The Voynich Ninja

(23-06-2021, 02:46 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On the lack of Christian imagery, I'm not sure if it is that exceptional. Again, bestiaries are Christian works, but they don't show it in their images (I know overtly Christian images can be added to bestiaries, but the series of beasts appears as an encyclopedia). Similarly, if I showed you just the images of an Ovide Moralisé and told you "this is a deeply Christian work", you would probably call me crazy.

I'm not a master of well expressed thought, but I'll try to explain my point of view.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Imagine that the Voynich manuscript contains drawings of many unknown and strange animals instead of plants; a section containing signs of the zodiac; a section without drawings and a section with people (or nymphs) in ponds. The text is enciphered and you don't know what might unite these parts. Is it a compendium of different essays or a coherent treatise looking at different sides of the same concept? The animals in it are unrecognizable, so all you can do is compare animals and people to determine the style of the drawings to more or less identify the geographical origin of the manuscript. Suppose you determine that the drawings are more like of European style, but ... you can't tell if the manuscript was written by a Christian or a Jew if there are no obvious religious signs in it. That is, anything that happens to look somehow similar to a religious object could be taken as evidence of involvement with that religion. Again, you yourself realize that the mentioned almond-shaped object can have three different interpretations.
In the Voynich manuscript, there is only one sign that speaks in favor of the Christian context: the cross in the hand of the nymph in f79v. This same detail also makes one wonder if the author could be a Jew and to depict the cross? Probably not. Nevertheless, this detail seems insufficient to count on a strong religious context. So, it is, but is likely not the main.
Visually we can relate, and it is obvious to all, the herbal section and the pharma section. But what is probably not so obvious is the connection of the astrological section with the "balneological" section. Exactly nymphs and liquids unite them. The nymphs have literally unhurriedly moved from the circles of the zodiac to the section with the ponds. The zodiacal diagrams themselves contain allusions to liquids (barrels, a pond). At the same time, the cosmological part has some connection with the Rosette page, some cosmological diagrams are even visually similar to some rosettes, as well the Rosette page is preceded by two "lunar" diagrams. 

Quote:There is a difference between such works and the VM, which is that beasts and ancient tales are lifted up by imposing Christian meaning on them, while the field of medicine is already respectable to begin with. So I can imagine that the VM is about how much these two fields are alike. Still, even Baresch still called medicine subordinate to the salvation of souls, so despite my intuition it may still be the case that the VM tries to elevate medicine by linking it to Christian morale, just like the bestiary tries to elevate beasts' imagined behavior to a reflection of God's plan.

Well, not necessarily christian.

Aristotle wrote: “All natural bodies are organs of the soul” (De anima. II.2.413b25-30)

In XIII century the widely known work on this question was Avicenna’s Sextus de Naturalibus (De anima). “In this scientific treatise on the nature and operation of the soul, Avicenna makes the argument that matter is by its nature obedient to the soul. It was clear that the soul affected the material body of its possessor, for example in matters of sickness and health; but beyond this, Avicenna says, the soul may operate in the body of another just as in its own, and this is the explanation for the evil eye. Further, the noble soul which is able to transcend the desires of the body can perform such acts as curing the sick, changing the nature of elements, and causing rain and fertility to occur; “for matter,” he says, “is entirely obedient to the soul, and obeys it much more fully than material things acting against it.”

