The Voynich Ninja

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Pierre Dumont Himself Wrote:....

This is a good find. It would point to a potential connection to the Most Serene Republic of Venice if it is not from the Duchy of Milan.

(29-07-2026, 12:34 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Pierre Dumont Himself Wrote:If you find swallowtail merlons somewhere, please post them on the main thread as well. I can't keep up with all the different threads.

Here, swallowtail merlons are depicted in BL, Sloane MS 4016, 1440, folio 108v
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Looks like we already have it. It’s listed as having been written in Lombardy.

Quote: This is a good find. It would point to a potential connection to the Most Serene Republic of Venice if it is not from the Duchy of Milan.

Or elsewhere in the Adriatic.
Please edit your post so that the quotation doesn't include any pictures.

(29-07-2026, 02:42 PM)Pierre Dumont Himself Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Looks like we already have it.

OK, sorry. However, we could still add the illustration from ms.MaS 116 (found by @DG97EEB).

I don't know off the top of my head what the other "Tractatus de herbis" manuscripts look like. Maybe we'll find something there, too.

(29-07-2026, 02:53 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(29-07-2026, 02:42 PM)Pierre Dumont Himself Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Looks like we already have it.

OK, sorry. However, we could still add the illustration from ms.MaS 116 (found by @DG97EEB).

Apparently, we have that one too. This is why I've always linked the forum posts since I got editing privileges. I promised myself I'd do the same with the older finds.

Thank you once again for taking over the editing, Pierre. I'm mostly focused on Eggy's colossal undertaking with the Zodiac images, and find it hard to split my focus. And you're doing a much more thorough job with it.

With what you have learned, how do you see the role of the relevant branches of the Anjou? We encountered them in Sicily (somewhat uncertain attestations), and now, again in the periphery, in Croatia.

Quote:Well found! That's a small detail in such a busy scene. There are a few other overlaps with the Rosettes as well, like the mandorla shape and the rose window framework.

It's not so difficult once you know what to look for. Multiple churches in the Piemonte feature vault frescoes depicting angels and/or the Four Evangelists, some of which also include merlons. However, this is the first example I've found in which the merlons are specifically swallowtail.

Quote:With what you have learned, how do you see the role of the relevant branches of the Anjou? We encountered them in Sicily (somewhat uncertain attestations), and now, again in the periphery, in Croatia.

The small shields on top of the oldest crest, which were later scrubbed off by the Venetians, may have belonged to the Šubić princes rather than the Anjou. Until the early 15th century, the centers of power of the Croatian princes were mostly in Dalmatia rather than the interior, while the Hungarian King ruled from far away. I have found very few examples of merlons of any kind in collections of Croatian and Bosnian miniatures or in fortifications of the Dalmatian interior. All evidence in the East comes from Venice, Istria and the Italian-linked cities on the coast, including the de facto independent entities of Gorizia, Trieste and Ragusa (there is no evidence so far from Slovenia and only a few attestations from pre-earthquake Friuli, all postdating the Venetian annexation). In the early 15th century, when frescoes became common in Italian churches, Dalmatians preferred sculpture and other forms of stonework. The articles I linked mention that carved Angevin crests were relatively common, but I haven't seen any other evidence of English, French or Hungarian art in Dalmatia. Maybe there is something in the Hungarian archives, but there are certainly no buildings with swallowtail merlons in Continental Hungary. In Medieval Serbia, the artistic influences were predominantly Byzantine: St George is usually depicted standing, pinning the dragon to the ground with a spear, and with no castle in the background, while the walls of the early 15th-century capital at Smederevo were inspired by the walls of Constantinople.

Sicily had no Angevin presence outside of the 1298-1302 invasion. The island was ruled by the same Aragonese who seemingly avoided swallowtail merlons on the mainland (albeit by a different dynasty until 1412). The Torri di Varano were built under the Angevins of Naples, but it remains to be seen if we can find any other examples. Unfortunately, there is no depiction of Naples until decades after the Aragonese conquest, when the castle and the walls had been rebuilt.

In France, the 14th century seal of Bayonne, and the castles on Aquitanian coins do NOT have swallowtail merlons. This kind of stock image is known as the "Châtel aquitanique", and it has two-pronged (bident) merlons.

Serena Sozzi. La monnaie en Aquitaine XIIIe-XVe siècles. Histoire. Université de Bretagne occidentale - Brest,
2021. Français. ⟨NNT : 2021BRES0046⟩. ⟨tel-04920136⟩
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I had another look at Ed's second manuscript on page 42, the BNF lat. 9333, and the other manuscripts of the Tacuinum sanitatis that were illustrated before 1450.
0. The ÖNB, Cod. Ser. N. 2644 Han is already on the map. It was made in Lombardy in 1390-1400. The crest of George I of Liechtenstein, Bishop of Trento (1360-1419) appears on folio 1v, indicating that it entered his library soon after its production.
1. BNF lat. 9333:
Researchers disagree on the place and date of composition, but most of them cite a date between 1445 and 1450 and a location either on the Upper Rhine or in nearby Schwaben down to the Bodensee, through the artistic exchange with the Upper Rhine:

