The Voynich Ninja

That is undoubtedly correct. 

Unfortunately, we don't know what the title of this MS is, nor any shelfmark of any copy, and I have not been able to find anything using Google searches. 

The books that @nablator and I found have the same text as the Prague MS You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. "Textus astronomici (1400-1450)", but that is not the same.

The claim of @BessAgritianin remains to be confirmed.

The Hildesheim example [Post #20] is interesting because it is so early, and it is a liturgical calendar. Nevertheless, it was the association of Pisces and February that became the tradition. Was the association of Pisces and March an alternate tradition? Or just an alternate preference? Both systems are historically extant, so no switch takes place. It's a matter of usage and author's choice.

If Pisces is March [Mars, Martis], then Aries is April - and April is 'Aprilis' in the historical examples, which is nothing like 'aberil' in the VMs.

Both systems that pair each Sign with a full month are "wrong" no matter how you look at it, from an astronomical and an astrological perspective. 

If the shift front one sign to the next was around half the month, it's feasible that for a period of time, one could choose whether to assign them to the first month or the last.

However, by the 15th century, it really looks like the VM marginalia writer would have been going against the grain.

(02-06-2025, 11:43 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The books that @nablator and I found have the same text as the Prague MS You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. "Textus astronomici (1400-1450)", but that is not the same.

The claim of @BessAgritianin remains to be confirmed.

The part that I quoted, starting with "Aries est animal, quod in parte anteriori viget, posteriori vero debile est" is pretty much the same in Sacrobosco's book and BessAgritianin's manuscript page. Before that there is the different introduction translated by Marco "This sign (Aries) is fiery and it spans the end of March and half of April" and a few words (that I couldn't figure out entirely) about it being attributed to April as it ends in April: not much of an explanation but that's all there is.

Thanks! So this is how far I got now:

The first line of @Bess' clip has not been found in any identifiable text yet (apart from her unkown source), but the remainder of the text in that clip appears to be from Sacrobosco's "Computus Philosphicus" (or "Computus Ecclesiasticus").

The MS drawing in NKCR VII.E.9 found by @nablator refers to the same text [but see point 1 below].

If we read in the two books, we find that both contain the following text, after the drawing, but before the start of the description of Aries:

Quote:Quod autem signum cui mensi pertineat, patet his versibus:
Ap. Aries: Ma. Tau: Iu.Ge: Iul.Can: Au.Leo: Sep. Vir:
Oct.Libra: No.Scor: De.Sa: Ian.Capricor. Feb.A: Mar.Pis.

Both use exactly the same abbreviations.

This clearly lists the correspondence of months with signs  as we see it in the Voynich MS, and which is offset by one from the more usual correspondence in calendars and books of hours, which is undoubtedly based on the equation: Sun enters sign 'X' in the course of month 'Y'.

Do we find this also in the manuscript NKCR VII.E.9?
This is a bit tricky (enter point 1 mentioned above), because that manuscript has a lot of additional text, which mostly appears in slightly smaller writing. However, further down on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. it is:

[attachment=10727]

starting at the red dot in line 2.

Also I did not find any clear explanation why this should be, but quite possibly this is given in the (illegible to me) additional text in NKCR VII.E.9.

However, this does not originate with Sacrobosco. The Byrhtferth diagram mentioned before is found in computus manuscripts predating him.

A detail, not sure how important it is:
in the Byrhtferth diagram the zodiac signs are ordered clockwise, and in Sacrobosco's texts they are ordered anti-clockwise.

The fragment starting from the red dot is transcribed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:

“Nam signum datur mensi quem fine meretur”

Indeed each sign is given to the month that deserves it by [containing] the end [of the month].

[EDIT: Or, maybe, "Indeed each sign is given to the month that deserves it by [containing] the end [of the sign]." See Koen's comment #37 immediately below. This reading is consistent with the passage posted by Rene in comment #35, where the sentence is immediately followed by a list where Aries is assigned to April, May to Taurus etc.]


The fact that the sentence starts with "nam" suggests that the preceding lines are relevant as well, but the script is rather challenging and I am unable to make complete sense of them.

In the manuscript that fragment is from, the paragraph about Luna and Aries clearly assigns Aries to March ("in Marcio est").

The Taurus part is a bit confusing.
"quia compotiste considerat Solem signa intrare a fine, iste a principio: Nam signum datur mensi, quem fine meretur."

I found it hard to translate this even with the help of ChatGPT, but I think it should be something like:
"because the computist reckons the Sun to enter the Signs from the end, while this one [Taurus?] from the beginning"

I couldn't get heads nor tails of this (no pun intended): maybe it means that regular Signs are entered from the rear end of the animal, while Taurus is reversed in its orientation (doubtful)? In this case, it has nothing to do with the month. 

The following phrase "each sign is given to the month that fine deserves it" feels ambiguous. Is the end of the sign in the month, or the end of the month in the sign? Or is fine just something like "in the end"?

Then in paraphrase it would be something like: "Astronomers reckon the Sun enters the Signs at the end, but this one at the beginning. But at the end, the Signs are given to the month that deserves them (i.e. the "correct" month).

Along the lines of what Marco was thinking, the word month could be implied everywhere. "Astronomers reckon that the Sun enters the Signs at the end of the month, but Taurus at the beginning [of its month]. Indeed each sign is given to the month that deserves it by [containing] the end [of the month]."

This would result in the common practice correspondence of signs and months, not in the Voynich case.

Quote:But the zodiacal case against a traditional Februarial springing-time cannot be considered entirely established until we have looked at earlier traditions. In Roman times, Aries dominated not March but April, which is the month assigned to it by the fourth-century poet Ausonius of Bordeaux in one of his eclogues on the months. The other months must be shifted accordingly, with February and March given over to Aquarius and Pisces respectively. Ausonius's verses were repeated by Bede, but he rearranged them to put Aries-April first.4

This diversity of correlation between the zodiacal signs and the months could easily have caused confusion to a medieval reader unaware of the gradual shift in the astronomical dates over the cen-turies. Modern readers are sometimes left in similar confusion. When, for instance, Alan of Lille in his Planctus Naturae indicates that the spring signs are Pisces, Aries, and Taurus, is he thinking of the ancient or medieval dates of the signs, and is he saying that the beginning of the season coincides with the beginning of Pisces (whether early or late February), or that the greater part of the period assigned to Pisces is in the spring, or simply that spring starts before the sun leaves Pisces and enters Aries?

4 Ausonius, Eclogue 16: In quo mense quod signum sit ad cursum solis, ed. Hugh G. Evelyn White, LCL, 1 (1919), 190; Bede, De temporum ratione 16, ed. Jones, Opera de temporibus

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The astrological calendars that divide each sign always into 30 parts are not referring to days, but to degrees of angle on the Ecliptic, synchronized with an equinox or solstice.   Diagrams drawn by astronomers may well use this convention.  In those diagrams, each division is a tad longer than one day, and the boundaries drift along the year, and from year to year.  

The Chinese "agricultural" calendar too used degrees instead of days, but with 24 sectors of 15 degrees, instead of 12 sectors of 30.