The Voynich Ninja

As noted previously in the thread of "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view." (p.5) from 14.01 2025

The "ice cube" from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is blue vitriol.

Or Cu SO4 5H2O-- blue colour.

And the yellow heart is the sulfur, contained into it. In Alchemical theory vitriols are understood as combination of metallic 
principle ( copper blue) with sulfurous principle (yellow).
In an era before standardized chemical names the blue colour had been a clear identifier. Just as green vitriol meant iron sulphate , or white vitriol - zink sulphate.

Also it is due to note, that in the medieval pharmacy after purification (elimination of toxicity) the blue vitriol was highly used in skin, eye, brain etc. diseases. 
Given that folio 102v resides in the pharmaceutical section of VM, the identification that this cube is blue vitriol rests on strong circumstantial evidence.

(16-04-2026, 05:09 AM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As noted previously in the thread of "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view." (p.5) from 14.01 2025

The "ice cube" from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is blue vitriol.

Or Cu SO4 5H2O-- blue colour.

And the yellow heart is the sulfur, contained into it. In Alchemical theory vitriols are understood as combination of metallic 
principle ( copper blue) with sulfurous principle (yellow).
In an era before standardized chemical names the blue colour had been a clear identifier. Just as green vitriol meant iron sulphate , or white vitriol - zink sulphate.

Also it is due to note, that in the medieval pharmacy after purification (elimination of toxicity) the blue vitriol was highly used in skin, eye, brain etc. diseases. 
Given that folio 102v resides in the pharmaceutical section of VM, the identification that this cube is blue vitriol rests on strong circumstantial evidence.

But we have evidence that the colors were added after the VMS was finished, by someone else. How can you be so sure that the intended color was blue?

(16-04-2026, 06:27 AM)JustAnotherTheory Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But we have evidence that the colors were added after the VMS was finished, by someone else. How can you be so sure that the intended color was blue?

Thank You for raising this point. 
However this is not a consensus that the colours are added later. 
Latest X-ray elemental analysis of folio 1r ans 1v, conducted by the Yale team, found no evidence that the pigments are added later.
The colors were not applied ignorantly. They are meaningful.

(17-04-2026, 03:50 AM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Latest X-ray elemental analysis of folio 1r and 1v, conducted by the Yale team, found no evidence that the pigments are added later.

Which analysis are you referring to?  Not the McCrone report?

The evidence for late coloring is the folio number on page f42r.  According to Rene and another person who looked at that number with a microscope, the green paint is sitting on top of the ink of the number.  And it seems to be established that the folio numbers were written after the bifolios were bound (in the wrong order), a century of more after the text and drawings were made.

All the best, --stolfi

(17-04-2026, 04:27 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(17-04-2026, 03:50 AM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Latest X-ray elemental analysis of folio 1r and 1v, conducted by the Yale team, found no evidence that the pigments are added later.

Which analysis are you referring to?  Not the McCrone report?

The evidence for late coloring is the folio number on page f42r.  According to Rene and another person who looked at that number with a microscope, the green paint is sitting on top of the ink of the number.  And it seems to be established that the folio numbers were written after the bifolios were bound (in the wrong order), a century of more after the text and drawings were made.

All the best, --stolfi

Can it be implied from a single late coloring on f42r, that all colorings were added later? It seems plausible as evidence, but insufficient as proof.

(17-04-2026, 07:47 AM)JustAnotherTheory Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Can it be implied from a single late coloring on f42r, that all colorings were added later? It seems plausible as evidence, but insufficient as proof.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(17-04-2026, 04:27 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The evidence for late coloring is the folio number on page f42r.  According to Rene and another person who looked at that number with a microscope, the green paint is sitting on top of the ink of the number.  And it seems to be established that the folio numbers were written after the bifolios were bound (in the wrong order), a century of more after the text and drawings were made.

All the best, --stolfi

The Mc Crone analysis was a prove that the pigments are authentic to 15 century, this refutes the claim that they are 20 century edition and also the person painting them might have not been ignorant of their meaning.

Crucially the paint transferring of facing pages proves the colores were applied, while the manuscript was bound. 
Regardless whether the paint had been applied in 1420 or 1450- the blue vitriol on page 102v is based on visual encoding of blue and yellow.

(18-04-2026, 06:01 AM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The Mc Crone analysis was a prove that the pigments are authentic to 15 century, this refutes the claim that they are 20 century edition and also the person painting them might have not been ignorant of their meaning.

Not really.  McCrone did not date the pigments or determined that they were "authentic" in any sense.  They did not even completely identify the pigments.

They only said that, in the dozen tiny samples that they collected, they did not see any synthetic pigments that would have became available only in later centuries.  

But all the pigments that they did identify, like the blue one, have been available all the time.  Those paints could have been made and applied in 1910 as well as in 1430.

And they could not identify some of the pigments,.  Like, about the main green pigment, they could only say that it contained copper and was not crystalline, so they guessed that it was some organic compound.

Quote:Crucially the paint transferring of facing pages proves the colors were applied while the manuscript was bound.

I am not sure whether that has been established yet.  The transfers could have happened while the manuscript was still a bunch of unbound bifolios.

But if the painting did happen only after the book was bound (which is precisely what the evidence of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. folio number says!) , that implies that the painting was not original.  Because, for one thing, the folios were clearly bound in the wrong order; and it is hard to imagine that the Author would have let that mistake happen, if he was still around.  Then it is most likely that the drawings were colored decades or centuries after the drawing outlines were drawn.

All the best, --stolfi

Can you please explain to me, a layman, why the folios were CLEARLY bound in the wrong order? Thanks

(18-04-2026, 11:21 PM)Jimmy123 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Can you please explain to me, a layman, why the folios were CLEARLY bound in the wrong order?

The best evidence is the illustrations of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f81r. 

There are two narrow water channels that exit spouts at the bottom of the big tub of f78v, cross the binding fold, and continue on f81r, where they merge with the channel connecting the top and bottom tubs.  That is, the two illustrations are a single illustration showing three big connected tubs.  

But then we must conclude that,when the book was created, those two pages were facing each other, either at the center of a quire or as an isolated bifolio.  But now there is anothe bifolio f79+f80 between those two pages, at the center of the quire. And the folios are numbered according to this "mistake".

Note also that the illustrations on page f78v, f81r, and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are quite distinct from other illustrations, because they show large collective tubs with vertical walls; whereas the other pager have only individual tubs or pools dug into the floor.

I would say that the binder's mistake is understandable, since the channels connecting f78v and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are easily overlooked.  

The prevailing theory seems to be that, for some time after its creation, the book was kept as a stack of unbound bifolios -- maybe nested into quires, maybe not.  There is no trace of page numbers before those we see today, that were written when the book was bound.

Another weak evidence of pages being bound in the wrong order is those spurious herbal pages in the Pharma section (f87r, f87v, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. through f96v).  

Another bit of evidence is the jar styles in the Pharma section. One can see a gradual evolution of their shapes from simple cylinders to ciborium-like vessels -- but only if one rearranges the bifolios in a different order.

All the best, --stolfi