The Voynich Ninja

(20-07-2019, 07:18 PM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[font=Arial,]marginal goat[/font]
Breviary of Mary of Savoy, Lombardy ca. 1430

Chambéry, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 4, fol. 443r

Link to f. 443r (and entire ms.): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.=

(20-07-2019, 07:29 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(20-07-2019, 07:18 PM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[font=Arial,]marginal goat[/font]
Breviary of Mary of Savoy, Lombardy ca. 1430

Chambéry, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 4, fol. 443r

Link to f. 443r (and entire ms.): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.=

Thank you nablator! 

Ah the goat does not appear to have been meant for Aries after all. The first snippet i had found was labelled Aries the ram.

It still looks to me as though the three part illustration of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. critter is built on the same formulaic structure that is seen in the 'Apocalypse' image. The VMs artist, however, has allowed himself/herself a lot more latitude in the representation of the individual parts. The lamb is vaguely sheep-like, with certain ambiguities and similarities to the fleece used by the Order of the Golden Fleece, as others have noted previously. Ambiguity is perfectly serviceable - anything but absolute contraindication will function as suggestive. The nebuly line is a valid cosmic boundary, once the etymological connection with cloud-bands is recognized by modern investigators. The same process occurs in the VMs cosmos. Not every example of a nebuly line needs to be given a cloud-based interpretation, but when it works, *it works.* And the apparent droplets in the VMs representation are as clear as can be expected.

What other interpretation explains all three parts with a valid, medieval illustration for comparison?

"The Apocalypse of S. Jean" was apparently finished in 1313 by Colin Chadelve in Liege. Are there other examples of the same lamb / cosmic boundary / droplets structure? I've had no luck so far. So does that connect the VMs more closely with the 'Apocalypse' structure or not?

R. Sale, I am not at all certain about this, because there are many ways in which it can be interpreted (I posted four possibilities because some of the classical myths could also be related to this kind of drawing, but I can think of more), but one of the ways one might interpret You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the opening of the sixth seal in the Book of Revelation:

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It's the one with the red text, at the bottom of the four examples.

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What caught my interest about You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is that it occurred to me that it might depict two "pillars" and in medieval thought, the heavens were, in a sense, supported by "the pillars of the earth" or in Hebrew thought, the "pillars of the sky" (which might be more fitting since they stretch almost to the heavens which appear to be "raining" something).

Now technically, the "pillars" in the Bible referred to leaders among men, but in medieval iconography, one very frequently sees a more literal depiction of two tall skinny mountains at either side of an illustration. Here's a sketch of the basic Hebrew conception:




But the pillars on VMS 86v3 (if that's what they are) are all askew, as if some cataclysm is occurring:

"... Which removeth the mountains, and they know not: which overturneth them in his anger. Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble." "

The sun and moon are also frequent themes in illustrations of the opening of the sixth seal, as is the raining down of objects (and people hiding).

So it struck me that folio 86v was possibly intended to be read as a whole, as a narrative, and that it might be related to other folios in terms of "storyline". In other words, that the image on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. with the people almost invisible within the textured circles, might be related in a "story" sense to the imagery on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and maybe also to folios like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which seem to me to maybe have some references to ascension (with the cloudbands at the top being more fancy than those lower down).

The ideas of cataclysms and ascension are common to both Jewish and Christian thought. If the critter were a lamb or sheep or fleece it could fit with the sacrificial lamb (Hebrew or Pagan) or lamb of God (Christian).

JKP,

You say; "there are many ways in which it can be interpreted"

What is the "it" to which you refer??

If "it" is the critter by itself, I certainly agree that there are various possibilities which are suggested by the VMs image. And that it is difficult, if not impossible, to lock onto one of those choices and eliminate the other potential interpretations.

However, that is not the whole of the VMs illustration. If 'it" is the whole, three-part critter, cosmic boundary, and droplets (of something) as a *complex*, three things in a specific sequence / relationship, then there is the example from the "Apocalypse of S. Jean" and what else?

I'm not saying that the VMs looks like the "Apocalypse" illustration, but it seems to me that the VMs illustration is using somewhat ambiguous elements to reproduce the same three-part structure which can be seen and better understood if we know what was drawn in the "Apocalypse" illustration.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. In that post the "it" I am referring to is the overall imagery on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I am wondering if the imagery on the critter folio, and the imagery on f86v3 MIGHT be related somehow, that there might be a narrative that spans more than one folio.

I agree about the three-part structure related the mystery critters, which is why the combination of parts led me to the lamb/cloudband drawings even though the VMS has never seemed very Christian to me. My first and second impressions were Pagan, my third was "maybe Jewish??" with a big question mark, but no matter how much it seems Pagan to me (with the great emphasis on nymphs and water and clear lack of Christian imagery), when I look at it in terms of the context of each of the drawings, they tend to lead me to Christian imagery, as they did with the lamb, with the proviso that perhaps it's a sacrificial lamb rather than Agnus Dei (which is more likely to be Pagan or Jewish).


I don't think the VMS nymphly crown with a cross on the top is directly related to Christianity. Iconographically, in late medieval times, a regular crown meant a king, a stacked crown was the pope, and a crown with a cross was the Holy Roman emperor, so I strongly suspect the VMS cross-crown refers to the Holy Roman Empire rather than explicitly being Christian symbology (Jewish scribes represented the Holy Roman Emperor the same way, with a cross-crown).

On a related topic...

When hunting for zodiac figures, I collected many Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and Pagan zodiacs. Despite my initial feelings that the VMS seemed more Pagan than anything else, the choice of zodiac themes doesn't support this idea. Pagan zodiacs had a strong emphasis on male-Virgo, centaur-Sagittarius, full-figure-Libra, real Scorpion and seagoat-Capricorn. The VMS doesn't have these.

