The Voynich Ninja

The three pools of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are actually two seas, plus the fourth largest lake in Italy. The three larger lakes had already been shown on previous pages. This page is basically showing the west shore, the east shore, and the center of the Italian Peninsula, or the landmass that looks like a boot jutting into the Mediterranean Sea.



Notice that the west side is craggy, and the east side is more smooth, with one major prominence at the 'ankle' of the boot, and three 3 other points being visible, the 'knee', the 'calf', and one on the 'heel'.



This drawing shows mountains with streams running into the sea. The sea is the green water body, and represents the Tyrrhenian Sea. The mountains are reminiscent of those in Beatus Maps, or other similar cartography. The tube is the navigable river Arno, Pisa and Florence are to be found on it. Tube rivers are also common in the history of cartography.

If you look at the mountains a different way, they depict the peninsula itself through its two sides. The lower side has seven points, which represents the craggy nature of the west side. Between the last two points, the streams come together, this indicates a turn in the landscape, or the 'toe' of the boot. The grass line further indicates the shoreline the way it might be drawn on a nautical chart. The upper side has four dips, just like the next pool has four nymphs along the southern part of the waterbody, which would be the Adriatic Sea. All four have tubs, which stand for sheltered ports, although the third one is almost invisible as it is painted the same colour as the sea, but at least part of a tub rim is there, it covers the nymph's knee, and a dip in the shoreline is drawn as well, whereas the others do not get this treatment, this is to indicate it is a bigger feature than the others.

I believe this is an example of a deception, although it seems to have its reasons, in that to the casual observer this would keep them from recognizing the prominence, but meanwhile if one is familiar with the shore already, the prominence and dip are indeed represented and recognizable as such, and it makes sense for this tub to be lesser than the others, as the sheltering level of this port is not as high, it is sheltered only on one side, by the prominence itself, whereas the others have lagoons. This is why this one only rates a transparent half tub. But I do not believe it to be coincidence that it downplays the actual features of the prominence.

That the peninsula is drawn as two seas, each with one shoreline, is not surprising either, in that nautical charts are about shorelines, not land. Many times there may just have been rutters for one specific area. The pieces were stitched together, and the land details were filled in later. 



The back side of this water body has been stripped bare, this is why it looks like a pool. The features of the blank side of this sea are included on another page of the quire. The stream that connects to the other one is not real, it simply denotes there is a water connection between the two.



The single lake is Trasimeno. It is centrally located, about where it says Italy on the map at the top. Early Ptolemy maps included just the one lake. 



These Ptolemy maps came out later, and according to wiki, both of these examples were published in 1467, by the same artist. This seems like it might need looking into. However, the information regarding Ptolemy's atlas was evidently first beginning to be translated around 1406. You can see the mountains go all the way down the peninsula. In the second version below, you can see more interior items were added, more mountains, more lakes.

 

Trasimeno is the light green lake. It is a different type of lake than the other two, it is endorheic and according to wiki, a depression formed by geologic fractures allowed the present-day Lake Trasimeno to form.

Note the southwest aspect of the stream going off the page. What do we find when we look in this direction?



As can be seen from this north up presentation, Bolsena is actually a bit west of Trasimino, just like in our vms drawing.



If you follow the line of the two lower lakes, about southeast, it points to a city. That city is Rome. 

These are the same two lakes on the other side of the page, f84v. The item at the top is a dormant volcano. Both these lakes are volcanic in origin. 



Note that the streams are drawn in a southeast orientation this time. Rome would be at the bottom of the page. However i do not believe this to be the end of the quire, as marked. i think it may have been found this way, then marked as such upon binding.

If you would like to see the parallels fleshed out with more comparisons to maps i would be happy to expound on this identification as best i can.

Preface
I spent the past week in process of correlating vms imagery of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. top diagram to map imagery and writing out what i saw in this nymph, 

