Rene, thanks for taking the time to comment. However, if as you say, "I am not all that much into 'image comparisons' or perhaps rather: 'image analysis'" and if you don't examine the specific details, how can you determine the thickness of the ice? Is it universally thin, based on a lack of familiarity, or does the thickness vary in certain locations? I've been jumping up and down on this spot for some time and haven't broken through yet.
Antonio, you're on the wrong page. *Your* comments about *your* theories are neither confirming or contradicting. They are irrelevant to this discussion. But, hey, thanks for correctly referencing the use of *nebuly* lines. I introduced that heraldic term to VMs discussion subsequent to Ms. Velinska's original posting and have yet to be shown where it had been used previously.
The Berry Apocalypse, Morgan M. 133, has illustrations where a simple nebuly line was used as a cosmic boundary. So, that ms. would have been part of the Berry library along with BNF Fr. 565. Given the great variety of artistic representations of cosmic boundaries, the VMs combination of the simplified cosmic diagram with a plain nebuly line does open the door to further speculation.
In the central rosette, however, the running series of arches is found not only on the ends of the bulbous crests and troughs of that cloud band but running along the sides as well.
R. Sale, I don't know how you can say that my comments are irrelevant in this thread, a thread that deals with comparisons and cosmic boundaries. I have tried to show that it is precisely these comparisons that lead to a correct interpretation of the Rosettes page.
Okay, how about off target? There is a nebuly line in the VMs cosmos, used as a cosmic boundary, rather than a representation of elemental air. It is significant in that it shows that the VMs artist understood the proper use of a nebuly line as a cosmic boundary. Nebuly line variations are used in the VMs rosettes, the balneological section, and even for leaf margins in a number of VMs plants.
Following the nebuly line is an interesting adventure and knowing the correct etymological connotation opens a valuable perspective on VMs artistry, but that is not the purpose of this thread.
The purpose of this thread is to renew and bring forward the comparison of the three cosmic diagrams as stated in the first posting. For example, as previously noted, the Earth in BNF and Harley is pictorial. In the VMs, vords take the place of pictures. Obviously, we can't read it, but the probable choices are either elemental or geographic, and geographic would be a standard T-O, not inverted as can be seen.
The artist has ostensibly switched pictures for Voynichese words. Without changing the structure or the message the artist has changed the method of communication and totally altered the appearance. If an investigation is based of appearance, then the comparison is a total reject. But are these cosmic diagrams representing the same thing? Is the VMs diagram showing us a representation of an elemental, inverted T-O Earth?
Comparisons continue to the other parts of the cosmos as well.
I don't understand anything. Don't worry. I'll leave it.
One problem for me is that a very large percentage of illustration analyses are essentially untestable. These are hypotheses for which there is nothing that helps to confirm or deny them. This is when I feel one is on thin ice.
'Looks like' is subjective. Now in some, relatively rare, cases there are many people with the same opinion (e.g. the viola-type plant on f9v) and in others it is much more individual. Again in the majority of cases we just have 'looks like', and there is nothing else.
The castle on the rosettes page was just mentioned, which is a good example.
This not just looks like a castle - it is one. I cannot imagine that many will disagree.
But what does it signify? We have nothing to answer that question except hypotheses that cannot be tested.
My own hypothesis is that the whole upper right rosette represents 'Earth', perhaps the element, or perhaps the world we stand on. But I am only too aware it is not a very strong hypothesis.
I agree. The ice is thin in many places, but is it thin *everywhere*? And why is it thin? It is just as you say, interpretations are made that cannot be tested because they are based on appearance and appearance is subjective.
What can be done to help verify interpretations and identify factors that are not subjective, but objective? Structure is objective.
All the cosmic diagrams in the comparison share the same basic structural elements:
All three central Earths have an inverted T-O construction. All three Earths are surrounded by a field of stars. In all three cosmic diagrams, the field of stars is surrounded by a cosmic boundary. Each of these criteria is falsifiable. Each statement is either valid, or it is not. Each of the three cosmic diagrams conforms to the requirements, despite the strong visual disparity in the appearance of the VMs cosmos. So, it's not a question of someone's opinion, it's a statement of fact. And given that the structure used in these comparative examples is highly unusual for the era of the VMs C-14 dates or earlier and there is similar provenance for the two historical sources, this strongly suggests [IMHO] that the ice here is thick enough to stand on.