Even though there are a lot of seemingly-Pagan nymphs and water, my research indicates that VMS the zodiac-figures section is a branch of imagery that may have originated in church tympanums in northeast France, Normandy, and Flanders, but were modified slightly when they crossed the German border. The VMS designer (or illustrator) chose the more individualized interpretations, which reminds me of the humanist groups that emerged in the 16th century—mostly Christian, but not entirely, a scholarly group that was always a little outside the mainstream (the mere suggestion that the earth revolved around the sun could get you burned, so you couldn't go too far outside the mainstream).

So if the VMS zodiac-figures lean more toward Christian and emerging Humanist iconography, why are there so many seemingly-Pagan themes in other parts of the manuscript? I'm beginning to think they might be references to classical literature (which was almost entirely Pagan), rather than having anything to do with the designer's personal orientation. Medieval university students regularly studied Greco-Roman literature (Herodatus, Virgil, Ovid, Galen, Pliny, etc.).

JKP,

If you hadn't posted the lamb/cloud-band illustrations, I would probably have never seen that image from the "Apocalypse f S Jean". And if Ger Hungerink hadn't asked about the existence of cloud-bands with something that appears to be falling from them, I might never have gone looking in the first place.

The "Apocalypse" image clearly sets the pattern, but does it have predecessors or contemporaries or other copies? The VMs artist then gets the three-part structure from the "Apocalypse" of some other <unknown> illustration with a similar structure. Then it would have been a matter of filling in the parts with something which apparently needs to be partly suggestive and ambiguous, without being completely contradictory. That's the question that has been continually asked about the VMS illustrations and the skill of the VMs artist; are the problems of identification due entirely to a lack of artistic skill or to something else?

It's easy to see the f86v3 critter as poorly drawn, and without the traditional interpretation of the nebuly line there various speculative possibilities. The VMs artist could have used a better cloud-band like the examples from the Central Rosette. It may be easier to see the art work as actual attempts to present an element that turns out to be poorly drawn, rather than see that element as rendered with intentional ambiguity. But eventually the ambiguous examples start to stack up. Look at the cosmic comparison of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. with BNF Fr 565 fol 23. In both the earth is an inverted T-O. But the BNF is pictorial, while the VMs is linguistic. Same structure, but totally different in appearance - intentionally. And the other parts of the cosmos show a similar comparison. They maintain structural similarity, while maximizing visual differences. It fools those investigators who insist that things have to look the same in order to be the same. So when comparisons do not look the same, these investigators are derailed, and the structural similarity and basic identity remain undiscovered.

As far as subtle Christian imagery, there is the little sketch of the double rainbow. And there is also (on White Aries) the pairing of blue striped tub patterns, hidden heraldic insignia, which combine with the origins of the cardinal's red galero and the Fieschi popes, also intentionally disguised - lots of ambiguous trickery.

(25-07-2019, 11:51 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The "Apocalypse" image clearly sets the pattern, but does it have predecessors or contemporaries or other copies? 

Do you recognize that the image you are talking about is a depiction of the opening of the sixth seal? I gave a few examples earlier.

Revelation 6:12-17
12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; 
13 And the stars of the heavens fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. 
14 And the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. 
15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; 
16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: 
17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand

Quote:

The VMs artist then gets the three-part structure from the "Apocalypse" of some other <unknown> illustration with a similar structure. Then it would have been a matter of filling in the parts with something which apparently needs to be partly suggestive and ambiguous, without being completely contradictory. That's the question that has been continually asked about the VMS illustrations and the skill of the VMs artist; are the problems of identification due entirely to a lack of artistic skill or to something else?

The three part structure you see is not part of the tradition, it is the sun and moon and stars and wind and fig leaves and mountains and kings and men from the passage. They are all in that image, in many such images, but rarely are the ingredients for your structure all involved.

(25-07-2019, 11:51 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
As far as subtle Christian imagery, there is the little sketch of the double rainbow. And there is also (on White Aries) the pairing of blue striped tub patterns, hidden heraldic insignia, which combine with the origins of the cardinal's red galero and the Fieschi popes, also intentionally disguised - lots of ambiguous trickery.

Yes, I agree. In fact, I've been looking into it and collecting examples for a few months. And, there is something else that might be relevant... in some manuscripts, angels are shown zooming around in little cloudband loges (their feet are not visible).

The "zoomers" that hold the feet of the VMS nymphs might be the same idea, suggesting divinity or some association with the heavens and stars in a traditional way but with the "zoomers" (the barrels/loges) simply drawn differently. Maybe the stars on strings are also the same idea. I don't know if it is expressly saying, "these are angels" (angels are common to many cultures), but perhaps something like that.

Some regions favored single or double rainbows, and some (especially Italy) favored a circular rainbow. There is overlap, of course, but there do seem to be patterns of preference as there was with zodiac imagery.

I've also noticed that some manuscripts use the arched rainbow for angels and the round rainbow for Jesus or God.

Less frequently rainbows are used to represent elements.

Rainbows are used in some depictions of Ovid but the rainbows in the VMS are arranged more like those in Bible-themed manuscripts than in illustrations of Ovid.

This is a quick grab of rainbows in the VMS. Note that all have a couple of nymphs nearby with their feet in loges. The angels and God in medieval manuscripts are represented with arched rainbows and sometimes God also has a circular or eye-shaped rainbow. The bottom half of the angels is sometimes cut off or in a cloudband:

I was going to post a link to a blog I wrote some time ago about the "zoomers" (the VMS loges) and I can't find it. So either I lost it in a WordPress crash or somehow it never got posted. Some of the "judgment" imagery in the pictures above are from that post.