“The connection between language and the soul is made explicitly by [Roger] Bacon and frequently reiterated; he calls words the first and most important business of the rational soul (opus praecipuum, or principium, or primum),and asserts that “just as stars and all things project their forces and species onto things outside themselves,the rational soul, which is the most active substance of all after God and the angels, can and does continually project its species and force onto the body, of which it is the motive power, and onto things outside the body. And therefore, such works and words as those of which I speak receive power not only from the stars, but from the rational soul. “” (Taken from here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Claire Fanger)

Quote:The question remains why the VM is so extreme in obscuring Christian symbolism. Not only does it lack any sign of devotion, it hardly seems to acknowledge the existence of medieval Europe's dominant culture. So is this not a question for everyone, not matter what their theory is? There are three categories of answers I can think of:
...
2) The manuscript is "foreign" and thus unaware of or indifferent towards the dominant culture in Europe. I used to be convinced of this, but I have found it increasingly hard to defend. On the one hand, there are indications of awareness of the dominant culture (Zodiac figures etc) and on the other hand, perhaps especially, there are no strong indications of another culture. The MS seems to dodge cultural giveaways rather than adopt a certain set
...

I think it is not so hard. I see it as not foreign, but as heretical for that time. There were people who tried to unite, for example, magic and religion as two legal parts, arguing that they don't contradict each other. For example, they could find evidence in the Bible that Jesus Christ himself was a magician. But this is just an example that came to my mind right now. So much for hiding the contents of the manuscript.
There were also movements that, by studying the Bible, texts of Ancient Greece and the East, tried to find a universal religion and universal knowledge, so that in one teaching one could learn about the structure of the universe, heal the body and the soul at the same time. This is something closer to Gnosticism and Hermeticism. But about this, I'll write more detailed tomorrow.

The VMs *appears* "foreign", but it is fakey "foreign". It is pseudo-exotic. It appears to come from an unknown culture, something that would have seemed plausible in the 1400s, but cannot be reasonably substantiated in modern investigation. The artist has created a bizarre, imaginary situation in which disguised versions and altered representations of various historical, cultural, traditional, and religious 'realities' have been have been subtly sequestered - hidden like Easter eggs in a video game. There is a growing set of references to valid, medieval data, contained within and obscured by an intentionally false façade

One cannot find Oresme's cosmos (BNF Fr. 565) in the VMs, if one does not know the details of Oresme's cosmos. Likewise with Melusine and the Fieschi popes and elsewhere. The way in which these disguised representations of historical 'facts' are hidden in these otherwise imaginary illustrations shows that there is an intentionally created puzzle of recognition and recovery in store for the modern investigator hoping to make sense of the VMs illustrations.

Seacher:

Right, so we agree that works exist which appear to be about something else, but are actually Christian. This means the VM could be one such work. We believe it is overtly about the health of the body, while it is actually concerned with the well-being of the soul. We also believe that enough indications of this intentional ambiguity are present in the imagery, which is what the post is all about.

What I realized while researching was the following: if you know about medieval iconography and look at the VM from a distance, you will conclude that it is a medical compendium. But if you zoom in on the details, you notice that there are tons of problems. Most interpretations seem to dwell on the extremes of these observations. Experts will often carefully remark that it looks like a medical compendium (going as far back as Baresch) or at the very least a compendium of knowledge with a large medical component. But people who are driven to explain the details of the images tend to look for symbolical explanations, because they realize that it's hard to explain the images literally.

I think in order to understand the imagery completely, one needs to take these two perspectives into account. The overall appearance of a medical compendium needs to be addressed, but the deviations from the traditional images must be explained as well. Therefore, I believe "moralized medicine" is an elegant solution.

The point of disagreement is not "can this be symbolical", because we both believe it is. Rather, the question is: what does it symbolize? Since this step involves a certain degree of interpretation, it is obviously not possible to convince everyone.

(24-06-2021, 08:30 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Seacher:
The point of disagreement is not "can this be symbolical", because we both believe it is. Rather, the question is: what does it symbolize? Since this step involves a certain degree of interpretation, it is obviously not possible to convince everyone.

