The Voynich Ninja

(28-09-2025, 11:32 AM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Quote:why the voynich ist celtic

No, it isn't  
Voynich Manuscript is a medieval work showing Italian and German influences. Connecting it to Celtic folklore which comes mostly from British isles is a very long shot.

In the same way I could connect it to Slavic folklore, take some random text about rusalkas and fern flowers and add it to Voynich pictures.

Of course - Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Roman, Greek and so on share the same core as they are ultimately part of the big European culture. But I don't see in VM anything that would be exclusively Celtic and lets say not Germanic.

I don't rule out a German influence in general; there is much to be said for locating it in northern Italy or Switzerland, or possibly southern Germany. I think it's quite possible that the writers were also accustomed to writing in German. If you look at the words in the Voynich manuscript, many of them begin with a “k.” If it were an exclusively English or Irish work, we would probably find a “c” instead (but I am not an expert on this, it is just my personal opinion, but it would be interesting to explore). If I understand correctly, the attached link to slide f85r2 is the basis for the assumption of a German origin. Of course, these could be the seasons, why not, and of course the images could also be similar to images in German manuscripts. Whether the writers were German, Italian, or even Scottish, Irish or Valaisian cannot be explained by this. We speak more than one language today, too.
The seasons also feature in pagan beliefs. They are particularly honored there. However, I read an article, which I unfortunately can no longer find, in which the woman in the south with the crook and the “rosary” was attributed to English manuscripts.
The rosary, which is atypical due to its three rings, was described in this image evaluation as “cloud bands,” which in turn were attributed to England. Is it not surprising that there is no reference to a known religion in the Voynich manuscript? 
And yes, of course you can also attribute the images to Slavic folklore, if you then include and explain  handfasting, the dark and light full moons, the offerings to the plant spirits that were practiced in Indo-European culture with honey and mead, the absence of any known religion,the naked women, the plant devas who hold the stars in their hands and find them reflected in the star section (or flowers) If you take a look at my thread with my proposed solution, you will find some more details that point to a Celtic origin. However, if you find any Slavic folklore or similar that solves the mystery, please let me know :-)

(28-09-2025, 09:25 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.We don't know who created the VMs or where they came from. We don't know where the VMs was created. What we can sometimes discern from the illustrations are the influences and experiences that the VMs artist considered significant enough to represent in the manuscript and how that information has been manipulated.

I would say a bit more.  We can be quite certain that the Scribe -- the person who actually put quill to parchment -- was "substantially European" and experienced with writing "European" documents on parchment, in some "European" language other than Voynichese, using Latin letters.  That is, his/her experience was not (solely) writing in Greek, Armenian, Georgian, Cyrillic, Arabic, or Hebrew.   

And it also seems safe to assume that he/she had some "European" herbal and astrological manuscripts available for "inspiration" when drawing the images. 

On the other hand, there is evidence that the Scribe knew the Voynichese alphabet
but did not understand a single y of the text.  So much so that he would write a parag that was supposed to be a single column with a plant in the middle as two columns, offset by one line...

All the best, --jorge

(28-09-2025, 08:13 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There are just some very few details which show motives with an "Italian" relation, the notorious "swallow-tails" in 3 or 4 spots of whole manuscript.

(28-09-2025, 08:47 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You are actually right that Italian influences, if we skip these merlons, aren't that strong.

"If we skip the 3 or 4 Italian influences that I am aware of, then there aren't any left".... 

But there are many more, noted by people who deal with medieval manuscripts in a professional capacity. Not just tiny details in the drawings.

Let's see some of this:

(28-09-2025, 08:13 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.some hints to slavic/eastern european influences are even better

(29-09-2025, 12:07 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But there are many more, noted by people who deal with medieval manuscripts in a professional capacity. Not just tiny details in the drawings.
[..]

Ok, let's see some of this first:

where are these "many more" influences, noted by those "capacities"?

- the plants: nothing anyhow Italic/Germanic-related in the plants' drawings.
- the roundels f 67 to f 70r: nothing anyhow Italic/Germanic-related in these drawings.
- the bathing scenes: nothing anyhow Italic/Germanic-related in these drawings.
- the "herbs", roots, "containers" etc.: nothing anyhow Italic/Germanic-related in these drawings.
- the plain text pages: ....

