The Voynich Ninja

You know, it doesn't really look like a castle.
No keep or Bailey, a huge unprotected entrance, windows al over the walls and a single prominent tower...
With the two side walls, it looks a lot more like a fortified Italian town.

It could certainly be a walled town. I personally just use "castle" as shorthand to refer to the thing. 
We may be running into problems with definitions here though. What is a castle? I remember visiting Prague castle as a teenager and wondering where the castle was.

(17-09-2021, 06:12 AM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
You know, it doesn't really look like a castle.
No keep or Bailey, a huge unprotected entrance, windows al over the walls and a single prominent tower...
With the two side walls, it looks a lot more like a fortified Italian town.

Hi, David, I believe you are right to question if the VM sketch was a picture of a castle. I believe it is a sketch of the Carthusian monastery in Gairach (Jurklošter, Slovenia). I have several reasons to believe that. First, the medieval castles were usually on the hilltops, mostly for defense purposes), and the building in the VM picture seems to be in the middle between two mountains. Also, the central point of the castles was not a church. The chapels in the castles were hardly visible from the outside. The castles also had build-in observation towers, while in the VM picture, the observation towers are on each side, just like on the picture of Gairach.
There is also no way of telling if the VM picture is the sketch of the existing place or a sketch how to rebuild it, in which case the place might not be rebuilt exactly the way it was drawn. Since the place was destroyed several times by the Turkish invasions, the actual building might not look exactly the same, but the two mountains, the church and the two towers are the focal point. The two pictures I am enclosing are from the 17th century, based on the description of the monastery and the way it looked over time.
In the VM, the Carthusian symbol is close to this picture, as well as some free-standing observation towers. According to my reading, the label next to the watchtower reads: osvoor dali - which in Slovenian means 'give warning'.
Another convincing clue is also the fact that in this region of Slovenia, the similar shapes of the Latin letters were used, as is evident from several comparative manuscripts (in Latin, German, and Czeck).

Two points of comparison for consideration:

1) The presence or absence of merlons on the tower itself.
2) The presence or absence of some other structure (roof) on the tower.

While the VMs illustration is not perfectly clear on the first part (Imagine that!), there is an additional structure on the tower. Both of these points are more indicative of a religious intention rather than a military interpretation for the tower. Therefore more like a fortified town, with a church tower, less like a castle.

See, I think we need to take a fresh look at this image.
Here is my proposal, I don't have the time to write it out with more reasoning at the moment so I'm just going to witter on:

I think we're looking at a fortified medieval town, fed by two aqueducts (1 and 2) (the "walls" sweeping either side). You can see that the "walls" are multi-layered, in the fashion of aqueducts. I doubt that the blue line on top indicates water, as it's used elsewhere just to provide perspective. The walls of the town have windows (indicated by || ). They must be high, as they are two stories above the door.

[attachment=5876]

The art reconstruction shows the aqueduct arches of New Anio, crossing the loop of the Juliev aqueduct, directly over the Via Latina road leading from Rome. From "Roman Architecture and Urbanism" (C.U.P.)

I don't think it's a castle, as the two watchtowers that surround the town are outside of the walls and are clearly not part of the fortifications. I don't think they are fortifications; they are part of the aqueducts.

The town has a single, very high (count the number of windows indicating stories above the wall) tower with a conical roof (3), possibly with battlements, although a number of these conical roof towers had overhangs and we could be seeing this. The conical roof is a very strong clue, as most of the medieval Italian towers had flat roofs. There must have been a specific reason for drawing a conical roof, and it could be as simple as the one outside the illustrators home had one, so that was his inspiration! It is drawn in a very different way to the watchtower on the wall (6), which has a very strong pyramidal roof with walk around.

The town has a fortified wall (7) spanning out from its left side, which is guarded by two small castles (4 and 5) and in the middle a watchtower (6). The wall (7) sweeps around the "star of fields".


[attachment=5875]

Is it a real place? I would suggest it isn't. It's an allegory, a town that is protecting whatever the "field of stars" is supposed to represent and through which the traveller must pass to reach it (note the prominent door). That said, it is using real-world elements the illustrator understood, probably from seeing them in daily life (Ghillibini merlons, the aqueducts, the tower). Viewed in this fashion, it has a strong medieval Italian flavour.

But it would be interesting to find a medieval walled town with Ghillibini merlons, a coned tower and two aqueducts.

Of course, if we accept that this has a strong Italian influence, this contradicts other imagery elements such as the Sagittarian crossbowman,
which appears to come from Germany. This could be explained by postulating two illustrators; but I'm rambling now so I'll stop.

How about a city hall, like the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence? This particular example has flat topped merlons on the walls and swallowtails on the tower though. But there are a few arguments in favor of this type of structure. For example, the only additional feature is a tall, slender tower with a spire. Rows of windows. Relatively small, arched entrance. In the VM, it looks like the tower is standing on the far wall, while in the image (from the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) it is on the close wall.

[attachment=5998]

There are some additional structures in the VM, but those are clearly outside of the walls.

Surely that would pass as an adequate source of inspiration - as seen from the church on the hill in the background. Then the tall tower would be turned to the back wall.

[quote="davidjackson" pid='47381' dateline='1632343017'

But it would be interesting to find a medieval walled town with Ghillibini merlons, a coned tower and two aqueducts.

[/quote] 

What about any aqueducts?

Lovely find, Koen!
Have you come across any aqueducts in Florence at the time?

(03-11-2021, 06:55 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What about any aqueducts?

Yup!