The Voynich Ninja

Hello, all.
Not a label, but I noticed something else while examining the folio 82R:



Immediately to the left of the upraised ring, it looks like there was another, similar object nearly destroyed by the stitching. Is this just an illusion caused by the ripples in the material or is there an obscured object here?

Best, Ernest

I don't know if this has been said, but I think the painting was applied long before the drawing.

[attachment=11693]

Look at the leg of the upper nymph (red arrow) and the border of the pool (also red arrow). It could have not been drawn while the parchment was stitched. It was drawn before the parchment strip. Once stitched, the painting was applied, that's why there is no painting at the inner side of the stitching (blue arrow).

I know that we cannot determine the time lapse between the drawing, the strip, the stitching and the painting, but this is the order of the actions for sure. It is for me strange to.think that the strip was made during the creation of that bifolio, so I guess.it was produced quite a long time after, meaning that the painting would not be from the scriba who wrote/draw the folio. But I have nothing to prove it.

(14-10-2025, 11:00 AM)quimqu Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Look at the leg of the upper nymph (red arrow) and the border of the pool (also red arrow). It could have not been drawn while the parchment was stitched. It was drawn before the parchment strip. Once stitched, the painting was applied, that's why there is no painting at the inner side of the stitching (blue arrow).

THanks for calling the attention to the details of the interaction of paint, drawing, and tear.  But my conclusion is opposite...

That tear probably happened during the manufacture of the vellum.  The sides were stitched together to prevent the tear from opening up into a big hole as the parchment was stretched and tanned.  The stitched edges created either a ridge or a valley, a couple mm tall/deep.

Once the vellum was dry and out of the stretching frame, the stitches were removed.  The tear did not open up, because at that point the vellum was already stiff and no longer under tension.  The "lips" that had been stitched together were sort of flattened but remained rough and uneven.

The original drawing probably stayed clear of those "lips", as they must have been too rough to write on them with a sharp quill.  But we cannot tell for sure, because the original strokes are now very faint, and any that were inside the big green pool would have been washed away by the paint.

Long time after the original was drawn, someone retraced large parts of the drawing that were nearly faded away.  Including the outlines of Miss Okal and her tub.  This Retracer also had fun "enhancing" the drawings with extra details -- like the "pineapple" on the hat of Miss Sokoly and the "shower cap" of Miss Okar.  One of those "enhancements", I believe, was the wavy outline of the big pool.   These retraced strokes, applied with a somewhat broader quill. extended a bit into the "lips" of the tear (your red arrows).

Some time after that, a Painter applied most of the paint we see.  (The light yellow paint on the nymphs' hair may be original, or at least much earlier than the rest; not sure.)  The Painter too generally avoided the "lips" of the tear, presumably for the same reason (his "brush" does not seem to have been a real brush, but more like a chewed up stick...)  But not completely: the green paint in the big pool did enter the "lips" area at several places, including just below the wavy outline (your bottom red arrow).  It even covered a couple of the stitching holes.  Clearly it was applied after the stitches had been removed.

And the painting must have been applied after the retracing.  For one thing, it is unlikely that the Painter would have painted a pool with that peculiar shape if there was no outline.  Also, on some of the places where the paint overruns the pool's outline, the ink of the latter seems to have been partially washed away and/or obscured by the paint.

All the best, --jorge

I am sorry but I don't agree. If you compare You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. you can see that in f82v the water in the pool covers almost all the stitching.

[attachment=11698]

I think that the stitching may be the reason for this difference. In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the painting can cover all the surface once flattened. But in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. it can't. In fact, the bit of green that the orange arrow is pointing to can easily come from the orange zone in the schema.

[attachment=11697]

There are also two points that may confirm that the drawing was previous to the strip:

- yellow arrow points to a line that looks like the original border fo the pool of the upper lady. Maybe oce painted, the painter retraced the curve wrongly (yes, I said retraced!  )
- blue arrow: why would the person who was drawing end the line at a hole, when he could pass between both holes smoothly?
- black arrows: to me, the border ends at the strips are not coincident. If I would have drawn the border, let's say from left to right, the border of the right side should have been a bit up from where it is now. This difference can be explained by the strip and stitching after the drawing.

(14-10-2025, 02:26 PM)quimqu Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I am sorry but I don't agree. If you compare You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. you can see that in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the water in the pool covers almost all the stitching.

Too bad that we don't have multi-spectral images of those pages.  They were taken with slanted light, so they would have shown the actual relief in that area. Hopefully someone can check the actual book someday.