 

and it grew into being about the whole top diagram of f84r, because it all works together, but this is the nymph who holds the key to the drawing of the map outline, the others mostly fill in volcanos and other details. Along the way i realized some things and i stopped editing shortly after i discovered where Sicily, Etna, and the Ionian mainland were. Having seen so many volcano references in the quire, i was sure Etna was hidden somewhere, and of course it turns out to be in plain sight, and exactly where it belongs, same with the Ionian Sea.. I wanted to leave it unedited from here, other than adding this preface, just so that maybe part of the thought process remains intact, instead of  attempting to "fix" it, given my new understandings of it.  (I realize there are some time continuum glitches in there as there are levels of editing that weren't yet fixed from the last time i had found something. i really do think there are multiple mnemonics at work and that singular items can act as mnemonics for more than one thing, looked at from a different perspective. I now believe that this nymph and her placement in this diagram provides enough clues for someone, believing it is what it is, to be able to draw, freehand, a relatively realistic map of the mainland shoreline of the Tyrrhenian Sea, all of Sicily, and the Ionian mainland. It was while attempting this that i figured out all of Sicily was portrayed in this nymph, while still retaining the original notions that led me to see it as such. i looked at what i drew and thought, there is the nymph's arm, and her behind...ohhhh that is why her leg is submerged... I don't really expect anyone to jump on the bandwagon, given the silence thus far, but i welcome questions or comments that might help me to explain it such that others can see what i see, since everything here is just further details of what i started out with, it feels like an evolution of understanding, i cant see right now how it could not be so. If you think you can show me the error of my ways, by all means. It seems so strange now not to have seen it sooner, especially for the past week as i really only started out writing something i noticed in passing, it just led to more noticings, but i guess i was running on the idea that this was the peninsula only, so that was wrong. Perhaps i am just not providing enough background and explanation for it to be clearly seen. Here it is, such as it is, as is. I would like to know the specifics of your objections, if any. If you can see any of the correlations, please let me know what you can see.

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I recently postulated that the nymph on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. with the curvy antigravity stream stood for Milazzo, Sicily, from the fact that the promontory is pointy, and the nymph points with her arm, having fingers similar to the promontory tip. i went looking for a closeup, found this one, and noticed some coincidences that could have significance.  



Both the promontory and the Italian peninsula look like boots. They are oriented 180 degrees to each other. The promontory is cental to the upsidedown arc of the shoreline made by the foreankle, instep and toe of the peninsula boot plus northern shore of Sicily, as seen in the insert. 

This promontory basically points north to Stromboli, the eastern part of a smaller arc of various other volcanic islands. The nymph seems to hold a mountain in the crook of her bent arm, the design is different than the rest of the flow, and Stromboli's location is about that point on the arc. The pointing may also be indicative of the direction of the other volcanic Aeolian islands along this curve, westward.

Stroboli  

Most of the nymphs dont have legs or feet, just thighs. This one has one leg embedded and one free, but still submerged in the water. Could it be a mnemonic for 'leg in the sea'? It looks somewhat funnily drawn,  but it is hard to make out the outline, sometimes i think it even resembles the promontory foot, it is different than the other visible feet. Could it be a way to remember how to draw the Tyrrhenian sea shore? 

So this arc shaped flow, with a pointing nymph, touching a nymph i identify as Pompei, who is next to Naples, is being related to the Aeolian volcanic complex at Stromboli et al. You can see the arc does indeed start in the area of Naples in the insert above, and ends with the west side of Sicily. 

 

I see the Pompei nymph doing double duty here, her volcano is the same volcano as Naples', repeated for the next vignette about the Aeolian arc, as one of its ends, or at least that of the curved shoreline.

The nymph for Naples cuddles with her stream, her arm is analogous to the valley between Vesuvius and the inland mountains. Note it is the only volcano that gets squiggly lines all the way down because it is the only active volcano on the mainland. Vesuvius seems to be drawn as a green hill. The nymph's legs are stretched out, similar to the shoreline in front of Vesuvius, her feet are resting on Pompei, maybe to indicate the transfer of location of the citizenry after the destruction of the latter in 79AD. The other arm is linked with one of Pozzuoli's, who, like Pompei, has both arms thrown back. This stance, i have come to associate with indicating that there was a volcanic eruption. Pozzuoli is located right on a caldera, meaning there was at least once a major eruption in the vicinity, the last relatively major one was evidently 1198.

The next one to the left is, i think, Roccamonfina. She has her arm pointing over and up from the shore, you have to travel up the river from the shore, it is not right on the shore like Vesuvius. Note the blue goes all the way to the sea, the others stop inland. The one beside it is likely Ernici.

 

The next one is Rome. At least three things about her are mnemonics. The pointing hand is one, look at the image above and see there is a valley that goes from Rome past Alban Hills, past Ernici, past Roccmonfino to Potenza behind Vesuvius. It is analogous with the nymph's arm, although she only points to Ernici, but i think in doing this, she is referencing Alban Hills, which is drawn in the sea as a mound her arm grazes, and indicating that the line continues on from there. The other arm captures the body of the other nymph beside her, and leaves a spot unpainted. This is the shape of Vesica Pisces, symbol of Christianity, among other things. Does this relate to Vatican City being located inside Rome? 