Just remaining: the "zodiacs", the map, some single sheets, the notorious f116 and some scribbles.

The plants are and cannot be related to any alpine vegetation until today; even though some interpretations of some VMS flowers gained much publicity and very little evidence at the same time.
None of the roundels of 67-70 come closer to anything but a "european-based" content; there is not any reliable connection to the region between Munich and Milano at all.
The bathing nymphs can hardly be recognized other than "european" appearances; but this results from a very steady colorization of nearly all visible hair as yellow/blonde or reddish -- but this hair colour used to be and is still very common in an area from Karelia south to Don river. Nothing exclusively Bavarian or North-Italian with this.
Also nothing Alpine with those roots, turnips and exotic bottles or whatever,
and it is no use to talk about the plain texts and Munich/Milano, or is it...?
"Italian influences" are only appearing in the "Map" by some swallow-tail walls, aren't they? And this type of walls existed during the VMS era also at least in Karystos, Trapezunt and some or all Genuese harbours of Crimea -- not-so-Bavarian-Italian locations.

The month's names in "zodiacs": added (much) later in completely deviating scribe, characters, language and quill tip. As well as the remarks of f 116.

A high percentage of discussions are about accuracy of details in VMS or better, the lack of it. Everybody who sees a special "detail" of his preference, must face the simple truth that the VMS artists may just did not mean this or did not care for a correct drawing or did not care at all and combined or left out the important things (aka the things they saw as important --which we just don't know today).
With such an idea of "influences" to the VMS from the core catholic center of Europe: why are there nearly none clear-christian symbols in the manuscript? There is just one cross drawn (and another one "added" by the "retracer"). Many other manuscripts are crowded with crosses, halos, finger symbols, holy abbreviations, signs, angels etc. VMS: nothing.

So, if you are able to provide some undoubtful, clearly recognizable, solid evidence for North&South-of-Alps influences, proven by medieval's experts, just name some here.

As far as I see it, many people wasted much time upon popular theories which based on wrong conclusions, speculations, imaginations, wishful thinking and bad guesswork.

What are those most obvious hints with Munich-Milano origins? Remind me of just a few of them.

Let me start by pointing to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., which is fully relevant for this discussion.

I have had personal discussions with several librarians and other old book experts, and they have invariably recognised an Italian 'nature' of the MS, or a German 'nature'.

Note that I (always) use the term Italian and German as denoting areas with respect to modern borders. I think that most people do that.

I will not quote private discussions here, but let me refer to some documented cases.

Sergio Toresella, well-known herbal expert, described his interpretation of the Voynich MS in or around 1995, as 'very close to the alchemical herbals'. These herbals are from Northern Italy. He compared the handwriting to Italian humanist writing. The short conclusion is that everything told him: Italian. Some (not all) of this is documented here: Toresella, Sergio: Gli erbari degli alchmisti, in: L. Saginati, Arte farmaceutica e piante medicinali; erbari, vasi, strumenti e testi dalle raccolte liguri, 1995.

Alain Touwaide, another well-known herbal expert, sees a close relation between the Voynich MS illustrations and the 'Tractatus de Herbis, most of all MS Sloane 4016. These manuscripts are also from Northern Italy.
His publication (more coming): Touwaide, Alain: Il Manoscritto piu Misterioso - l'Erbario Voynich, in: Villa Mondragone "Seconda Roma", a cura di Marina Formica, Palomba Editori, 2015, pp. 141-158.
An English summary (but beware of hacked links): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Now Toresella and Touwaide do not necessarily agree on everything... as is probably even typical for top experts in any area, but they do agree on the basics. 

Less compelling, but still largely agreed is that many of the symbols used in the writing can be found in Italian ciphers of the time frame of the MS. 
 
