The Voynich Ninja

When I joined the forum I mentioned that while I didn't have a theory or a solution, I did have a few pictures that I wanted to share because I thought I could see elements of design motifs from the VMS in there as well. I have searched to check that you haven't discussed these exact images before, but searches aren't always perfect so I'm sorry if some of you have seen and discussed these images before.

I want to show you a few images of illustrations and statues of Saint Barbara because I think her martyrology story has some interesting overlaps with the VMS themes. Saint Barbara is one of the early Christian martyrs and as with quite a few of the early Christian martyrs there's a fairly large gap (several centuries) between when she lived and when her name starts appearing in sources. By the later middle ages, she was a popular and established saint and her life follows some of the major tropes for early female martyrs namely, a Christian woman promised in marriage to a pagan man, she resists the marriage and is publicly humiliated/shamed/tortured, before being executed rather than marrying a pagan.

This summary of Barbara's Life is from wikipedia but the details are broadly correct

Quote:According to the hagiographies, Barbara, the daughter of a rich pagan named Dioscorus, was carefully guarded by her father who kept her locked up in a tower in order to preserve her from the outside world. Having secretly become a Christian, she rejected an offer of marriage that she received through her father.
Before going on a journey, her father commanded that a private bath-house be erected for her use near her dwelling, and during his absence, Barbara had three windows put in it, as a symbol of the Holy Trinity, instead of the two originally intended. When her father returned, she acknowledged herself to be a Christian; upon this he drew his sword to kill her, but her prayers created an opening in the tower wall and she was miraculously transported to a mountain gorge, where two shepherds watched their flocks. Dioscorus, in pursuit of his daughter, was rebuffed by the first shepherd, but the second betrayed her. For doing this, he was turned to stone and his flock was changed to locusts.
Dragged before the prefect of the province, Martinianus, who had her cruelly tortured, Barbara held true to her Christian faith. During the night, the dark prison was bathed in light and new miracles occurred. Every morning, her wounds were healed. Torches that were to be used to burn her went out as soon as they came near her. Finally, she was condemned to death by beheading. Her father himself carried out the death-sentence. However, as punishment, he was struck by lightning on the way home and his body was consumed by flame.

Barbara is sometimes associated with bath-houses because it was the modification of the bath house that led to her demonstration of faith. She is also associated with canons and artillery because some of her torturers were struck by lightning when they tried to harm her. The major attributes that you see her with in medieval art are a tower/bath-house, a canon, and a chalice. If she is depicted with a tower then sometimes it is much larger, behind her, and in the distance, but in some images it is a small tower that she holds or is about knee-high beside her. I think the canon and the chalice shapes have a certain amount of similarity with the "pharmacological" section (ff. 88r–89v2, 99r–102v), and the bathing connection is self-explanatory, and so I just wanted to know if any of you can see any similarity, or if this is a case of me seeing something because I think it's there.

Barbara in a Polish altarpiece of 1447

Barbara in a Spanish altarpiece c. 1410–1425 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Barbara in an English stained glass window c. 1450

The Hague, KB, MS 76 F 7, 31v

The Hague, KB, MS 76 F 30, 17v

The Hague, KB, MS 133 B 13, 98r

Austria, Kunst Historiches Museum, Wien (Bohemia, c. 1470?) [attachment=3170]

tl;dr does anyone think it might be worth pursuing a connection between Saint Barbara and her association with bath houses, artillery, and chalices, and the iconography of the VMS and particularly the chalice and canon/tower? shaped objects (with water for bathing in on top?) in the "pharma" section?

Thank you for this. I was completely unaware of the origins of St. Barbara.

I agree that it is thematically provocative in relation to the VMS.

Replying to myself as my first post is already very long.

The "is there a Saint Barbara connection?"  was one of the things I had wondered about before I joined this forum or learned that there had been a great deal of debate about whether there was or wasn't any Christian iconography or symbolism in the VMS. Koen's ideas about the arma christi gave me more confidence about my own idea that there could be some sort of relationship between the Barbara mythology and some aspects of the VMS decoration. I also think that if there are some deliberately Christian themes and ideas in the VMS, then my Barbara idea could sit alongside the arma christi ideas and doesn't need to replace it – I think there could be space for both and some other popular religious themes in VMS exegesis.

Hi arca_libraria,
in my opinion, the cross in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the clearest Christian reference in the manuscript. As discussed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., others have different, less boring, opinions. The way in which the symbol is used here is puzzling and fascinating. 
[attachment=3173]

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. includes a cross, but in this context I don't think it really counts as a religious symbol.
The crosses in what could be a spell in 116v could also be a Christian element, but this fragment could be largely independent from the main body of the work.

The centre  of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. could suggest that the illustrator was also familiar with cannons. See for instance You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Ellie Velinska.

I agree with what you wrote in one of your earlier posts: the author of the VMS appears to be familiar with Western European manuscripts. Hence he must have seen Christian images and of course one cannot exclude that echoes of Christian imagery appear here and there, why not? But I am under the impression that the manuscript does not depend much on Christian ideas. Maybe more of a scientific/magical work?

Marco, thank you for such a thoughtful response and for so much helpful material to read. I had noted the crucifix-shaped object on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. before, but not the imperial crown in Libra. There is so much going on in the zodiac-circles, but the overall context makes it very hard (for me) to interpret what such a hat might or might not mean.