(24-07-2025, 12:20 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The castle on the rosettes page was just mentioned, which is a good example.
This not just looks like a castle - it is one. I cannot imagine that many will disagree.
Even this is debatable. We have seen examples of Italian civic buildings in the same style (the name of the city it was in escapes me right now). Or alternatively, walled structures on maps that to us look like castles are often shorthand for cities. So it may not be a castle in the strict sense, and it may not even stand for a single building.
I think it is specifically lack of context that makes building up an argument about the Voynich images so incredibly difficult. Most anonymous paintings, manuscripts etc are much easier to contextualize. And that is what proper iconographical analysis needs. With the Voynich, any contextualization is limited and shaky, and so are the arguments we can build upon it.
(24-07-2025, 09:42 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Even this is debatable. We have seen examples of Italian civic buildings in the same style (the name of the city it was in escapes me right now). Or alternatively, walled structures on maps that to us look like castles are often shorthand for cities. So it may not be a castle in the strict sense, and it may not even stand for a single building.
But that is exactly what I meant - I may not have expressed it very clearly.
The drawing is a drawing of a castle. But what does it stand for?
- Some specific castle
- A generic castle
- Some specific town (city, borgo...)
- A generic town
- Something else.
We can have opinions about this but we don't know.
Interestingly, even if it represents a specific castle, it may not look like it at all, and the castle in question may not even have swallow-tail crenellations.
The crenellations are (for me) the most interesting aspect, and their presence is supported by other occurrences of such on the same page.
It provides a link of the MS with northern Italy.
It may have been created in that area.
I think that the chances of that are good, because that is something that is true for a large number of manuscripts that include such illustrations, and this is an independent piece of supporting evidence.
The castle hypothesis is thin ice, but ice nonetheless. It tells us that the VMs artist was familiar with fortifications having swallowtail merlons - probably through firsthand experience, but not necessarily. The implied geography is informative, the chronology not so much. That's why this is thin ice.
Pointing out the thin spots in other locations does not address the issue of interpretation of the cosmic comparison. Structure can be used as a basis for objective comparison. The similarities are clear. Why the VMs is visually divergent is a separate matter. Why are the 43 undulations in the VMs cosmic boundary ambiguous?
The VMs castle is anonymous. It has no known real-world connection. The VMs cosmos has two good historical comparisons. Well, the inner part - of course. The outer part of the VMs cosmos is where the artist totally blows the lid off of his/her modus operandi. The outer part also has a good historical connection.
If the alteration of appearance is a good trick to disguise the borrowed cosmic diagram - visual alteration in each of the three parts without any change in the cosmic structure - then the pairing of disparate images is a master stroke. As long as the trickery goes unrecognized, it's working. Artistic trickery can again be demonstrated in VMs White Aries. It is clearly built into that illustration.
That could be why the ice *appears* thin, if you're looking at the trickery, but not 'getting it'. It's because the trick is that the identification is based on structure and not on appearance.
We stand at the threshold of cosmic enlightenment. And what happens? Silence.
Well, it's only cosmic with a small 'c' and VMs cosmic at that.
Surely the VMs artist was familiar with some old parable about how to recognize an honest man. Can one distinguish a good person from a bad person based on their appearance? The answer is "No'. Appearance can be deceptive.
The VMs artist was aware that appearance is unreliable because it is subjective. Appearance can be suggestive, ambiguous, and even contradictory. The VMs artist knew that and made use of it. The VMs artist knew appearance was unreliable and worked, not to make appearance better, but it would seem, to demonstrate the error of reliance on appearance and to show the need to switch to an alternative paradigm for identification that is based on structure, number and color, and is objective.
The primary evidence is found in the cosmic comparison and is confirmed in VMs White Aries and also seen in several other illustrations.