The Voynich Ninja

(09-01-2020, 09:28 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The habitable part of the world is the land part. It is not Europe.

Well how do we explain that in the context of the German T/O map that I referred to?

(09-01-2020, 07:33 AM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think you will find they knew where they were better than you think. The Hereford mappa mundi is a map of the ecumene, not of earth, as is the Oresme. It would equate to the habitable section.

You have expressed your perspective well. Unless I have missed it what you haven't explained is what is going on with the top left section of the German Map with T/O in bottom right hand corner that I have linked to. Where does this other section represent and why is it illustrated in the way that it is?

Here again is the link to the other map that I was referring to:

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

(09-01-2020, 07:33 AM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think you will find they knew where they were better than you think. The Hereford mappa mundi is a map of the ecumene, not of earth, as is the Oresme. It would equate to the habitable section.

In the Conches example that you give the habitable part is at the top not top left/right, assuming that we are saying the Asia is habitable.

Are you saying that the top right corner of the German T/O represents air or fire, though it looks like neither?

(09-01-2020, 03:27 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In schematic diagrams where earth and water are the main segments, fire is usually represented by a ring around the others and air is 1) sometimes above the earth and water or 2) sometimes a separate ring between fire and earth/water.

So you are not of the opinion that the Oresme drawing we have discussed is divided into 3 sections air-earth-water or fire-earth-water. Linda's interpretation, whilst I haven't seen clear evidence to back it up, that the T/O represents the whole earth including the habitable part(Europe+Africa+Asia), the southern ocean and the western wilderness is broadly consistent with the drawing. I assume by Linda's way of thinking the German map would have Europe and Africa in the top left corner, Asia in the top right corner and the southern ocean at the bottom. It doesn't however seem to tally with the elements and given that I have not seen any T/O with air, earth and water written in this does not seem to fit at all. On the basis of Linda's argument I suppose one could argue the T/O could say wilderness, habitable and antipodean though I haven't seen a T/O having those 3 written on it. And again I have not yet read in the Oresme text and elsewhere the justification for Linda's presentation particularly the wilderness identification.

Certainly I think the most likely explanation is that on the rosettes and on f68v3 we have a T/O map. Note again that the words at the bottom of the f68v3 T/O seem to be positioned rather than laid out as though in continuous sentence text as there are clear gaps between words. To me this indicates that specific words have specific positions or locations in the bottom half circle, implying to me that they represent specific places.

(09-01-2020, 09:49 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[quote="Linda" pid='33809' dateline='1578551607']
You have expressed your perspective well. Unless I have missed it what you haven't explained is what is going on with the top left section of the German Map with T/O in bottom right hand corner that I have linked to. Where does this other section represent and why is it illustrated in the way that it is?

Here again is the link to the other map that I was referring to:

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

Thank you, i was hoping so, because i think it matters that we understand the exemplars as they were meant, not as we interpret them.

That link came back forbidden for me for some reason, but i think i know the one. 
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Firstly, it is later, 1485 and therefore printed ptolemy had come into play in the meantime, and there has been another half decade or more of evolution of previous and subsequent examples of various maps and discussions thereof.

The page itself says 
Ptolemy's rediscovery points to another development, the printing press. Although manuscript maps continued to be popular as elite commodities, mass-produced maps could reach a wider audience for the first time, as this map attests. These developments spurred a departure from the dependence on scholasticism of the late-Medieval period, as well as marked a realization that the world as early modern Europeans knew it no longer fit into the mold recorded by Medieval scholars and religious experts.


So my guess without knowing more details is that they placed the habitable part where Europe would be in the circlular ecumene, rather than the spherical earth of Oresme, while maintaing the no antipodes stance for religious reasons, and making Asia the less habitable section since that was now the area of Ottoman takeover, ie the fall of Constantinople had by then already occurred.

(09-01-2020, 10:02 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[quote="Linda" pid='33809' dateline='1578551607']

In the Conches example that you give the habitable part is at the top not top left/right, assuming that we are saying the Asia is habitable.

Are you saying that the top right corner of the German T/O represents air or fire, though it looks like neither?

Conches example i gave...i have to look again to see what you mean there.

But no, i am saying re the german one, top left is habitable europe and africa, top right is asia, with a watery bottom hemisphere. I guess it is more like a side view of earth, that right side of Oresme.

The german one is more like d'Ailly than Oresme.

Agreed i do not have proof of the wilderness part, it is a function of having understood the right side to be the habitable known world. Still looking since as i say i think it is important we get it right.

