The Voynich Ninja

(07-04-2024, 01:31 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(07-04-2024, 10:34 AM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On the other hand, from the outset I've thought the map is earlier and separate and was possibly the place where the project began. (I originally thought the map was mid to late 1300s).

Have you seen my map design?

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I need to see it in hi-res Mark, but I like what you've done. What was the first feature on the map you identified?

(07-04-2024, 01:08 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(07-04-2024, 10:34 AM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Garments and fashions in the ms. suggest earlier rather than later I think, but then a later illustrator may have been following existing illustrations (poorly) rather than drawing from life.

To me it appears to be a later attempted copy of an earlier drawing. People argue about the fashion, but I don't see the Voynich author being very concerned that the fashion is up to date in the drawings, especially given how crude the drawings are.

The human figures and some plants are crude. The illustrator struggles with human figures, and possibly turned to copying existing figures in the zodiac figures etc or wherever he could. But, the illustrator was good at circles! The cosmological diagrams are well done, and the cartography. He was more at home with technical drawing. 

(When I was at school, there was a distinction between Grammar Schools and Technical Schools. In the art classes in Grammar Schools you were taught to draw the human body. In technical schools you were taught to use a compass and set square. - C.P. Snow's 'Two Cultures' thesis.)

(08-04-2024, 05:04 AM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(07-04-2024, 01:31 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(07-04-2024, 10:34 AM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On the other hand, from the outset I've thought the map is earlier and separate and was possibly the place where the project began. (I originally thought the map was mid to late 1300s).

Have you seen my map design?

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I need to see it in hi-res Mark, but I like what you've done. What was the first feature on the map you identified?

You should be able to download it in high resolution from the link I have given you. If you still have problems let me know. It is 65 MB. When you view it you only get a low resolution preview. It is too large to attach to these posts.

I actually took Nick Pelling's identification of the top right Rosette as representing the city of Milan a long with his identification of the Certosa di Pavia and San Gottardo. I then developed my analysis of the rest of the page from there. Nick Pelling didn't make any identifications for the rest of the page except he associated the central rosette with St. Marks in Venice, an identification I don't agree with.

(08-04-2024, 12:24 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(07-04-2024, 03:05 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In fact the Diebold Lauber drawings which are most similar to the Voynich are

Diebold Lauber keeps coming up here, but I fail to see how the crude scribblings in the Voynich MS can have anything to do with such a professional setup and artistic workshop.

I daresay you will say that I am making the facts fit the theory, however I will tell you what I think anyway.

I think those astrological drawings/illustrations in the Voynich look like very crude copies of the professional Diebold Lauber illustrations. That is what they look like to me. I suspect the author of the Voynich wasn't overly concerned about making those illustrations look professional as his/their interest was the contents of the astrological diagram. The astrological diagram may be an attempt to make a copy of astrological diagrams from a Diebold Lauber manuscript or the author(s) may have merely copied the astrological illustrations. In short the similarity is so striking to the Diebold Lauber illustrations that they appear to me as being (very) bad copies of the Diebold Lauber Zodiac illustrations.

(08-04-2024, 12:24 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Diebold Lauber keeps coming up here, but I fail to see how the crude scribblings in the Voynich MS can have anything to do with such a professional setup and artistic workshop.

Part of this might be my fault, due to my research about the lobster's tail legs and the Gemini pose. There is little doubt that these are somehow connected to Lauber. But I have always advocated a more nuanced approach, which is that the VM images and Lauber's are part of the same family tree as it were. I see no reason for closer Lauber involvement.

There was also an Alsatian workshop that predated Lauber but uses the same style and images to a large degree. Much less is known about it, and there is no historical figure attached to it so it's harder to talk about it.

(08-04-2024, 10:48 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.the VM images and Lauber's are part of the same family tree as it were. I see no reason for closer Lauber involvement.