I am still hopeful to see these: 

Quote:some hints to slavic/eastern european influences are even better

Here are a few more inspirations on how the cosmos was viewed in connection with plants on earth in ancient times. There is a treatise "Sterne und Sternbilder" ("Stars and Constellations") in ancient and modern times by Dr Wilhelm Gundel (1922)

In ancient Persia, it was believed that the seeds of water, air, earth and plants were contained in the stars. In Australian myths, magicians fetch the flowers from the sky. In ancient Greece, it was believed that the seeds of all living things once fell from heaven to earth. The Pythagoreans believed that demons and souls flooded to earth in the sun's dust. The interpretations of the stars are ‘elastic’ if the sky is seen as a fertile realm on which plants and flowers thrive as on earth. Thus it is said in Walloon folklore that the moon sleeps during the day, but walks in a garden full of flowers at night. In a Transylvanian folk tale, the bull always ran away as soon as the boy was asleep, came to the great meadow in the sky and ate golden starflowers. This comparison can also be found in old Greek and Roman plant names, e.g. aster, the ‘Stella’ and in our star flowers, and it also harbours the belief that the earthly flowers and the heavenly stars are identical.
Many myths tell the story of how flowers came to earth. In a friendly chat, little Jesus tells little Johannes that he has many, many shining flowers that adorn the sky, but that people have called them stars. He gave him a brightly shining seed, Johannes planted the seed and told the other children, overjoyed, that he had sown a star in his garden. And in the fall, beautiful plants sprouted from the seed, bearing flowers like stars, and the children jubilantly called them asters or star flowers.

What's that about?
You write examples about Persia, then about Australia and Siebenbürgen.
How is that supposed to explain anything, and what does it have to do with the Celts?
In the Middle Ages, nothing was known about the Celts; all of this knowledge comes from modern times.
I live in Celtic territory. Take graves, for example. You can't tell whether graves are from 400 BC and Celtic or 700 AD (early Middle Ages Alemannic). You have to open them.
Our church was built in the 500s. Both were still there then, the Celts and the Alemanni, and also the Romans. The transition was gradual. 400-500.

I'm not talking about a chronological sequence here. When I write Celtic, I don't mean the time of the Celts and Romans, but the Celtic language that is still spoken today and was also present in Switzerland and southern Germany in the Middle Ages through the Iro-Scots and travelling monks from the island. The examples merely show how long the belief in plants in the context of the stars has existed and how this belief was equally distributed across the whole world and language/belief areas.

(30-09-2025, 01:14 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Let me start by pointing to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., which is fully relevant for this discussion.

You linked to an older post here which shows the (in Germany) quite famous mouse "die Maus" and her elephant companion. Maybe you did not mean the complete thread with that linking, just this picture and posting.



I think you are trying to say that "experts" are better in recognizing things like that little blue guy as an elephant, as experts have quite more experience in identifying items that are out of size, colours, shape, even behaviour and expected surroundings, than us laymen and amateurs.

This is as well proven and objected by the fact that nearly all human beings are able to recognize a mouse and that elephant here, since the most of us are quite used to cartoon and comic imageries, and not only those who did not watch "die Sendung mit der Maus" in their childhood had not the slightest difficulties to spot these two animals immediately.
We all even have no problems to fix a sponge that produces campfires at the bottom of the sea and hamburgers at a grill as a living character.
Only people from the outer Andamans or the Amazonas rainforest would have problems to recognize Maus, elephant and SpongeBob - just if they never had any experiences with cartoons, animated movies and comicbooks.
The advantage of "experts" to interested and somehow experienced amateurs may be smaller than you suggest.

Let me reply with this:



Well-known Margritte work. An expert could easily define what make and brand this pipe is, of what pieces it will be assembled, even the production time and Price range.
But in the end, as Magritte points out: it is not a pipe at all. It is a picture of a pipe.
And the expert is just as helpless as the rest of us.

I asked for your proofs for the Voynich Manuscript being of origin somewhere north, south or even closer east or west of the Alps:
you gave me Toresella's article at first.

ReneZ Wrote:Sergio Toresella, well-known herbal expert, described his interpretation of the Voynich MS in or around 1995, as 'very close to the alchemical herbals'. These herbals are from Northern Italy. He compared the handwriting to Italian humanist writing. [..]
Some (not all) of this is documented here: Toresella, Sergio: Gli erbari degli alchmisti, in: L. Saginati, Arte farmaceutica e piante medicinali; erbari, vasi, strumenti e testi dalle raccolte liguri, 1995.

