The Voynich Ninja

maybe:
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(26-11-2025, 10:52 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.maybe: [herba XIFION]

That drawing on the right may also be the "inspiration" for f35r:

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All the best, --stolfi

Quote:It is possible that they generally associated elephants with the East, maybe even likely.

I have seen a theory that lot of info in bestiaries, including mythical animals, is inspired by the fauna of India which is indeed East.

At some moment armies of Alexander the Great reached India ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ). These people must have seen there a lot of local animals which were unknown to them before - tigers, cobras, giant snakes, rhinos etc. When they returned, their stories reached the ancient Hellenistic world. They were curious and fancy so they preserved. And then they reached Romans, and then they reached medieval world.

Later, due to the appearance of Islam, reaching India became much more complicated. Remember that Columbus was searching for a new way to India and believed first that America is India.  So cultural contact with India was limited and these old stories about animals were getting more and more legendary and less and less realistic.

For example:

- unicorn is probably inspired, at least partially, by rhinoceros
- basilisk is inspired by king cobra, many bestiaries say that basilisk may be defeated only by a weasel and in India mongooses indeed hunt for cobras
- dragons may be partially inspired by big pytons of India (quite often dragons are depicted as very similar to snakes)

(26-11-2025, 10:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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.

It would be very helpful to know which manuscript the picture Alch. herb #74 comes from, so that I can examine the complete image and study the drawing style. It is hard to make an analysis based on this fragment. There are still some things the strike me.

The following analysis is based on the assessment that the Voynich illustrations contains intentional visual information. In other words, the shapes are taken seriously, even though the drawing style appears rough. 

Voynich f55v: 
The root can be read as a combination of several distinct shapes: four similarly long vertical forms (legs), one long diagonal form (trunk), one short form in-between (a tooth), and one spherical form with a small circle and a brow (head). Under this interpretatio, all the shapes of the root cover meaningfully.

The Alch. herb #74 (one of the five repeated rootlets) : 
This figure consists of one long thin form leading out to a spherical form with eyes (body or neck and a head), two short forms forming a v-shape (open mouth/lips/beak), a long and thin form extending from the v-shape (tongue). 

Among these two illustrations Alch. herb #74 is the clearest, since the same sets of forms appears repeatedly in five versions. The most striking feature is the long tongue. My first impression is that the creature resembles a snake or a dragon. Comparing this with the root in Voynich f55v:  If the Voynich figure represents a snake or dragon, the tongue is extremely short and understated, while the lips are extremely exaggerated. A long tongue is one of the most important features when drawing a snake head. Moreover, it is difficult to imagine the artist giving a snake leg-like appendages, though a dragon could plausibly have leggs.

Another possible inspiration with a very vague elephant root:
Dioscorides BNF Grec 2883,f123v
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(26-11-2025, 12:16 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That drawing on the right may also be the "inspiration" for f35r:

Could be, but the root fits even less than in my comparison—but even there, I notice points that don't add up. It is a "maybe..."

(26-11-2025, 02:20 PM)sivbugge Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It would be very helpful to know which manuscript the picture Alch. herb #74 comes from, so that I can examine the complete image and study the drawing style. It is hard to make an analysis based on this fragment.

I needed to dig a bit in some older stuff, but have this:

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For Firenze 108 there are now also colour images online.

Here is an interesting thing I hadn't thought of until I saw this. This is French 1482, but "Author:  Bartholomew the Englishman (12..-1272)" as its a wood engraving, and I'd imagine has to be based on Henry's Elephant, or a copy of it. 

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The leaf you pointed out on 99v I have as a Fair Maiden. 

It does seem to be more playful than the other pages. Like a game of hide-and-seek.

The roots look like they're posing to me