The Voynich Ninja

Most are hilarious! There's even one with a segmented pipe proboscis from Germany around 1400.   
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The only fairly realistic ones appear to be from 13th century England, which is no surprise considering the real deal was present there. Curiously, even in England, elephant quality significantly dropped in the 14th century.

Great minds etc You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

There are some semi-decent ones to be found after the 14th century, but quality does indeed drop. Examples like these are not picture perfect but at least recognizable. One thing they did not know what to do with is the feet: the only options are horse or cow.

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The site linked by R.Sale does of course focus on the war elephant, but the situation appears the same throughout.

The closer you look at this one the more "what?" it gets (Italy 1460)

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(17-11-2025, 10:07 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Great minds etc

Damn, you beat me to it!

It appears elephant quality rises sharply in the very late 15th century, probably because the Portuguese established their colonies and trading routes along the African and Indian coasts which would have brought them in direct contact with elephants. Also 2 new elephants arrived in Europe:
The elephant given by Afonso V of Portugal to René d'Anjou about 1477
The merchants of Cyprus presented Ercole d'Este with an elephant in 1497

Martin Schongauer, Elephant 
ca. 1480-1490


Harley 2838, f27, Speculum humanae salvationis
ca. 1485-1509


'Triumph of Fortitude' tapestry, Flemish
ca. 1525
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In contrast, here's another good English example from the early 13th century:

Harley 3244 f.39, Bestiary
ca. 1236 - 1250


So we have an 'elephant gap' between the late 13th and the late 15th/early 16th century. The 'good' VM source for the elephant-like leaf likely goes back to English illustrations made between 1230 and 1260 when the British elephants and their main illustrator Paris were alive.

Well, it depends on how we read the leaf. What I find convincing about it is the trunk: this cannot be explained as part of a normal leaf, and it's typical of the way elephants are portrayed. The curve, the way it continues into a high forehead, the way it gets wider at the end... (It's a shame this is partially hidden in the fold, I would love to see the right end). All of these things were still present to some degree in the earlier 15th century, though I admit it's a struggle to find an overall good elephant. Take You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ca. 1400 Lombardy: it's ugly and wrong, but imagine its head as a leafy profile and you're not that far off.

I just came across a translation from the bestiary of the Book of Treasures by Brunetto Latini (circa 1230-1294), Florentine. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . He also mentions the mandrake and the dragon:

Quote:The nature of the elephants is such that the female, before thirteen, and the male, before fifteen, ignore the meaning of lust; and, even then, they are as chaste that they never fight for a female. Each male has his own female, to whom he stays united forever in such a way that if he loses her, or she loses him, they never have a new partner and they just go alone through the deserts.

In addition, as they do not get lost in lust, the copulation is something that happens by nature. While they are both walking towards East close to the Heaven on Earth, the female finds an herb called mandrake and, after biting it, she feeds the male with it. In that exact moment, they unite to conceive and, some months later, they give birth to a baby elephant, only once in their life, and yet they live almost 300 years.

When the right moment for labor arrives, the female gets into a lake and the male looks after her while she gives birth, as they are afraid of dragons. The dragons, which are the enemies of the elephants, want their blood, because it is not only extremely large in amount, but also the coldest blood in the world.

I suspect that, if we are on the right track here, this concept of water and paradise may have influenced the depiction of the roots. Granted, there are 4 rivers of Paradise while the roots have 6 streams, but the depiction is often similar. Best one I found is this one, 1360 Bavarian: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

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This is not really about internal plant matching, but it might contribute to your idea of plant parts resembling elephants, which I find intriguing. 


Like you, I have noticed that the root in f55v resembles an elephant, and find your interpretations of the symbolic elements in the images very interesting. it also seems plausible to me that the elephant motif could function as a referance to the East. It would be helpful to look for some literature on this, I am fairly sure Spike Bucklow have written about elephants in "The Alchemy of Paint". 



My analysis of the morphology of the plant in f55v, suggests clove, possibly Eugenia caryophyllata. A plant from the East. 

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It is possible that they generally associated elephants with the East, maybe even likely. At least going by bestiary entries, that's where they do the whole mandrake mating thing

If it is meant to represent a clove plant, then I wouldn't expect the botanical details to be accurate at all. I assume what they saw in Europe was the spice. I also assume that some of the colors in the MS are informed, and that they may have intended to represent this plant's fruit as woody. You could really make a case for clove here. Though I'd first look up what was written about clove, how they depicted the plant (if at all) etc.

Note that while cloves were known in Europe since antiquity, Syzygium aromaticum trees and the true origin of cloves remained unknown to Europeans (and also West and South Asians) for a very long time. Likely until the Portuguese discovered the Moluccas around 1500. Francisco Serrao was the first European to reach Ternate in 1512. I would not know of any depiction of clove trees in Europe before the 15th century.

It's not 100% certain but likely the Chinese reached the Spice Islands during the Treasure Voyages of the Ming dynasty in the early 15th century. However know of no evidence they knew or cared about Syzygium plants themselves - in contrast to the Portuguese who sought to cultivate them to break the trade monopoly of the local rulers. So unless you argue the VM is a century younger than the established date, I see no way how the author could have known about Syzygium plants.

It's fascinating that they supposedly had this product around that came from the other side of the world, but were not able to trace where it came from. Presumably because of the many middlemen involved.

If the fruit is clove, then I would argue that the plant is 100% invented. This already appears to be the case for the fanciful root, and the leaves are a generic whorl like Plantago.

About the elephant-like root symbol, people have probably seen this comparison already.
Here, they don't look like elephant heads, but they still look like the Voynich MS thing.

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