Mark you did indeed predict my thoughts on the german version. Also i note the elements map part shows fire below air, i think again this is secular understanding supplanting the Aristolean ordering. Fire is of course known to us on the ground, and invisible heavenly fire is a more difficult concept to visualize especially if it is no longer taught as such.

I understand what you are saying about the wording, that continents are expected. But it would be at odds with drawing an Oresme-like cosmos, unless it is simply to pull in all the various other incarnations thereof, ie to make you look it up and thereby get the history lesson along the way. It could be like a 'further reading' mnemonic.

(09-01-2020, 09:03 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(09-01-2020, 07:33 AM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think you will find they knew where they were better than you think. The Hereford mappa mundi is a map of the ecumene, not of earth, as is the Oresme. It would equate to the habitable section.

Oresme's inverted TO is supposed to show a two sphere system using one flat circle. It is not important though to figure that part out (since it was wrong anyway), it is the depiction of the habitable world that is important..

I have not noted in the text what you have stated. Neither does the text state what I have presented.

Initially I was told by others that the sections represent Air-Earth-Water or Fire-Earth-Water, however you seem to be stating a completely different interpretation much more similar to my own, though not identical.

Having looked at a number of knownT/O maps there appears to be quite a variance in the representation of different regions, which makes me wonder if this is just another form of representation.

If the habitable part is in the North then according to your statements then Oresme must be saying that Africa is in the North as it constitutes part of the habitable world.

It seems what you are postulating is that the T/O map is a kind of extended T/O map.

Sorry i missed this one earlier. Yes i think i am suggesting that you could be right about the continents but that thev43 undulations still act as a mnemonic to pull in the history of thought behind the reconciliations between the elements, the ecumene, and the cosmos.

In the vms, if the 43 undulations are indicative of a reference to the matching Oresme drawing, it seems like there is acceptance of Oresme's postulations, but rejection of Aristotle, by replacing the cosmological spheres outside the air sphere with swirls. As Oresme postulated the earth turning rather than the sky, even though he rejects his own idea,  i think the vms creators accept that the earth turning creates both the sky movement illusion and precession of the equinoxes.

Whether or not the Oresme earth is displayed is another matter, due to the lack of curves drawn in the T part, this hearkens more to the Isadore version, albeit upside down. So it could still mean various things. I was going to say it might have been a factor of the earth turning but it only turns on one axis, through the poles, not topsy turvy. So i am still leaning toward words that reflect the Oresme ideas, but i really don't know. 

One thing that pulls me away from the continents idea is the lack of cultural references, it seems like names of places might not be a part of it, that concepts would be more appropriate somehow than proper names. I try to keep an open mind to it all though, certainly the continents are still a possibility. For all we know it is none of the above, but it does seem to be about Earth.

(09-01-2020, 08:29 PM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Agreed i do not have proof of the wilderness part, it is a function of having understood the right side to be the habitable known world. Still looking since as i say i think it is important we get it right.

Mark you did indeed predict my thoughts on the german version. Also i note the elements map part shows fire below air, i think again this is secular understanding supplanting the Aristolean ordering. Fire is of course known to us on the ground, and invisible heavenly fire is a more difficult concept to visualize especially if it is no longer taught as such.

I understand what you are saying about the wording, that continents are expected. But it would be at odds with drawing an Oresme-like cosmos, unless it is simply to pull in all the various other incarnations thereof, ie to make you look it up and thereby get the history lesson along the way. It could be like a 'further reading' mnemonic.

Thanks for your reply!

Obviously for me, and I daresay you, the point I am trying to get to is one where one can argue what the text in the f68v3 T/O that has the half slice at the point and the Rosettes T/O where the half slice is at the top i.e. the other way round. My inclination, as you know, is to say that in both cases we have an Africa-Europe-Asia T/O map though in the case of the f68v3 the bottom half contains some kind of list of places in Asia.

As, obviously, text identification is of great value in Voynich research, so as to develop some kind of crib and observe textual patterns.

Whether the f68v3 drawing in the Voynich is derived from the Oresme or similar drawing is clearly open to debate. Certainly it has a number of visual similarities, but then it is often the case that people can find many possible visual parallels when conducting Voynich research that may not actually be parallel.

Clearly if the Oresme is the influence why did the author of the Voynich not copy the drawings, but instead write text? Do we have an example of this drawing with text substituted?

It seems that sometimes, from what I can tell, the Africa-Europe-Asia T/O map is taken to represent the whole earth.