The Voynich Ninja

If Ovid and constellations can co-exist l see no reason that stylized plants and religious imagery can’t as well.  In fact, l would argue that you would expect there to be layered meanings for all sections of the VM, if just for consistency’s sake.

I thought Hildegard's "thunder" symbol might have been based on serpent heads or ear-dragon heads (the tongue is similar to serpent tongues at the time) but she also drew dog, lion, and wolf heads in a similar way, so it's difficult to know:

Going by the ears, I think lion remains our best bet, together with "roaring thunder" I think it's almost certain.

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Thanks for these additional thoughts.  The symbol is found lots of places!

This from an early 15th century medical commonplace book of an English physician (Harley MS 2558, f13r).

I suspect this is also a flower.  It is the herbal section . . . .


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Not quite the same, but a similar idea:

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Essentially a floral motif, probably adapted to celestial purposes. Note that in the VM, as with the other stars, the interpretation is made extra ambiguous because the starflowers are attached to lines, just like those in marginal decorations.

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(06-01-2021, 10:24 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Essentially a floral motif, probably adapted to celestial purposes. Note that in the VM, as with the other stars, the interpretation is made extra ambiguous because the starflowers are attached to lines, just like those in marginal decorations.

In further confirmation of this, I provide this anecdote.  The University of Utrecht has uploaded all the illustrations only within their manuscript collection into one long file -- link below



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I decided I would go through these pages to see if anything struck me as related to the VM.  I didn't find anything exciting, but I did find some floral motifs at least superficially matching the possible "thunder" symbol, several of which were blue.  This is out of about 750 illustrations.

[attachment=5107][attachment=5109][attachment=5110][attachment=5111][attachment=5113]

Note, because I didn't find anything I wanted to follow up upon, I never determined how one was supposed to track back to the actual original document within their system from the long continuous file of single pages, which is the obvious downside to such a set up.  But maybe the collection is small enough that it isn't hard.  Maybe they want you to spring for this book --

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But to prove it wasn't just a flower-picking exercise, I also found a cool guy with medieval glasses on and a "R" initial with a dragon as the lower front "leg" -- so I attach for fun.[attachment=5108][attachment=5112]

Bottom line, these floral motifs were definitely in common use in multiple manuscripts beyond just the ones that we have discussed in this thread.

(06-07-2020, 03:21 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not exactly the same, but here is a solstice/equinox diagram:



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In Kabbalah, sun symbols are combined with swordlike shapes pointing out or pointing in to create magical sun diagrams (talismans).

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This is more recent (not medieval), but the symbols in the center go back further than the style of the zodiac in the outer ring, so still might be of interest:

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DaVincis Codex Atlanticus

Not sure if this is the right thread. I stumbled upon this image from a Feuerwerkbuch (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) apparently dated 1420-1425. Whatever this is (a cannon?), it seems bizarre. I am unable to read the text.