29-06-2021, 09:15 PM
I do hope the ms gives some insight! I am interested and will contribute 10. Can anyone read it? Can someone PM me with an email to send an e-transfer to?
I think we all have our working hypotheses about the VMS. I tend to subscribe to the KISS principle, within context, when analyzing it. Medico-pharmaceutical, but also philosophical, manual. 50% herbal? Check. Astrological? Check. Pharmaceutical? Check. Possibly alchemical? Check. Possibly magical in the sense of signatura rerum, talismanic, etc? Check. The doctors, who were often clergy, of the day used all or most of these systems. They are the usual, not the unusual.
But its foundations, particularly the rosettes page and the balneological section, are imo also philosophical. They explain how and why these particular disciplines work together to produce life-prolonging medications, and they are delving into and at times merging the religious with hermetic and other knowledge systems that are based on Aristotle and natural philosophy. And again, this merging of philosophy/religion is not unusual. Both Bacon and Rupe do it to my first-hand knowledge. One could almost say the Franciscan and Dominican orders were established to do exactly this - study the newly found philosophers such as the Greeks and Hermes T to add to the Church's knowledge base. The two mentioned both end up imprisoned, object lessons, so that might be one reason for encryption/encoding.
But one thing that happens is that as new knowledge became incorporated into Catholic knowledge, symbols start multiplying in meaning and it's extremely aggravating to disentangle them, if in fact we should. It's a semiotic nightmare.
A case in point is the mandorla in the top left rosette. I have only called it a mandorla, btw, since yesterday, whe I was researching some things I had read on Koen's post about the wound of Christ.
I have always viewed that mandorla, egg-shaped and amber-coloured, as the Philosopher's Stone. I mean, it looks like the golden egg-shaped PS.
And it surrounds 37 moons in an unending circle. 37 really gave me pause, and we can give it other meanings, but at base it is 36 plus 1 - neverending. That 1 extra is the interval between the end and beginning of time. This meant the Philosopher's Stone in its other sense, and more in Keeping with context - the Elixir of Life.
Moreover, that circle stands sentinel with its closed gate to the image above it. The empty path. In my interpretation, the invisible Prime Mover - God - of Aristotle and Hermes T. And likely the Christian God, too, because these systems of thought were merging.
So now I know that the mandorla shape is also used to portray Jesus's wound, but also, iirc, in religious imagery, the piscia, a portal, a mouth and a vagina. Great article on JStor just called Reception on this.
But all of them, including my Philospher's Stone/Elixir of Life, at some level, mean rebirth into life everlasting. And in the literature of the day, Jesus was written of as if he were the Philosopher's Stone, his blood the quintessence, his soul the anima mundi, etc.
I loved Koen's article. I have to reread it many times. But to me the religious imagery is entangled with the natural philosophy imagery, and I would still place the latter as first overall in the author's intent regardless of which imagery he uses, because the rest of the ms, for now, tells me medico-pharmacology is its primary theme.
I think we all have our working hypotheses about the VMS. I tend to subscribe to the KISS principle, within context, when analyzing it. Medico-pharmaceutical, but also philosophical, manual. 50% herbal? Check. Astrological? Check. Pharmaceutical? Check. Possibly alchemical? Check. Possibly magical in the sense of signatura rerum, talismanic, etc? Check. The doctors, who were often clergy, of the day used all or most of these systems. They are the usual, not the unusual.
But its foundations, particularly the rosettes page and the balneological section, are imo also philosophical. They explain how and why these particular disciplines work together to produce life-prolonging medications, and they are delving into and at times merging the religious with hermetic and other knowledge systems that are based on Aristotle and natural philosophy. And again, this merging of philosophy/religion is not unusual. Both Bacon and Rupe do it to my first-hand knowledge. One could almost say the Franciscan and Dominican orders were established to do exactly this - study the newly found philosophers such as the Greeks and Hermes T to add to the Church's knowledge base. The two mentioned both end up imprisoned, object lessons, so that might be one reason for encryption/encoding.
But one thing that happens is that as new knowledge became incorporated into Catholic knowledge, symbols start multiplying in meaning and it's extremely aggravating to disentangle them, if in fact we should. It's a semiotic nightmare.
A case in point is the mandorla in the top left rosette. I have only called it a mandorla, btw, since yesterday, whe I was researching some things I had read on Koen's post about the wound of Christ.
I have always viewed that mandorla, egg-shaped and amber-coloured, as the Philosopher's Stone. I mean, it looks like the golden egg-shaped PS.
And it surrounds 37 moons in an unending circle. 37 really gave me pause, and we can give it other meanings, but at base it is 36 plus 1 - neverending. That 1 extra is the interval between the end and beginning of time. This meant the Philosopher's Stone in its other sense, and more in Keeping with context - the Elixir of Life.
Moreover, that circle stands sentinel with its closed gate to the image above it. The empty path. In my interpretation, the invisible Prime Mover - God - of Aristotle and Hermes T. And likely the Christian God, too, because these systems of thought were merging.
So now I know that the mandorla shape is also used to portray Jesus's wound, but also, iirc, in religious imagery, the piscia, a portal, a mouth and a vagina. Great article on JStor just called Reception on this.
But all of them, including my Philospher's Stone/Elixir of Life, at some level, mean rebirth into life everlasting. And in the literature of the day, Jesus was written of as if he were the Philosopher's Stone, his blood the quintessence, his soul the anima mundi, etc.
I loved Koen's article. I have to reread it many times. But to me the religious imagery is entangled with the natural philosophy imagery, and I would still place the latter as first overall in the author's intent regardless of which imagery he uses, because the rest of the ms, for now, tells me medico-pharmacology is its primary theme.