Oh, yes. For example, I disagree with your interpretation of the Rosettes "map" orientation. How will you explain that the right bottom sun (your West) is depicted along with the bunch of water and light, probably, while the left upper sun (your East) stands before a wall or a precipice? 
Obviously, the central rosette shows the orientation of the whole scheme, its top and bottom, but the orientation of the right top rosette is another - directed from the top to bottom, i. e., upsidedown in relation to the whole scheme, the same as the T/O map above it.  It is proven by the direction of the inscriptions, first of all. Also I think that the author uses the same style of the so-called T/O map (inverted) in all places of the MS, including the Ros, and it is also can proven with the direction of the inscriptions in it and in the nearest rosette. What do you think about this? Can the T/O map on the Ros be depicted in another way or mean something different from the rest? As I pointed out somehow, I think it is depicted in that direction and sequence as if it leads the way from something to something, as it was sometimes depicted on ancient and medieval plans or maps.

The sun was believed to rise from and set in the ocean, so water and light would be more than appropriate for both the sun's first rays and its last. If the pattern is the Ocean's waves, then your rising sun is about to plunge face first into the water. I find these patterns difficult to interpret though, also because of the fading around the edges. But if they represent water and light, then I don't see any problem. I don't think the rising sun facing one of the cliffs is a problem: we can imagine it moving and climbing towards top right (my south) so it will rise above the cliffs and appear on the horizon. Again though, I would not include these faded and unclear items into the core of my interpretation, but rising over the horizon vs moving towards the waves seems appropriate behavior for the rising and setting sun respectively.

Regarding the T-O map, I am inclined to stick with what Rene wrote in another thread and see it as a symbol of the world - it might just be that. Maybe its orientation matters, but I don't know enough about T-O maps (and the way the VM uses them) to say if we can confidently use its orientation in any way. Isn't the big part on top supposed to be Asia, i.e. Orient, which would be okay with my interpretation?

(23-06-2021, 02:46 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On the lack of Christian imagery, I'm not sure if it is that exceptional. Again, bestiaries are Christian works, but they don't show it in their images (I know overtly Christian images can be added to bestiaries, but the series of beasts appears as an encyclopedia). Similarly, if I showed you just the images of an Ovide Moralisé and told you "this is a deeply Christian work", you would probably call me crazy.

...

The question remains why the VM is so extreme in obscuring Christian symbolism. Not only does it lack any sign of devotion, it hardly seems to acknowledge the existence of medieval Europe's dominant culture. So is this not a question for everyone, not matter what their theory is? There are three categories of answers I can think of:

1) The nymphs are people of flesh and blood doing real, practical things related to a trade. (See Livre de Chasse, books about warfare, or those books of trades). In my opinion, this is impossible to defend given the symbolic appearance of the figures.
2) The manuscript is "foreign" and thus unaware of or indifferent towards the dominant culture in Europe. I used to be convinced of this, but I have found it increasingly hard to defend. On the one hand, there are indications of awareness of the dominant culture (Zodiac figures etc) and on the other hand, perhaps especially, there are no strong indications of another culture. The MS seems to dodge cultural giveaways rather than adopt a certain set.
3) This is what I believe now: the absence of overt Christian symbols is intentional, it's part of the game. We are, after all, dealing with a cipher manuscript, so there may have been some intellectual satisfaction derived from the act of obscuring. If you want to create a visual metaphor of "the cleansing and salvation of the body" for "the cleansing and salvation of the soul", then I can imaging this metaphor is extra successful if it uses only imagery from the field of medicine.

Hi Koen,
as a premise, I will say that I believe that (almost) everything is possible, heretics included.

It seems to me that asking why Christian symbolism is obscured implies a speculative interpretation (obscuration) that limits the possible answers. Moreover, a Christian cross prominently appears You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and this by itself shows that here we are not dealing with the extreme obscuration of Christian elements.
In my opinion, discussing the limited presence of Christian symbols would be more compatible with neutral observations.