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O. Pächt, qui le premier a consacré un article au ms. Latin 9333, a proposé de lui reconnaître pour modèle un Tacuinum italien du trecento, probablement réalisé pour la famille Cerruti de Vérone et passé dans les collections de Georg von Liechtenstein, évêque de Trente, puis de Frédéric IV d’Autriche, comte de Tyrol (Vienne, ÖNB, Cod. Ser. n. 2644) (O. Pächt, « Eine Wiedergefundene Tacuinum-Sanitatis-Handschrift », Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 3-4 (1952/1953), p. 172-180). Les deux exemplaires présentent en effet un même programme iconographique et des compositions similaires, à l’exception de quelques inversions, de variantes orthographiques et de l’omission du texte relatif aux bougies dans celui de Paris (f. 92v). Pour Pächt, il était néanmoins exclu d’attribuer le ms. Latin 9333 à un artiste italien, le style des peintures se rapprochant d’œuvres des années 1430-1440 enluminées dans le Rhin supérieur. D’après lui, les armoiries placées en tête du volume tendaient du reste à confirmer cette datation et cette localisation, malgré des liens stylistiques notables entre les miniatures et la production du Maître du Hausbuch, graveur actif dans le Rhin moyen une trentaine d'années plus tard, vers 1470/1490.

Le décor a depuis donné lieu à d’autres propositions, dont E. König a dressé la synthèse dans son commentaire introductif au fac-similé du manuscrit (Tacuinum sanitatis, 2009). Il y voit l’intervention de deux peintres, un maître responsable de l’ensemble et un collaborateur plus jeune. Le premier aurait peint l’image liminaire (f. 1), les miniatures à partir du f. 69, ainsi que quelques corrections, dans un style caractérisé par des figures plutôt massives et une habileté particulière à rendre les matières (bois et tissus au f. 1, reflets de l’eau dans la fontaine au f. 86v, neige poudreuse au f. 87). Selon E. König, l’exemplaire de la BnF ne serait pas une copie directe de celui de Vienne, mais tous deux dériveraient d’un même manuscrit lombard ou véronais, ce qui expliquerait certaines différences matérielles ou certaines lacunes (op. cit., 86-89). Pour autant, il reconnait que la localisation et la datation précises du ms. Latin 9333 restent une entreprise délicate, les avis des spécialistes divergeant sur ce point (op. cit., 109-111). M.-Th. Gousset a ainsi proposé la Rhénanie du 3e quart du XVe s. et B. Konrad la région du lac de Constance vers 1434-1450 (Buchmalerei im Bodenseeraum 13. bis 16. Jahrhundert, E. Moser (éd.), 1997, p. 125, 270). F. Koreny pencherait pour une exécution vers 1460-1470, mais S. Kemperdick, s’appuyant sur les échanges constatés entre la Souabe et le Rhin supérieur vers 1430, la situerait plutôt à ce moment-là, en Souabe. E. König en conclut qu’il s’agit certainement d’une œuvre de transition exécutée peu avant 1450 en Souabe, dont une part de la production est liée à la dynastie wurtembergeoise. On observe dans les personnages féminins du Tacuinum des réminiscences de deux œuvres souabes majeures des années 1430 : le Retable de la Madeleine de Lucas Moser, en l’église paroissiale de Tiefenbronn, et le Jeu de Cartes de Stuttgart (Stuttgart, Württenbergisches Landesmuseum, Inv. Nr. KK 15-63). Cependant, les qualités graphiques du manuscrit, en particulier certaines figures modelées de hachures évoquant la gravure sur cuivre (ex. f. 73v, 81v-82, 83v, 93v),

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[Image: 1000]

2. A second manuscript of the Tacuinum sanitatis is the BNF NAL 1673, produced in Pavia or Milano for the Visconti at the end of the 14th century.
[Image: default.jpg]

This manuscript is particularly interesting for two reasons. On the one hand, it features a snowball scene that might have inspired the well-known fresco on the Castello di Buonconsiglio in Trento, which would be just another example of Visconti's miniaturists flipping the script on Italian Late Gothic painting in all media. The article argues that this circle of artists were the first to paint the plants of a herbarium within scenes of daily life. The castle fresco, made around the year 1400, thus demonstrates the remarkable speed and breadth of the development of Gothic art in this period. We should bear this in mind when we call the Voynich imagery "strange" or "unique". On the other hand, the manuscript contains Old Czech annotations from the first half of the 15th century, which implies that it was held in Bohemia at the time. A slightly later inscription attests that the BNF NAL 1673 was originally in the possession of Viridis Visconti, who married into the Habsburg family.
Milada Studničková (Praha) - PAŘÍŽSKÝ RUKOPIS TACUINUM SANITATIS (BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE, SIGN. MS NOUV. ACQ. LAT. 1673) A ČESKÉ ZEMĚ* (2022).
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3. Bibliothèque de l'Université de Liège, Ms. 1041; 1380-1400 is another copy of this work illustrated by the Visconti circle. It remained in the Visconti, and later the Sforza family until the 16th century.
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[Image: 2026-07-29-22h21-57.png]

4. Biblioteca Casanatense, Ms. 4182; 1390-1400, another Visconti copy. Its early ownership is uclear.
[Image: 45-aspetti_di_vita_quotidiana%2C_stagion...o_Sani.jpg]

[Image: 45-aspetti_di_vita_quotidiana%2C_stagion...o_Sani.jpg]

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Perhaps, a small contribution?

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Isn't that the one I posted?

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