 

I think the next one is Monti Sabatini, which created Lake Bracchiano, which is one of the lakes on the next page. Again it is inland from the shore, partnered with Monti Valseni which created the caldera for Lake Bolseno.  These may instead stand for others in the vicinity since both lakes are found on the flip side of the page. It could instead be Cimini and Latera, or others. But Brachiano is closer to Rome and makes more sense to be the one captured in Rome's rutter stance, hand on hip seems to me to mean directions exist to the place.

Monti Amiato and Larderella provide the heat for Tuscany's thermal baths, and today its geothermal energy.  I think this is who the leftmost two nymphs represent. Perhaps they are waving as they know they are neighbours in the same region? But Amiata and Bolseno are back to back despite being 20 km away from each other, as they are in Tuscan and Roman areas respectively? Amiata is correctly positioned behind, ie further away from shore than, Bolseno, same with Brachiano and Rome.

I just recently realized the river-looking imagery is volcanic flow related, kind of showing something similar to this modern day understanding: 


This is the Amiata area and the aquifer below it (the aquifer is enhanced by a factor of 2)

Larderello is located in the vicinity of Pisa, and also provides hydrothermal energy. She is the one sitting by the river tube Arno. As already mentioned, Florence is on the other side of the tube, with sedimentary mountains to the east, seemingly raining sammolite or other mineral crystals.



I found this diagram which basically displays Amiato to Vesuvius, and shows very well the volcanic aspects of the region. 

 

This next one even better, you can basically match up the triangles to nymphs if you exclude islands near a major location, ie the Aeolian arc is Stromboli, ū include only Naples and Pozzuoli, not their nearby islands.  Add Pompei, Amiato, and Lardello, and that is pretty much what is portrayed in the vms image.

 

The last nymph on the far right is i think standing in for either the island of  Ustica or the Gulf to the south of it. The arm stance seems like a mnemonic for the gulf, perhaps it is seen as a caldera. No volcanos in the immediate area but there are thermal baths inland. Note that the nymph is not directly associated with any mountains or flow.

I was just looking at this portolan, and now i think that last nymph does an updownbigsmall trick just like milazzo and the peninsula, i think she is also representative of the heel, or end, on the bottom of the peninsula boot. So now i see it as the key to drawing most of what is seen here in this example from 1400: (with the next vms drawing giving hints to the other side) it is a rectangle around the curve otherwise.



I will likely remember the basics of how to draw the Tyrrhenian mainland shoreline now, the vms having pointed it out to me with this nymph. Basically it is a J on a 45 degree tilt toward the left, with about a third of it taken up by the arc of the J, and volcanoes and rivers flollowing the shoreline northward from Naples to Pisa, and adding various lakes, rivers, and volcanoes.

 
I just added Sicily as i realized that she stands for various but related things:.Sicily, the Tyrrhenian shoreline, the Aeolian arc as pointed to by the Milazzo promontory, and including Etna as well.

Sorry the foot is not there, i cant seem to use the extractor. Take a look at the foot on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as i sometimes see it as comparable to other vms feet but sometimes i think this one was purposefully drawn different, hard to tell with the paint blobs and the lines at the bottom. Note she is holding a mountain or island icon in her other arm, right about where Stromboli is located within the Archipelago, if the stream is the shoreline.

This imagery made me think perhaps the mountain in the crook of the arm is Etna instead, or perhaps also, from a different perspective, in that Milazzo points to Etna in a backward sense, ie to the south, around the crook of the elbow of Sicily's east corner. In fact her arms can be thought of as the north and east shores of Sicily with her head acting as Milazzo in this interpretation, rather than the arm or leg. If indeed it is a situation where it stands for three related things as i have encountered before, i would say the third would be Vulcano, to which the toe of the Milazzo boot points. 



As an aside, this also shows the mouth of the ibex, ie the portion of the prealps to the east of Lake Garda, which in my interpretation is seen on the facing page, is made up of volcanoes as well. I just find that interesting.

I think it also shows that the erosion of volcanic rock does very well for plants such as grapes. This could be the connection between this quire and the herbal section, this quire is about water and rock, which allows plants to grow, which allows us and other animals to live as well.