About your point (2) and the idea that "there are no strong indications of another culture", I wonder what you would take as "strong indication"? Some of the VMS features that could possibly hint to non-European content are:

• the weird plants that some people (yourself included?) thought could be "exotic" (this is also discussed in Touwaide 2015)
  
• the peculiar prominence of the tent motif You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• the unique pharmacy jars in the "pharma" / small-plants section
  
• the possible depiction of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in f68r1/r2
  

While I agree that there is nothing "strong" in this list, I wonder if we should expect something different.
I think we can all agree that the author(s) of the Voynich manuscript were probably European: the style of the illustrations and costumes, the layout of the manuscript and the script are all European. So one can ask himself, which indicators of a foreign origin do we find in non-European works when they are re-created by Europeans?
This can be seen in translations of Islamic works like:

• Alfonso's Astromagia You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Castile, XIII Century
  
• Tacuinum Sanitatis: e.g. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Germany, 1400-1425
  
• Fendulus, "Liber Astrologiae", You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Sicily, XIII Century
  
• Picatrix Latinus, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Prague, 1450-1475
  

In my opinion, what the illustrations in these texts share is:

1. very little or no Christian symbolism
   
2. "weird" themes that cannot easily be interpreted in the context of European traditions (but not in the Tacuinum)
   

These two "indicators" are also shared by the VMS.

Fendulus features You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. But camels and ostriches also appear in European bestiaries, so do they count as "strong indication"?

All considered, I don't believe that an European "style" and lack of strong indication of a foreign culture are enough to exclude the idea that the contents of the manuscript are of a non-European origin.

I completely agree, Marco, probably I expressed myself poorly. If one accepts that medical, or more generally "scientific" imagery has influenced the VM (which I do now), then it is almost impossible to argue that the content does not contain any foreign influences. And more generally, "foreign" is such a difficult term. For example I think several (imported) Byzantine manuscripts were probably used as a source. This would also count as "foreign" as opposed to a strictly central European setting, but still it is perfectly normal in 15th century Italy.

What I meant to say is that if one argues that the MS was actually made by [insert non-Christian-European culture of choice here], then we would expect to see the stylistic marks of its makers more clearly. For example, if someone claims the MS was made in America, okay, then are we talking pre-Hispanic culture, colonial era Spanish culture or some mixture of both? There are no stylistic indications for any of this. The same can be said about Jewish or Arab makers. 

But of course I agree that source material is a different question.

(24-06-2021, 10:35 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Regarding the T-O map, I am inclined to stick with what Rene wrote in another thread and see it as a symbol of the world - it might just be that. Maybe its orientation matters, but I don't know enough about T-O maps (and the way the VM uses them) to say if we can confidently use its orientation in any way. Isn't the big part on top supposed to be Asia, i.e. Orient, which would be okay with my interpretation?

I thought Rene was arguing that the top right rosette represented the world not the top right T/O  map. I think the top right T/O maps represents the world, but I don't think that was what Rene has argued, although I may have misremembered.

(25-06-2021, 02:11 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I thought Rene was arguing that the top right rosette represented the world not the top right T/O  map. I think the top right T/O maps represents the world, but I don't think that was what Rene has argued, although I may have misremembered.

Hmm, I was paraphrasing from memory, let me look it up. 
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Quote:The upper right circle I believe represents the Earth. Most of the buildings are in or near this circle, and just outside it is a T-O map. There is more to be said, but let me keep it short.

When I read this, I see the second sentence as a clarification of the first: the T-O map is one of the indications. But it is up for interpretation. Maybe Rene will want to weigh in if he reads this 

Barbara Curtis made a very interesting comment on the blog. She presents a connection between alchemy and Christian allegory. Johannes de Rupescissa (Jean de Roquetaillade) is a notable figure here who made this connection.

Quote:....
You derive quintessence, the Fifth Element, pure alcohol, from distilling wine into pure alcohol. And pure alcohol is the closest thing to be found on earth to aether, which is what all the immortals and the celestial spheres are made of. It comes to be interchangeable with it for some alchemists.

Roquitaillade compared it to Christ’s blood and uses metaphors of Christ’s blood and the Eucharist to bring home his alchemical points about this fifth element, quintessence, aether, spirit.
....