The Voynich Ninja

Could it be possible that "B", is a jumbled up and expanded upon "A"?

The image caught my eye due to the three ladies in the middle being more into the background. These are then framed by ladies more to the foreground, creating depth. The same idea is seen on the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. image.  
"A" looks right, "B" looks left, but the idea seems very similar. 




Petrus de Ebulo, De balneis puteolanis.
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[b]Title :  [/b]Peter of Ebulo, On the Baths of Puteola.
[b]Author:  [/b]Pietro da Eboli (11..?-1220?). Author of the text
[b]Publication date :  [/b]1301-1400

Edit - I tried to mirror how the image ended up. But to be clear, I think the intention was just something like this. 

I think it quite likely that they had something balneis-adjacent at hand and used it in some way. Marco posted some good parallels years ago (I'm on my phone currently but I'm sure it can be found). 

If the VM is ever solved, creative use of sources will probably be a running thread throughout the imagery. That involves a creative aspect, but also a "use of sources".

Like I said recently in another thread, I find it relevant that some these sources seem to come from southern Italy, and others from north west of the Alps.

If all these sources are correctly inferred, then what does that mean? Were they together at one point? Or did the VM itself travel during its production?

I think so too. I'm not sure we will ever find something exactly the same, the VM artist(s) was.. er.. unique. 

They seem to know some things that you would learn early in (modern day, anyway) art class, like in the De balneis puteolanis image the ladies height in the image and arm/neck positions follow the arched shape flow of the overall image so that it flows nicely. The VM artist seems to attempt this but ends up with a 10 arm long arm... which ruins the attempt at depth and makes the middle three ladies look too small.

One alternative idea could be the several scribes were not originally from the same place. If Lisa is correct in thinking each scribe drew their own illustrations, that would make sense to me.

Would it be plausible to have a workshop made up with people from "here and there" who had their own sketches to work from?

It is curious, 5 ladies in De balneis puteolanis but the VMS seems to duplicate the image, 5 ladies with their "roof" on the right side and 5 ladies with with their "roof" in the left side. The roof is split in 2 but the pool is the same for all the ladies.

(07-02-2025, 07:58 PM)Juan_Sali Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is curious, 5 ladies in De balneis puteolanis but the VMS seems to duplicate the image, 5 ladies with their "roof" on the right side and 5 ladies with with their "roof" in the left side. The roof is split in 2 but the pool is the same for all the ladies.

I hadn't thought about this. It might make sense if they were working off a source image half the size they required to just double it maybe? The pool is just a line, but the roof would have seemed a much trickier task.

Edit - Thinking about it more, if you were to make a 10 person version of this it would take up at least half the page.. maybe it "had to fit in here"


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And so what they created was the solution to that.

While i believe there is evidence of Balneis influence, we shouldn't lose track of the fact that the VM artist most definitely did not intend to copy the image. Q13 as a whole is quite coherent in its motifs and the way it deviates from potential sources. I like to believe that there were some guiding principles in its composition, rather than being a series of bad Balneis copies.

Bad Balneis copies would look completely different.