Let me start again, why the Vintlers and why castle Runkelstein?
There is some evidence of German and Italian on the last page and other marginalia in the VMS.
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The work others have done on likely origin for the MS generally points to northern Italy/Austria/Southern Germany. The area of Tyrol is an interesting one; it sits on the cusp of the alps between Germany and Italy. It had a German speaking population in the 15th century.
A quick look at the castles in the area brought Castle Roncolo/Runkelstein to my attention.
![[Image: AF1QipOQqV8VgTmMpqOs6UQc6MpgnveeMhCAEqni...312-n-k-no]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipOQqV8VgTmMpqOs6UQc6MpgnveeMhCAEqniou02=w270-h312-n-k-no)
During the period of the Voynich's construction the castle was owned by the Vintler/Vindler family. A merchant family of German descent that climbed its way up the hazardous political and nobility ladder. You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.. The three Vintler brothers, Frans, Hans and Niklaus set about renovating the castle in the late 14th century adding a summer house and adorning the castle with frescoes. The frescoes were subsequently refreshed a couple of times but what remains gives you an idea of what the Vintler's intended:
![[Image: castel-roncolo-storia-bolzano.jpg]](https://www.runkelstein.info/images/header/storia/castel-roncolo-storia-bolzano.jpg)
![[Image: castel-roncolo-storia-bolzano.jpg]](https://www.runkelstein.info/images/content/storia/section-1/castel-roncolo-storia-bolzano.jpg)
![[Image: castel-roncolo-storia-bolzano.jpg]](https://www.runkelstein.info/images/content/storia/footer/castel-roncolo-storia-bolzano.jpg)
The brothers relationship started to fracture by 1407 with one aligning to the duke of Austria and the other with local nobility.
Hans is generally more closely aligned to the catholic religious orthodoxy. His manuscripts "Die Plumen Der Tugent" (1411) and "Buch der Tugend" (1419) can be summarized as a rallying call for orthodoxy and a shunning of superstition and the suspicious practices of breakaway groups like the You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. , the Beguins, the Free Spirit Movement etc, at this time the church is actively fighting a pre-reformation movement.
The Vintler family have the money, the location, the swallow tailed castle and the fractious dynamics to commission an manuscript. They were alive at a time when the catholic church actively destroyed opposition to its orthodoxy. One brother aligns to the orthodoxy, one doesn't.
Is the MS a good candidate for "occult" or secret knowledge? I'd say yes, there are other prior examples of the sort of information that the MS is attempting to communicate (that we can reasonably guess at based on the imagery). The astrological tables are somewhat eccentric but they appear to portray days, zodiac signs, events in the religious year, metonic/lunar/solar cycles etc. These are all things that would have been present in religious almanacs of the previous 100 years and were important for calculating the moveable religious feasts and observances. Other aspects of the book concern plants and preparations, likely within some sort of medical and perhaps alchemical context. The VMS is notable for one thing though, the omission of an anthropomorphized deity. Essence seems to flow from stars and planets, God appears to be absent.
The identified knowledge existed prior to the 1400s, the difference by the time the MS comes about is that the Catholic church is actively trying to stamp out anything that it deems as contrary to it. Many of the splinter sects disappear around this time, for some the only evidence of their existence during this period turns up in inquisition confessions. Hans Vintler's Buch Der Tugend ends up directly feeding into the with hunts over the next century (You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.) when one of its wood cut panels is used to denote the witches mass.
That's the context, now some side by sides from the VMS and You are not allowed to view links.
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Some caveats, I'm not totally bought into this theory but I think it's interesting enough to mine further. The next post will compare VMS to castle Runkelstein imagery.