The Voynich Ninja

(04-09-2021, 05:34 PM)nickpelling Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What I think is that the position some people like to take that the swallowtail merlons are just arbitrary or meaningless is rather less tenable than they believe.

To be honest I'm still open to all options. We have seen generic use of swallowtail merlons in manuscript art, so it is possible that the VM used them like that as well: they wanted to draw a wall with merlons, and decided to use those pretty swallowtail ones. If this is the case, the only possible takeaway is that they were familiar with the architectural form - which does not take us very far.

However, I would also consider options where the merlons provide more crucial information about the VM in general or the meaning of the rosettes foldout specifically. This information could be about a specific location (though, as Linda remarks, merlons are often anachronistic so this is hard to research). But it could also be about a certain intention: what did they try to communicate by using this form which is, after all, a political symbol.

For a modern day equivalent, let's say you draw a building, any building. And then draw an American flag on it. With this addition, the meaning of the building has changed. But what that meaning is depends on author, time, place, audience. 

Now, if the VM was made in the early 15th century and meant to communicate the meaning of the merlons at that time, then what could this be? Apart from "this is what stuff looks like where I live"

Given that the two (the castle and the wall) are placed in altogether different portions of the chart, I think these are just merlons casual to the artist - the merlons that he's been accustomed to. So when he has to depict merlons, his first and natural choice is swallowtail.

One important point would be to find out exactly when swallowtail merlons were first built. I have found very different information about this. If the first swallowtail merlons were built at the beginning of the 15th century, then their meaning in the VMS could simply be: "Look, there is now something new in castle building."

I assumed they originated before the 15th century since they were named ater the Ghibellines, but I could be wrong. As said, castle restorations really mess up the chronology. Many castles and similar buildings were restored in the age of Romanticism, and if there is one thing they loved it was embellishing battlements. Therefore, any castle with swallowtail merlons today is unreliable unless there is some kind of proof that it already possessed swallowtail merlons in the 15th century.

Therefore, manuscript art (and other art forms) may be more reliable to get a feeling for the prevalence of the architectural form. In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Rene compares walls in various copies of the Tractatus de Herbis. The clear swallowtail shape only shows up in the early 15th century copy.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. mentions the Tacuinum Sanitatis (Codex Vindobonensis, series nova 2644, fol. 104v), c. 1370-1400:



From these examples, one would believe the "new style"-hypothesis is worth considering. However, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. found this image drawing by Galvano Fiamma (in the 1330s) of a view of Milan:



This means that, as the nickname "Ghibelline" suggests, the swallowtail shape would have been a well-established style by the time the VM drawing was made.

Apparently I posted to the same thread this image: "Attack of the Crusaders on Constantinople, miniature in a manuscript of 9 La Conquête de Constantinople by Geoffreoy de Villehardouin, Venetian ms. circa 1330; Bodleian MS. Laud Misc. 587 fol. 1r."



So they are depicted at least from the early 14th century and almost always by Italian artists (but also in German speaking areas in Tyrol etc.). The location of the subject (castle) varies from portraits of existing buildings to imagined constructs in faraway places.

From the history book.
p. 24: despite their usefulness, only within certain cultural areas.
within certain cultural areas: The swallow-tail pinnacle (Fig. 2) is unknown in the
in the German-speaking part of Switzerland.88 Maschikuli are also found only in the southern
only in the southern valleys of the Alps and in the Savoyard area of influence.89
89 Also the high, quite narrow, at the lower end broadened
- 22 -
arched embrasure is found on Swiss soil only at castles in the Welschland region.90
90 The massive gate tower with a vaulted passageway, as it was still
Western Europe before 1100, can only be found in a few isolated cases in Switzerland.
Switzerland only very sporadically.91 For the shield wall, built in the course of the
from older predecessors in the course of the 13th century, there are only
only from the German-speaking and Rhaeto-Romanic regions.92 Traverses
examples exist.92 Traverses, i.e., barrier walls that prevent access over a rocky
rocky slopes, are naturally only found in the mountainous zones.93
mountainous zones.93
For the generally common achievements of high medieval
European fortified architecture, for the embrasures and observation embrasures, for the
flanking towers with a square or round ground plan, for the battlements with a battlement
battlements or battlement slabs, for the gate fortifications with kennels,
intermediate ditches and wolf pits and, of course, for the projecting defensive elements
the projecting defensive elements, the gusserker and arcades, must be
from all over Switzerland.94 Of course, the sparse and only selective use of this architectural
and only selective use of this architectural arsenal cannot be overlooked.
which can certainly be traced back to the character of our castle landscapes
which in all parts of the country is characterized by small castles with limited architectural
limited possibilities for architectural development.
Since castle building began to stagnate in the 14th century in the whole of Switzerland and the
stagnate and the great death of the castles begins, the fortification innovations of the
the fortification innovations of the late Middle Ages, the fortification responses to the changes in warfare, in particular to the emergence of firearms.
to the emergence of firearms, were reflected in structural measures only to a limited extent and
in structural measures. Most of the changes
were concentrated on the erection of fortifications with advanced outer gates, which were
gates, which would provide the momentum for a storm attack.

Translated with You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (free version)

[Anlage=5794] Fresko 1340

(03-09-2021, 08:39 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There are broadly two ways we have generally tried to explain the presence of swallowtail merlons on the Rosettes foldout:

1) Generic architecture: the artist wanted to draw a crenelated wall and a castle, and in his mind this was what they looked like. We have seen examples of this in various manuscripts: swallowtail merlons on an anonymous wall in a manuscript about siege weapons, or in a country where we know they historically did not occur. The artist just drew crenelations like this, and no additional meaning is intended. 

2) Specific architecture: this is what people think of when they look for possible candidates to identify the castle: the image is a "portrait" of a building that existed in the 15th century. Maybe the artist wanted to draw his city, or one he knew.

These are usually discussed in neutral terms, i.e. "this is what the building looks like". However, we also know that the so-called Ghibelline merlons were once a powerful political signal, and their appearance would have been far from neutral. Is it possible that some additional meaning was still meant in the 15th century? Since these merlons are some of the only connections we have between the VM and the real world, it might be worthwhile to investigate the possible extent of their meaning. I don't know much about this, so I'll start from the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:



"The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in the Italian city-states of central and northern Italy... During the 12th and 13th centuries, rivalry between these two parties formed a particularly important aspect of the internal politics of medieval Italy."

What remained of this division in the 15th century? There is not much on the wiki, but it is clear that the division was still somewhat relevant. For example as late as ca. 1447-1450 thier rivalry dominated politics in Milan. And ideological differences remained, where Ghibelline factions tended to support the Emperor, while the Guelphs supported the Pope and later also the French. 

However, by the very end of the 15th century, the division had become obsolete.

Milan was a centre of Ghibelline and Guelphs fractions and part of Slovenia was involved in that dispute. As Koper fell under the Republic of Venice, the Preatorian Palace was built in the 15th century with the Swallow tale merlons. I do not believe the VM is related to Koper, although I believe it was created in Slovenia.

[Anlage=5797] 

The battlements are much older than the conflict between the emperor and the pope.
But the conflict was not only an Italian problem. While the German nobility in northern Italy tended to support the emperor, the Italian-speaking were more in favour of the pope.
As can be seen in the coats of arms, some also included the battlements in their coats of arms out of sympathy.

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Interesting political use of the battlements. Do you know if they already had them before the 16th century? The wiki says: 
1563: Shield divided diagonally, above red, below a golden wall with pointed (Welschen) battlements. 

Welsche Zinnen und andere.
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