The Voynich Ninja

I never posted an ID for 28v because I only had 2 or 3 ideas for plants that might inspire this kind of drawing, and I wasn't sure of any of them, but I thought I'd mention one of them for interest's sake...

There is a plant called the Venus fan, Bulbophyllum flabellum-veneris (note the word "flabellum" in the name) and it has a sibling that looks almost the same called Bulbophyllum cumingii. The Latin version of the name might attract the attention of someone interested in astrology and it's possible that the name before Linnaeus was Flabellum veneris (I haven't been able to confirm this but the old names were frequently used as part of the standardized binomial system).

It's an eastern plant, an orchid that grows in India. It has the interesting characteristic of fan-shaped petals. Sometimes it almost makes a full circle of rays and sometimes the fan shape is very evident. It has very plain leaves with smooth leaf-margins. Here are some examples:

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Images courtesy of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. on Instagram.

Some of them are more ray-like (like these Malaysian versions):

 

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.                                                                                               Bulbophyllum medusae © copyright 2011 Alan Cressler

Here's an example of a dried specimen of Bulbophyllum medusae so you can see the root (but note that the roots vary quite a bit in this plant family):

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This plant family also exists in central and southern Africa but it looks completely different from the Indian/Phillipine fan-shaped versions. The plant was used medicinally, but it's not likely that it was known in the west in the 15th century and I've never seen it mentioned in any western herbals.

Is this word at the bottom another way to write Jesus (IHYSUS)? I've seen it written many different ways, including IHS9 (IHSUS) and IES9 (IESUS) but I'm not sure I've seen this:

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Sounding it out would create the right sounds.

16 fat rays, 16 skinny rays:

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Rotate it one step. Is it a fire-breathing serpent?

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Is the smoke-squiggle that is positioned like a Latin abbreviation symbol on f1 also drawn with an extra curve because it's an emblem? A serpent?

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Note that the Visconti serpent isn't exactly fire-breathing: it's got a tiny fellow in its mouth. Check Marco's wiki link: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 

But about the squiggles, I'm intrigued. Our best guess for the "weirdo" is a "V", and the standing serpent is a symbol of the Visconti. As Marco said, the sun is also a Visconti symbol, so you've got a link between sun-squiggle-V.

The writing in the flower remains the hardest to prove.. it seems that there are as many interpretations as there are ideas about the overall meaning of the image.

But the weirdo... I wonder whether a "V" with this sign on top would have been a dead give-away to the right eyes?

Yeah, it's a little guy in the Visconti serpent's mouth, but the VMS shape itself isn't necessarily the Visconti serpent, there were many serpent emblems.

Obviously it's not necessarily a serpent, the similarity might be coincidental, but it is kind of serpent-like (when rotated).

Some curlicue shapes together with a rayed sun (with a possible flower motif in the center).

Also, cosmo drawing has in-pointing rays. Not the same shape, but possibly the same idea, the VMS rosette has inpointing claws/teeth/petals/waves/rays:




From the second Visconti Hours book.


It also has zodiac figures around the outside, but they are the classical images, not the same tradition as the VMS zodiac figures.

(31-10-2019, 11:01 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Is this word at the bottom another way to write Jesus (IHYSUS)?

Hi JKP,
please post a link to the whole page, so that I can read it and answer your question.

• Right-click on the page
  
• Copy image address (the exact words depend on your browser)
  
• paste
  

I'm sorry I neglected the link:

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No folio numbers in this viewer, so... in thumbnail mode, it's 14 rows up from the bottom, on the far right.

Thank you for the additional information! Actually, I had to check the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to get some more of the text. It is the beginning of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:

Letatus sum in his que dicta sunt mihi. In domum Domini ibimus
I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord.

The word you highlighted actually is two words "in his" (at the things).

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In order to get direct links to images, you can click the right button of your mouse on the  thumbnails. You should get a menu like that in the snapshot below. I am using Chrome, but you should get something similar with any browser. You can copy the image address from the menu, then you can paste it in a post, like this:
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The address includes an image number (sequence=254, in this case) that can be used as a reference to individual pages, since no folio numbers are visible.
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