The Voynich Ninja

If the T-in-O on the VMS rosette folio is intended as an orientation symbol (this is not a certainty, there could be other reasons for its presence), then the top is east (or roughly east), which would be consistent with a majority of the maps of the 13th and 14th centuries and some of the maps of the 15th century.

But... if the folio is a strip map, then orientation doesn't matter. A strip map in its simplest form simply shows A to B and B to C and C to D, etc., however it comfortably fits on the folio. Compasses are irrelevant to many strip maps—many of them are simply saying, "Follow the main road from this landmark to this landmark to this landmark...".


However... IF the T-in-O is an orientation symbol AND the rosette folio is a strip map, then one might argue that the trip starts in the top right (with the "start orientation" indicated by the T-O symbol) and then follows along the causeways from A to B to C.


But these are a lot of "ifs". There's no certainty about any of this yet. We don't even know with absolute certainty that it's a map. Maybe it's a diagram of heaven and hell, with a hellmouth top-left and paradise bottom-right and the spiritual conduit toward one or the other in the middle.

Speaking of specific details...

I've always felt that the "towers" on the "map" folio were meant to be containers. Towers don't have feet, they don't have super narrow "stems", they usually have windows or slits, onion-dome technology was almost unknown in the west at the time, and the way the lines are arranged on the globes is not the way they do it on towers. Plus the tops look more like finials on containers than tower roofs.

So, for a long time I thought maybe the "containers" were symbolic of spices that were used in a sacred place that had towers (e.g., some kind of temple) and that the shapes were intended to serve both purposes.


But where did the person get the idea to draw it this way? Maybe they got it from here. Maybe those are archway entrances at the base of the tower (which is round, a shape that was often used for lighthouses), but they are so small, they look like feet if you have containers on your mind...

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Map in the Visconti Hours (second book). Many of the towers are drawn like chess pieces—like a rook (also called a castle):

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I would say that they could actually be towers ( in the heavenly Jerusalem ). For comparison, here is a illustration in Liber Floridus:


Ghent University Library, Ms. 92, Liber Floridus, Lambertus a S. Audomaro, Saint-Omer, 1121, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.


Herzog August Bibliothek, Catalog no. 4305, Lambert of Saint-Omer, Liber floridus, Northern France,12th century, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

bi3mw Wrote:I would say that they could actually be towers ( in the heavenly Jerusalem ). For comparison, here is a illustration in Liber Floridus:

I think they are towers (in the Visconti Hours). I was referring to how they were drawn. The style of the towers (the upper part) is similar to the style of of chess pieces in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, moreso than the way other artists drew towers. Chess was a popular game among the nobility. One often sees it in marginal drawings.


The top parts are also similar in style to some of the Jewish spice boxes (but without the flag):



Image courtesy of Sothebys' Steinhardt Judaica Collection

Real towers did not have such narrow "throats" as one sees in the Visconti drawings.