Toresella shows all of these, more or less known images from different herbal manuscripts, some italian, some much older from late greek or byzantine works.
He does not mention or make any comparisons with VMS images.



At the very end, he shows 3 VMS folios without connecting them to any of the previous pictures.

None of Toresella's samples look even similar to VMS images.
Toresella opens an own category of "alchemistic herbals", meaning manuscripts.
As "alchemists" he defines a category of "travelling doctors", charlatans, quacks etc.
He gives some italian examples for both, the books and the guys.

The green-surrounded pictures show plants' images from "alchemistic herbals".
Those are mostly none-realistic, abstract or fantasy "plants", like mandragores, animal-roots (fish, wolf and stranger things).
Toresella does not and cannot identify a single one of these plants in this article.
Thereby he is not locating any of these plants as "alpine" or italian.
He does not make any comparison or relation to VMS plants' images.

His text about VMS is (without something About Rudolph etc.):
"Il codice è di difficile datazione ma la più parte degli studiosi pensano che risalga agli anni 1460-1480. Queste piante fantastice non Hanno relazione alcuna con quelle die soliti erbari degli alchimisti; alcuni botanici però vi Hanno riconosciuto il Peperone e persino il girasole.; altri vi Hanno scoperto meraviglie anche più sorprendenti. Come si noterà, la scrittura è molto chiara e ordinata, ma del tutto incomprensibile. Per cercare di decrittarla ci si sono provati, e ci stanno provando ancora, i migliori esperti americani, con un apparato di elaboratori elettronici veramente impressionate. Ogni tanto Capita che qualcuno creda di aver risolto il mistero e legge nel codice le meraviglie cui si è fatto cenno; ma poi si scopre che qualche intoppo rende la decrittazione improbabile. [..]
Tra gli erbari degli alchimisti si deve anche annoverare quello contenuto nel codice Voynich.
È il più strano, misterioso ed enigmatico erbario che si conosca perché è scritto in un linguaggio cifrato che ha resistato agli attachi die più potenti elaboratori electronici americani. Sono quasi ottanta anni che i migliori crittografi, paleografi e specialisti delle lingue più peregrine si stanno affaticando per penetrare il misterio die questo erbario, ma invano.
[..]
Tra queste pergamene, su cui si allineano decine di erbe simili quelle degi alchimisti, ma che non apparatengono a quella tradizione iconografica, c' è chi ha intravvisto delle scoperte fantastiche: il girasole e il Peperone rappresentati secoli prima della scoperta dell' America; disegni di parti cellule viste attraverso il microscopio; la nebulosa die Andromeda descritta nella parte astrologica del codice e altro ancora. Eppure il mistero di queste erbe rimane ancora insondabile.
Personalmente ritengo che colui che disegnò e scrisse questo erbario fosse rimasto profondamente impressionato dall' esibizione di qualche ciarlatano di Piazza e abbia pensato di aver scoperto il segreto del mondo; un segreto da affidare ad una lingua e ad una scrittura criptica come Capita di sovente in certe forme di pazzia.
Comunque non si pùo fare a meno di restare ammirati di quanto potente sia il fascino di questo messagio che ci viene dal passato al punto che ci sarebbe da credere, assieme a Mastro Ghino, che qualcuno sia rimasto prigioniero dell' incantesimo dell'erba gahlias retiuola… chi avesse unte le mani col sugho di questerba et poi tocchasi chi tu volessi ti farebbe ongni gratia che tu adimandassi che fare si potesse. Etin questo modo potresti avere avere molta amista Et comettere pace et concordia insu anemici. Et chi llavesse seco fugerebe il ladro dinanzi da lui."
=
"Among the alchemists' herbals must also be counted the one contained in the Voynich Code.
It is the strangest, most mysterious, and enigmatic herbal known because it is written in a coded language that has withstood the attacks of the most powerful American computers. For nearly eighty years, the best cryptographers, paleographers, and specialists in the most foreign languages have labored to penetrate the mystery of this herbal, but in vain. [..]
Among these parchments, which feature dozens of herbs similar to those of alchemists but which do not belong to that iconographic tradition, some have glimpsed fantastic discoveries: the sunflower and the bell pepper depicted centuries before the discovery of America; drawings of cell parts seen through a microscope; the Andromeda Nebula described in the astrological section of the codex, and more. Yet the mystery of these herbs remains unfathomable.
Personally, I believe that the person who designed and wrote this herbal was deeply impressed by the performance of some charlatan from Piazza and thought he had discovered the secret of the world; a secret to be entrusted to a cryptic language and writing, as often happens in certain forms of madness.
In any case, one cannot help but be amazed at the powerful allure of this message from the past, to the point that one would believe, along with Master Ghino, that someone has been held captive by the spell of the Gahlias retiuola herb... whoever anointed their hands with the juice of this herb and then touched anyone you wished would do you every favor you asked what could be done. And in this way you could have many friends and establish peace and harmony among anemics. And whoever had it with him would make the thief flee before him."