I don't see a reason to introduce the concept of a family tree when there is no evidence for earlier greater similarity. Of course, it is certainly possible. Occam's razor leads me to believe that the direct relationship is between the VM and the Lauber illustrations. It seems unnecessary to propose an earlier more similar ancestor for which there is, as yet, no evidence. I see no reason to propose a "Q" ancestor of both the Lauber and Voynich manuscript; it unnecessarily complicates the picture. The most similar illustrations appear to be those of Lauber, so there seems no point in introducing a much earlier source. It is certainly possible there is an earlier source, but it seems very plausible that the drawings are copied directly from Lauber.

I remember that discussion, and that also seems to be unproblematic to me.

Many years ago, the Pal.Germ. collections of manuscripts in Heidelberg were among the first that were fully digitised and easily searchable on the web. There, both workshops from Hagenau feature regularly.
Obviously, they were not the only ones.

Here, we just need to remember the famous 10% (it that's the right number) of manuscripts that have survived and come down to us, combined with the famous parable of the guy looking for his lost keys under a street lantern.

It's a bit of a pessimistic train of thought, but then again there are still many items that are not yet publicly available, so something may still turn up some day.

(08-04-2024, 11:04 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Here, we just need to remember the famous 10% (it that's the right number) of manuscripts that have survived and come down to us, combined with the famous parable of the guy looking for his lost keys under a street lantern.

It's a bit of a pessimistic train of thought, but then again there are still many items that are not yet publicly available, so something may still turn up some day.

From Koen's list on his website there are many possibly relevant manuscripts that have not been digitised and so not studied by Voynich researchers. I have been contemplating whether it would be worth me putting in the time and effort to track down these and other relevant manuscripts to see if I can find better matches. This is a daunting task, so I am not sure if will explore it, but it could potentially by very useful.

(08-04-2024, 11:41 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I have been contemplating whether it would be worth me putting in the time and effort to track down these and other relevant manuscripts to see if I can find better matches. This is a daunting task, so I am not sure if will explore it, but it could potentially by very useful.

It is certainly a rewarding effort if anything is found. About the lobsters, I was able to outline a possible trajectory of transmission from the granddaddy of the tradition, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., all the way to Lauber. 

When JKP noticed that the VM lobsters had their legs on their tails, he thought it was a unique feature - it is such a weird thing to do, and usually doesn't happen. But then I found out that Valenciennes 320 actually started it, and the behavior continues all the way to Lauber. 

Now here's the thing. Both Valenciennes and Lauber give their lobsters "robot arms", i.e. front legs with a 90 degree bend. In the VM, the front legs are straight and stubby. 

Moreover, the VM's lobster has the correct amount of legs: 8 regular ones on the body plus two front claws, 10 in total. Valenciennes is ambiguous about the amount of legs. Lauber has two legs short: 6+2.

You're not gonna tell me that the VM artist copied an example where they still put the legs on the tail, but then corrected the number of legs to 8+2. 

So my hypothesis that the VM lobsters were based on some manuscript that descended from Valenciennes 320, which had 8 legs on the tail. The front pair of legs in the example may or may not still be the 90° bend type, we don't know if the VM artist simplified his example here or if the stubby straight shape was already present in the example.

Further research would probably start by reading up on the families of animal books and how they are related. These were extremely traditional, and artists rarely came up with animal pictures by themselves. 

And then trace the lobster pictures in all of them.

It's hard work for possibly little results. The advantage is that there is a pretty clear outline of what needs to be done though.

(08-04-2024, 12:21 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's hard work for possibly little results. The advantage is that there is a pretty clear outline of what needs to be done though.

The work you did in finding similar illustrations to the Zodiac drawings in the Voynich is very compelling. So often people compare Voynich illustrations to illustrations in other manuscripts, and I am not convinced that the similarities are more than coincidental. With all the manuscripts in the world, you would expect to find some similar illustrations by chance. However, it seems hard to doubt that you have found a link with the Zodiac drawings; the similarity is so great that it seems inconceivable that it is there by chance.