Thank you for sharing Ellie Velinska's blog post – it was a really interesting read. In many versions of her Vita, Saint Barbara's own father was struck by lightning and killed after he executed her. In the later middle ages, this relationship to lightning caused her to be associated with explosions, storms and artillery including canons, indeed some statues and images of Saint Barbara show her with a canon rather than a tower or chalice.

This is a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. where she holds a cannon ball

Regarding the text on f. 116v, I agree, crosses such as those are a common feature of many medieval charms and prayers. In early medieval liturgical manuscripts those crosses were placed in the text where the priest or celebrant was to make the sign of the cross, and from there the symbol made its way into other types of text. A lot of healing charms and prayers (I have seen examples from c. 950 onwards) use the cross symbol, particularly after holy names or each word in "nonsense" rhyming passages - whether it was intended that the reader or performer of the text should make a sign of the cross each time for those texts is not clear, but they're a very common feature of medieval healing charms.

I still think that the manuscript objects the VMS most closely resembles are the herbals/scientific miscellanies produced in medieval Europe even if there are also some non-European influences on the VMS as well. I also think that some of the religious elements could be there because medieval Europeans had a visual culture that was heavily influenced by Christian art and symbolism so ideas and motifs could easily appear in non-religious objects without any deliberately Christian intention. I don't think that Saint Barbara's life story is the key to the VMS as a whole, but I do think there are some unusual iconographic and symbolic parallels that might help to understand the context in which the VMS was produced.

(16-08-2019, 04:11 PM)arca_libraria Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. where she holds a cannon ball

Wow this is amazing, thank you! A great addition to the repertoire of meanings for "a figure holding a sphere"

(16-08-2019, 04:11 PM)arca_libraria Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I still think that the manuscript objects the VMS most closely resembles are the herbals/scientific miscellanies produced in medieval Europe even if there are also some non-European influences on the VMS as well.

This could be off-topic here, but I would love to know more of the non-European influences you spotted in the VMS!

Thank you arca_libraria for this Saint Barbara thread and to the posters above, you have jogged my memory.

Another Saint Barbara, this one a mid-15th Century polychromed wood reliquary bust of her, complete with tower:

[attachment=3198]
(from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, New York, p.186, 'Set in Stone: The Face in Mediaeval Sculpture', Charles T Little [ed], 2006)

Attributed to the workshop of Nikolaus Gerhaert von Leiden, one of four busts - St Agnes of Rome, St Catherine of Alexandria, St Margaret of Antioch, and St Barbara - originally carved for the altarpiece of the church of Saints Peter and Paul at Wissembourg, a few dozen kilometres north of Strasbourg. Thought to date from 1465-67. These sculpture's of Gerhaert's (or by his workshop) were a new departure from traditional canonical representations, showing a more naturalistic style with a real sense of animation in the faces.

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]Isn't there something in the facial style that recalls some of the VM nymphs? Just look at MarcoP's example from f79v, above... [/font]

What's the relevance, apart from being yet another thing-that-looks-a-bit-like-something-else? Maybe nothing. But following the thoughts in the posts above, this is a Saint Barbara with an Alsatian origin and perhaps a stylistic connection to the VM illustrations too. Was the illustrator of the VM looking at these busts? The carbon 14 timeline would suggest maybe not. Were Gerhaert and the VM illustrator both looking at another, slightly earlier set of faces, inspired by them? Should one keep in mind Koen G's and Nick Pelling's (and others') Lauber workshop observations - another Alsatian reference point - and building up taxonomies of calendrical/Zodiac/clothing images?

And here's one of the other Wissembourg busts, St Margaret of Antioch, who has lost her paint but kept her little dragon - not unlike the little VM creature sometimes interpreted as a 'dragon'. Legend had it that one of her tribulations was combatting Satan who appeared in the guise of a dragon, hence the dragon. In her dying prayer St Margaret besought God to grant that pregnant women be allowed to call upon her aid in delivery.

There's no real reason to draw any conclusion from these busts, but in a similar vein to others' comments, perhaps they help to feed an underlying sense of a time, a place, a set of styles, influences, and common visual cues - part of the context in which the VM was produced.

[attachment=3199]
[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif](from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, New York, [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]p.183, 'Set in Stone: The Face in Mediaeval Sculpture', Charles T Little [ed], 2006))[/font][/font]

I've been saying for years that 13th and 14th century imagery form a strong parallel with the voynich nymphs. 
Just last week I was looking at the original 14th century stained glass window in Gloucester cathedral and thinking it again. 
I've got some Spanish photos I've taken in collections somewhere on the forum that show other likeness. 
See also some 14th century Galician works that share the same style. I think the scribe was influenced by late 14th century Real life imagery that he saw all around him.

A not so clear representation of Saint Barbara. She holds her martyrdom tool, the sword with which she was beheaded by her father, in the left. So Saint Barbara is not shown armed (in the usual sense).


Michael Pacher-Workshop, Saint Barbara, arround 1480/1490,
54,5 x 41 cm (Belvedere, Vienna, Inv.-Nr. 4848)

source: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

It's interesting that she's often depicted as a red-head. There's one red-head in the VMS (in the bathing pool).