That is his theory, or better his hallucination about the VMS, and nothing during the following 30 years could have gone anywhere from this starting point of his.
As far as I can see it, Toresella made not any useful try to proof this one sentence about "alchemistic VMS"yet.

ReneZ Wrote:The short conclusion is that everything told him: Italian. 

The short conclusion is: Toresella has no clue and he proofs with no word that VMS is "italian/alpine" at all here.

ReneZ Wrote:Alain Touwaide, another well-known herbal expert, sees a close relation between the Voynich MS illustrations and the 'Tractatus de Herbis, most of all MS Sloane 4016. These manuscripts are also from Northern Italy.
His publication (more coming): Touwaide, Alain: Il Manoscritto piu Misterioso - l'Erbario Voynich, in: Villa Mondragone "Seconda Roma", a cura di Marina Formica, Palomba Editori, 2015, pp. 141-158.
An English summary (but beware of hacked links): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Now Toresella and Touwaide do not necessarily agree on everything... as is probably even typical for top experts in any area, but they do agree on the basics.

Touwaide generally suspects the VMS being a fake or hoax.
Means:
was the faker of italian origin?
Or is the VMS made to pretend an italian origin?
How would that be any proof for an origin at all, even if you believe into the fake/Hoax theory?

ReneZ Wrote:I have had personal discussions with several librarians and other old book experts, and they have invariably recognised an Italian 'nature' of the MS, or a German 'nature'.[..]
I will not quote private discussions here, but let me refer to some documented cases.

At last, the "invariably recognized 'Italian nature' or 'German nature' " (? Isn't that quite a variation at least?)
You received those impressions 'in private'.
Well, this reminds of the guy with the 6 anonymous botanists who confirmed his findings.
If somebody finds his own expert opinion not durable enough for the public, you could hardly take this as a relevant backup for your Italy Theory.

By the way, what is a 'nature' of a manuscript?
What is a reliable and comparable definition of such 'nature'?

Green water, strange plants, a bathing beauty with red/blonde hair, some weird vessel below her and something with red clothes:




VMS and Venus both of 'Italian nature', Voynich MS just 40 years before Botticelli?
Of course, that's not nice and reasonable, comparing a (maybe cheap) small book with a masterpiece painting.

ReneZ Wrote:Less compelling, but still largely agreed is that many of the symbols used in the writing can be found in Italian ciphers of the time frame of the MS.

Not compelling. You are able to find some characters of Voynichese in nearly every alphabet, character set, symbols, signs, runes, whatever.
What are "many symbols, found in ciphers"? And even if: why did it not work out with Italian ciphers until now?

So you may understand now that, after reviewing your key&crown witness Toresella and the fake-theorist Touwaide, I still cannot see any substantial proof for the somewhere-around-Alps-Lemma and will not accept something anonymous About a 'nature" of VMS here.

(23-10-2025, 02:53 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.None of Toresella's samples look even similar to VMS images

Why do you say that? To me, some of those images would look quite at home in the VMS.  Like the one at the lower left corner of your composite, or the first one within the green line.

My theory is that the Author had the text for the herbal but at most only a sketch of some parts of some of the plants.  Thus he asked the Scribe to make up all the missing plants and parts, and gave him a bunch of those "alchemical" herbals to use as crib.  (By the way it is unfortunate that the name "alchemical" has stuck.  I don't see much connection to alchemy.  "Fantastic herbals" may have been a better name...)

All the best, --stolfi