The Voynich Ninja

So I wanted to talk a bit about my methodology, particularly the questions I have been trying to ask rather than the answers themselves, as well as the theoretical and practical limitations of my approach. However, I realized it would be more sensible to start with my remaining identifications from June along with the results of several fruitful private communications, as these bear directly on the important questions of geographical boundaries and manuscript representations of swallowtail merlons, which may be accurate, conventional or purely symbolic, as I believe they are in the VM. 

As always, the easy pickings come first: 
1. Castel Penede next to the Lago di Garda: 
The castle possesses swallowtail merlons from Period II, phase 1, dated to the 14th century

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There is also a beautiful illustration from the 1615 Codex Enipontanus III., depicting the castle in phase III, with newer merlons:

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2. 14th-century frescoes on the Tempietto longobardo in Cividale del Friuli

3. Fresco of St George in the Duomo di Spilimbergo

All frescoes date back to the 14th century. 
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4. The coat of arms of Venzone on a ceiling panel in the Casa Beltrame, Udine, 1400 ca. - 1449 ca. (46.06307, 13.23587)

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5. The same coat of arms can be found on the Palazzo comunale di Venzone and the Chiesa dei Santi Giacomo e Anna/Gleseute di San Jacum e Anna

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6. Ascoli coat of arms from 1379 and 1382, oriignally on the Porta Torricella, also known as Porta Tornasacco


7. A shield that combines the crests of Ascoli and Fermo was carved onto the Porta Solestà in the year 1450 (MCCCCL in the inscription), a juxtaposition created to seal the peace reached between the two cities with the mediation of San Giacomo della Marca. 

The two crests with Guelph merlons on a red background are from 1230.
There is an entire Wikipedia article dedicated to this coat of arms:
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This is hands down my favorite thread, PDH.

Ghibelline merlons show up in heraldry in several ways: on buildings, on walls, as embattled lines.

See the first example in the second row on both pages.

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Also see the pages in the Overview:
298/299; 402/403; 422/423; 480/481; 584/585;726/727; 778/779; and SKU 852/853

Quote:This is hands down my favorite thread, PDH.

Mine, too
It's a shame Peter & the others aren't working on it anymore. I managed to find one of his frescoes:

Kirche St. Daniel am Kiechelberg, Auer, commissioned in 1444.

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Quote:See the first example in the second row on both pages.

 
Which pages?
Unfortunately, I can't read the cursive in your manuscript. I've just started leafing through the crests in Friuli (see, for instance, D'Artegna on page 6):
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The hard part is finding them painted or carved somewhere before 1450, to make sure the merlons are original. The crest of Venzone had swallowtail merlons in the 14th, 15th and 17th centuries and Guelph merlons in the thirteenth and sixteenth. 

Quote:Ghibelline merlons show up in heraldry in several ways: on buildings, on walls, as embattled lines.

Indeed. Regarding the Ascoli crest, there are as many opinions on what the building represents as there are researchers. For our purposes, it doesn't really matter, since we cannot be sure there were swallowtail merlons in the city in the early fifteenth century. The researcher who claimd it showed the castle admitted it couldn't have been the contemporary building, which was rebuilt in 1349 and depicted with Guelph merlons in 1484:

By 1595, all the towers in the city had acquired roofs, but now we can see that none of them had swallowtail merlons before then:


The same can be said about Venzone: there is no evidence that any bridge had them. I have also discussed delisting Castell'Arquato with Koen and Marco. The building depicted is most likely a heraldic symbol belonging to an immigrant family, rather than a depiction of the castle. I will post my full comments sometime in the near future.

(03-09-2021, 08:39 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.where Ghibelline factions tended to support the Emperor, while the Guelphs supported the Pope and later also the French

The castle in the upper right corner has swallowtail merlons on the Southern/ front facing wall (if you flip it in landscape view), and square merlons on its other/) Western wall. Don't know if it's been mentioned.

(15-07-2026, 05:26 PM)Pierre Dumont Himself Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Do you know when this image of Ascoli was created? Do I understand correctly it is from 1595?
It features a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

The map is taken from Valegio Francesco's "Raccolta Di Le Piu Illustri Et Famose Citta Di Tutto Il Mondo," published in Venice in 1595. 
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This is a volume of "popular" maps that was continuously reprinted in the largest cities of Italy, much like the contemporary maps of Matteo Florimi and Pietro Bertelli, or the later compilations of Merian and Joan Blaeu. The first edition was published in 1579, and was mostly based on maps from one or two decades earlier, in which the sun may have looked different. Cf. this 1629 map by Bertelli, possibly based on the same source. 

Today I will introduce two one-of-a-kind discoveries:

1. "Adoration of the Magi" by Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d’Alemagna in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, 1445-7.

Quote: Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts befand sich das Gemälde in der Sammlung der Familie Zen in Venedig, wo es sich schon immer befunden haben soll. In Angelegenheiten des Konzils 1438/39 hatte ein Vertreter dieser Familie des venezianischen Hochadels, Michele Zen, den vertrauensvollen Posten des päpstlichen Schatzmeisters und war für das Wohl der griechischen Delegation in Venedig zuständig. Andere Mitglieder der Familie Zen waren über mehrere Jahrhunderte für die Interessen Venedigs im Orient tätig. Es ist deshalb nahe liegend, dass ein Vertreter der Familie Zen das Bild in Auftrag gegeben hatte.

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This the first and only privately-commissioned painting I have found that depicts swallowtail merlons. Where should I put it on the map?