Until then, I am quite sure that the stitches were removed already by the vellum maker.  I suppose that he then pounced the "lips" as flat as he could, stuck the two edges of the tear with hide glue, and plastered the defect over with the paste (presumably glue and chalk) that he generally used to smooth defects.  Much of that plaster would have fallen off by now, but the dark tan blobs like (A,B) on the clip of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (left) would be remains of it.
[attachment=11700][attachment=11699]
In spite of the plaster, that area of the vellum would still be too rough for fine drawing or writing, so the original Scribe mostly avoided it.  As I see it, his original figure did not have the big green pool and its wavy outline.  He may have intruded in that area only with the belly and thigh of Miss Okal, using the stitch hole as her belly button (a kind of gag that he used elsewhere).  But the Retracer may have done that instead; I can't tell.

[By the way, I noticed only now that the nymphs have belly buttons! There goes my theory that they were supernatural fairies spontaneously generated from the green and blue broths of that magical water palace...]

That rough area around the tear was invaded by both the Retracer who (I believe) added the wavy big pool outline, and the Painter who filled it.  See (M) and (N), respectively.  Thus, unfortunately, those details cannot be used to decide which of them came first.

The thread definitely was not there when the paint was applied. Note that there is a broad paint stroke (E) that runs straight over one of the stitching holes (F), across the whole pond.  Moreover, if the thread was still there, the  greenpaint would have collected under it and left a "shadow" of the stitching.

On the other side You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. too (clip at right), both the pool outline (U,V) and the green paint (P,Q) run into the "lips" that should have been lumped together by the stitching.

However, at (H,I) it seems that the green paint partially washed away and/or obscured the big pool outline. At (H), it even seems that the washed-off ink of the outline then collected at the edge of the green paint.  Thus, again, I beleive tha the Painter did his job after the Retracer.

All the best, --jorge

The choice of vocabulary can have a significant impact on the interpretation of the VMs illustrations. Seeing "the big green pool and its wavy outline" is generically correct, perhaps, but heraldically incorrect. The outline, in which the crests and troughs are drawn as bulbous [point (H) above], is clearly a nebuly line, and the term 'nebuly' etymologically denotes 'clouds' rather than liquid water. 

It is true that there are examples where wavy lines and nebuly lines encroach on opposing territories. Is that true in the VMs or is the intentional creation of ambiguity more likely?

If it is St. Catherine, isn't it better she should be in the clouds, than is some green pool? Thing is the VMs is not like: " Hey, look! It's St. Catherine." It's more like: "Now, guess who this is."

Trickery and duplicity are proven in the VMs cosmos and White Aries (etc.), does it stop there?

[attachment=11701]

@Jorge
I am always surprised at how different our results are.
This is how I see it.
Quimu's sketch is correct. The parchment rolls up. It is then flattened. The parchment becomes denser, harder and starts to shine.
The interesting thing is that the back has the wood grain from his table or the cut marks from a saw blade imprinted on it.
That's how I see it. No plaster and no sanding.

(15-10-2025, 08:11 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I am always surprised at how different our results are. This is how I see it. Quimu's sketch is correct.

I am no expert on the matter, but my analysis is based on all I know about the way vellum is made, and a close examination of the image.

From the latter, it seems that the stitching was not like that sketch, but with the two lips mostly flat, with zigzag thread:

[attachment=11702][attachment=11703]

The image at left is how the tear on the vellum must have been stitched while it was still being stretched, smoothed, and dried.  Orange is thread on top of the vellum, blue is thread below the vellum.  The stitches not shown are uncertain.  The thread must have gone through some holes more than once.  In particular the stitching had to be secured by knots at the top and bottom.  

Again: once the vellum was dry and removed from the stretching frame, the thread was removed, the lips were pounded as flat as possible, and glued along the edges.  Then the tear and the holes were plastered with a mix of glue and chalk.  And then the area was lightly sanded with pumice.  

This plastering and sanding was the standard way to remedy defects in the vellum (although most were smaller than these).

Over the last 600 years the plaster fell off from the holes, and partly from the lips.  But some still remained.

The evidence for the stitching being as shown above left is in the details of the image at right.  Where the thread went under, the vellum remained slightly raised, and where it went over, the vellum was slightly depressed.  The depressed places are still filled with the plaster (the smooth darker tan spots).  The raised places were sanded clean (lighter streaks across the tear). 

All the best, --jorge

(15-10-2025, 08:11 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The interesting thing is that the back has the wood grain from his table or the cut marks from a saw blade imprinted on it.

To make vellum, the skin was usually split into two layers.  I don't know how that was done, but presumably it required a series of long cuts with a sharp blade, across the whole skin, each a millimeter deep or less.  I would think that those parallel marks that you point out were the traces of these cuts.

All the best, --jorge

(12-10-2025, 10:35 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Good old paranoia, west half.

I so enjoyed this, Jorge. One needs a break from the plenitude of imponderables.