological interpretation.
In general, since we are unable to read anything of Voynichese, I don't think we can say that the content of any section"certainly" is or isn't this or that.
Quote:But the overall look and feel of the section is certainly based upon the zodiac, and contemporary (albeit North African inspired) European works exist with the same layout of zodiac signs surrounded by icons.
You seem here to be referring to Alfonso's "Astromagia" manuscript You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.. These texts exhibit the layout you describe and they are both astrological in nature.
Take for instance the first paragraph of the Astromagia manuscript:
"En el primero grado del signo de tauro sube u<n> omne que trahe un toro. El qui nasciere en el sera lazrado & trabaiador & amara mucho el mundo."
In the first degree of the sign of Taurus, rises a man who is pulling a bull. Who is born in it, will be poor[?] and a worker and will fondly love the world.
The idea that the degree of the zodiac sign where the sun is when you are born affects your destiny in life can be described as a "medieval system of fortune production". You cannot get much more "astrological" than this.
The first stone in the Lapidario is "magnet," related with the first degree of Aries. A passage from the text:
"Y el que quisiere saber con cuales estrellas a esta piedra su atamiento, y de que recibe la fuerza y la virtud, sepa que son aquellas tres que están en paz y siguen al nudo del filo de la figura de Piscis, y la una de ellas es en cabo de la cola de un pez. Y la propiedad que ellas han de tirar el hierro es por la virtud que reciben de estas estrellas. Y cuando la mediana de ellas sube en el horizonte, de parte de Oriente, hará mayor fuerza..."
And if one wants to know with which stars this stone is connected[?], and from where it receives its strength and virtue, know that they are those three [stars] which are in a line[?] after the knot of the ribbon in the figure of Pisces, and one of them is at the tip of the tail of a fish. And the power they have to attract iron is due to the virtue they receive from those stars. And when the central of those [stars] rises above the horizon, in the East, [the stone] will have more strength...
Interpreting magnetism as the result of an astral influence, and claiming that it is more powerful when the sun is in the first degree of Aries, is astrological thinking. It has nothing to do with divination, but, as You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view., astrology is "the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies interpreted as having an influence on human affairs and the natural world."
While it is true that in modern times astrology has been more and more limited to mere fortune-telling, in the middle ages it was part of a much wider magical idea of the universe and could play an important role in scientific works like the lapidario as well as in medical works (as mentioned by Alain Touwaide in his 2015 Voynich article).
The similarity of the Voynich zodiac wheels with these Alfonsine works should be considered as evidence in favour of the Voynich zodiac section being astrological. Of course, this evidence is not conclusive and it is well possible that, when we read the text, the section proves to be something entirely different.