The Voynich Ninja

Two days ago I promised to write about this, but I have no enough time for now. Barbara Curtis has already mentioned Rupescissa in a commentary to your blog, so I just will add some thought and a quotation.
From the description to the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. By Leah DeVun:

Quote:In the middle of the fourteenth century, the Franciscan friar John of Rupescissa sent a dramatic warning to his followers: the last days were coming; the apocalypse was near. Deemed insane by the Christian church, Rupescissa had spent more than a decade confined to prisons—in one case wrapped in chains and locked under a staircase—yet ill treatment could not silence the friar's apocalyptic message. Religious figures who preached the end times were hardly rare in the late Middle Ages, but Rupescissa's teachings were unique. He claimed that knowledge of the natural world, and alchemy in particular, could act as a defense against the plagues and wars of the last days. His melding of apocalyptic prophecy and quasi-scientific inquiry gave rise to a new genre of alchemical writing and a novel cosmology of heaven and earth. Most important, the friar's research represented a remarkable convergence between science and religion. In order to understand scientific knowledge today, Leah DeVun asks that we revisit Rupescissa's life and the critical events of his age—the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War, the Avignon Papacy—through his eyes. Rupescissa treated alchemy as medicine (his work was the conceptual forerunner of pharmacology) and represented the emerging technologies and views that sought to combat famine, plague, religious persecution, and war. The advances he pioneered, along with the exciting strides made by his contemporaries, shed critical light on later developments in medicine, pharmacology, and chemistry.

Of course, I don't think that the VMs is a direct inheritance of Rupescissa's work, it seems to gather ideas of Rupescissa, Sacrobosco (De sphaera mundi), Dati (La sfera), Grosseteste (De luce) and someone else, conjoined with personal autor's knowledge about herbs. On my view, cosmological part is absolutely not least in this manuscript.

(24-06-2021, 10:35 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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.

On my view, the bunch of water and light goes from the sun, not the sun - from the ocean, but I see that we won't agree with each other. Maybe we need professional interpretation of it from the angle of explanation of such stylistic devices in the images of the late Middle Ages.

Quote: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?

If depicting a symbolically geographical division, it would be okay. I just bother that this kind of division usually was depicted as usual TO map, not inverted. I don't assert that there is no inverted TO map that means "mappa mundi", but on my observations, inverted TO map usually means division in agreement with the mythological conception: heaven - earth - underworld (as the three spheres) or sky - earth - ocean.
The latter division is formed according to the Genesis 1:26:
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean about the sun, but this is the kind of stuff that needs to be discussed with images. Maybe something for a separate thread about their possible meanings?

About the T-O map, believe it or not but I think you may be right. Does that mean the top right rosette represents the physical world since it has sky, earth and water present?

A very quick and bad illustration:

[attachment=5608]

(26-06-2021, 11:18 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.About the T-O map, believe it or not but I think you may be right. Does that mean the top right rosette represents the physical world since it has sky, earth and water present?

This is a hard question, indeed. I consider a few possibilities :
1. The physical world, as you pointed out. I only have doubts as for the sky. It seems in this conception must by the sky / heaven meaning atmosphere, air, but looking on the two copies of the Vox Clamantis (circa 1400), I think it is a possible variation. 
With air (Glasgow Univ. Lib., MS Hunter 59 (T.2.17) folio 6v):

With starry night sky (source is Hunting Library HM150 folio: f. 13v (aka Ecton-Sotheby manuscript, Macaulay E-text):

2. The part of the Biblical creation myth.
Genesis 1:6-7
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.
Also:
Job 9:8
He alone stretches out the heavens _ and treads on the waves of the sea.
Or Job 26:7-12
7He spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.8He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.9He covers the face of the full moon, spreading his clouds over it.10He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters for a boundary between light and darkness.11The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke.12By his power he churned up the sea; by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces.
The spiral shaped text reminds me of the circular motion of the stars around the north pole (the God's Kingdom), therefore I think of this rosette not only as about the Creature, but also as the North. 
3. The Flood myth with the castle-like ark. 
I'm really not ready to prefer any of these suppositions. All of them seems to be possible, but, of course, it needs a separate thread for interpretations of every rosette.

(26-06-2021, 11:18 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm not sure if I understand what you mean about the sun, but this is the kind of stuff that needs to be discussed with images. Maybe something for a separate thread about their possible meanings?

As for the sun:
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Ah, I see. It is because you think the castle rosette represents North, so necessary the sun must move away from it. So you see the sun facing the horizon as going under, while I see it as rising above. I think both suns are simply facing the direction of movement.

As for the flood myth, being referenced, note that this is compatible with our view of the foldout representing the birth of Ecclesia, when the side wound was pierced. As addressed in the post, this was spoken of in terms of a flooding of the world (in salvation).

(27-06-2021, 10:22 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ah, I see. It is because you think the castle rosette represents North, so necessary the sun must move away from it. So you see the sun facing the horizon as going under, while I see it as rising above. I think both suns are simply facing the direction of movement.

Not really. They were separate observations for the later judgement about them together. I just see the left top sun as heading a precipice, but the right bottom sun - as moving from a precipice, since a precipice is behind the sun (to the left and above), the sun in this case reverts the eyes from a wall, and emanates the light on its way. 
This is how I see it.

(27-06-2021, 10:22 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ah, I see. It is because you think the castle rosette represents North, so necessary the sun must move away from it. So you see the sun facing the horizon as going under, while I see it as rising above. I think both suns are simply facing the direction of movement.

If you haven't already mentioned it, there is a train of thought that argues that the bottom left "clock" is actually a compass pointing north, which is consistent with the top left sun representing east and the bottom right sun representing west.

If the T/O map is of the "Asia", "Europe" and "Africa" kind then that also fits with South being towards the top right corner.

Mark: this is exactly why I think the bottom left represents north. I had not given any thought to the orientation of the T-O map, but I am glad that it would fit.

Do you happen to know if anyone made a good case for the meaning of the "clock" thing? I did once, it must have been several years ago, see parallels for the blobby thing in the middle of the bottom left rosette as the celestial pole, so this would also be consistent.

(27-06-2021, 02:43 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If you haven't already mentioned it, there is a train of thought that argues that the bottom left "clock" is actually a compass pointing north, which is consistent with the top left sun representing east and the bottom right sun representing west.

I read here about  some "clock" as a compass not the first time, but I never saw an example. Maybe, I just missed this. Could you provide an image of any ones?