It is my opinion that the rosettes "map" was created for a specific purpose of the author(s) to illustrate a specific journey that he/she/they took.
Often an argument is presented that it cannot be a map as we have not seen a map of that particular kind from that period. However on that basis of argument the Voynich manuscript cannot exist as we have not seen another manuscript like it. Maps varied quite a lot at that time especially in Northern Italy, so a distinctive map like the Voynich Rosettes is not so unusual. If the Voynich is a unique and distinctive document it seems perfectly reasonable for the "map" to be unique and distinctive.
Why bother to encipher a manuscript that was just a copy of another preexisting unenciphered manuscript? Surely one would expect it to have some original and unique content. On this basis it seems odd to expect the rosettes folio to be a copy of another document rather than an original work.
It certainly has map-like elements, and it very likely is a novel creation. That does not mean that we must ignore art history and let our imagination run free.
Just a personal impression, it seems to me that everybody has their own ideas about the Rosettes page, even people who usually try to avoid peculating. And for those who like to speculate, it is often the linchpin of their theory. If you hope to convince people of your views, this (and by extension Q13) is probably the hardest place to do so.
Lots of variation in the way that water was depicted.
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Also, there is a circular cloud band in the central rosette. Does it represent a cosmic boundary?
(19-11-2024, 06:59 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Lots of variation in the way that water was depicted.
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Also, there is a circular cloud band in the central rosette. Does it represent a cosmic boundary?
Although, none of those are maps as far as I can tell. I think it better to look at how water was depicted on maps.
I will probably produce an image highlighting only the bodies of water on the Rosettes folio as I see them.
(19-11-2024, 03:27 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That does not mean that we must ignore art history and let our imagination run free.
How do feel that I am ignoring art history? I have obviously used a lot of imagination/thought in my own analysis of the page, which I don't see as problematic. I like to think that I have applied my imagination within a logical framework. I hope to elaborate the steps that I went through in constructing the theory step by step. I started from Nick Pelling's identifications and despite my initial considerable doubts found them very plausible, although I certainly came over time to disagree with him regarding the Central Rosette.
(19-11-2024, 03:27 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Just a personal impression, it seems to me that everybody has their own ideas about the Rosettes page, even people who usually try to avoid peculating.
The idea that the page is a map is obviously a theory that a number of people have expounded over the years. Though of course there have been varied opinions as to where it is a map of.
(19-11-2024, 03:27 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That does not mean that we must ignore art history and let our imagination run free.
I think the drawings are mostly based on real life observation. I don't think they were copied from other drawings. I believe the author had seen other map(s) of the period, so I think the overall style of map representation is influenced by other forms of map representation that the author had seen, but I don't think the drawings of buildings were copied from other manuscripts, but more so from the authors direct observation of those buildings. I think the author had seen the castle and was drawing from his eyesight not from having copied a drawing of the castle from another manuscript. Why need to copy the buildings from other manuscripts when he could copy from direct experience? I guess that is why I have shyed away from a very art history approach that is heavily involved in comparison with other manuscripts and why I have focused more on photos of real buildings when studying this specific page. Nevertheless I have made considerable study of maps of the period and consulted a world expert, Professor Paul Harvey author of the definitive text "Medieval Maps".
(19-11-2024, 03:27 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If you hope to convince people of your views
I have written this here in Ninja, in part, as a step towards my completion of the write-up of the page. Producing a complete writeup of this page has been a daunting task. I first have to make the case that the page is a map and then discuss general features that might give clues or ideas to the type of map it is and the region it covers and then go step by step how I constructed my theory of the page, which is the most daunting part. I have given this page a lot of thought over many years, so there can be a lot to say.
(19-11-2024, 03:27 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If you hope to convince people of your views
I think my biggest aim with these comments is not even to convince, but to get people to recognise the numerous specific details of the page and not ignore them. And then come up with an alternative explanation of the details if they wish. I want people to look more closely and seriously at the page. My analysis whether one agrees with it or not has highlighted these details. I find it frustrating how much of this page is ignored and how people are happy to form theories of the page without any regard or interest in so many of the details. They don't seem to even feel the need to explain the details. I think these details were important to the author and so should be to us. And I think that when you really absorb all the details they point more clearly to the page being a map.
(19-11-2024, 03:27 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And for those who like to speculate, it is often the linchpin of their theory. If you hope to convince people of your views, this (and by extension Q13) is probably the hardest place to do so.
I have not chosen this page as it being the simplest page to approach, but rather I first approached it as what I thought the best page to break open the manuscript that I could see. It is a special page, much larger than the rest. Most of the other foldout pages didn't really need to be foldout pages e.g. the Astrology pages they would have been fine with each zodiac circle being on a separate page. This had to be a large foldout as it is one contiguous drawing. It could not have been split over several separate pages nearly as easily without weakening the meaning of the document. One could argue for that reason that in the mind of the author it may have been the most important page and so the most unique and original. That is of course speculation.
Without this page I doubt I would have got interested in the Voynich. Obviously, the unreadable script interested me, but the other pages much less so.
My first impression of the page is that it looked like a map out of fantasy fiction like a map of Mordor or somewhere out of Lord of the Rings not a real place. The "castle" particularly interested me, especially after having heard about the distinctive Ghibelline merlons. I found the idea that it was a drawing of real castle rather than a fantasy castle much more persuasive. And if it was a drawing of real castle then that castle had a precise geographical location. And if we knew what that precise geographical location was then it would give us some bearing on the broad geographical region from which the manuscript came. I spent some time trying to work out where I thought it was a map of with no satisfactory conclusion until I looked at Nick Pelling's Milan theory.
There appeared to be bodies of water illustrated all over the page making me think they we were dealing with islands and some kind of archipelago as I interpreted those bodies of water as being sea. I speculated this could be a map of Genoese or Venetian islands/colonies in the Eastern Mediterranean. However I could not see anything that satisfactorily fit. It fact it seemed that there was so much sea on the page that nowhere would fit. I felt like I was about to give up.
I doubted Nick Pelling's theory as Milan is far inland and yet large bodies of water appear to be illustrated nearby. However when I tried to disprove Nick's Milan theory, I actually changed my mind and came to the conclusion that the theory fit rather well, although I came with some time to disagree with his Venice identification. I took the kernel of his theory and developed it a lot, rightly or wrongly. I found that it resolved the problem I was having with identifying bodies of water as it pointed to them being mostly alpine lakes and rivers and not sea. The more I explored this alpine lake theory the more it seemed to fit.
So I didn't pick the Rosettes folio with the thought that this would be an easy page to crack. Rather just as it seemed to be an interesting starting point, but more importantly one which might provide a clue to the manuscript as locating in geographical place in addition to the carbon dating locating it in time. I also hoped that locating it geographically might possibly help point towards who the author was, though I had much less confidence in that possibility at the start.
I didn't start by thinking about a theory of the Voynich manuscript and then decided I would start with the Rosettes. My theory comes out of the page.
The crucial thing which particularly leads me to have some confidence in this theory is that it led me to an identification of author and only significantly later thorough and meticulous research that I have done has shown a very close connection from that individual to the most advanced cryptography of the time. This kind of connection seems to be very unlikely on the face of it and not something that I had prior knowledge of. It may be a big coincidence, but it seems to fit neatly.
I have attached 2 images:
One image highlighting where I believe bodies of water are illustrated on the page.
The other image highlighting features consistent with the page being a map and features that are unusual for a map.
One could think of the page as a hybrid of map and non-map. However I think it is more helpful to think of the page as a map with insets that are not sub-maps in themselves, but rather pertain to specific locations in the map or in the case of the central rosette, a general theme.