The Voynich Ninja

You're going to have a hard time convincing me that an accurate drawing of Euphorbia (even if it's accurate in a crude way) is actually an inaccurate and highly stylized drawing of angelica.
Euphorbia really has leaves like this and branching stalks like this, and fruits like this. Archangelica doesn't resemble the drawing in any way, not even highly stylized if you look at the overall way VMS plants are drawn. Certain things are drawn in certain ways. It would have to be a different iconography for this plant to be interpreted as Archangelica.

Here is Euphorbia fruit and, on some species, they do come in threes, and stick up like that.


[attachment=1358]


It isn't necessary to turn the drawing into a different plant (that it doesn't resemble) in order for the fruits to have a double meaning. Why can't Euphorbia fruit have a double meaning? It's named after a famous doctor to an ancient king and the resemblance to a scepter or a guardian angel might be a reference to this important person.

(06-05-2017, 10:12 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..... Why can't Euphorbia fruit have a double meaning? It's named after a famous doctor to an ancient king and the resemblance to a scepter or a guardian angel might be a reference to this important person.....

Just to clarify, when it comes to identification of plants according to well-known traditions, I'm fully on your side. Provided the illustrator(s) had no interest in hiding something.
I already had the idea that some plants might be depicted as described, but not on this subject. Of course, Euphorbia is a possible interpretation, but maybe it's too good to be true.

Now I have to stop myself, otherwise it will be completely off topic.

(06-05-2017, 12:13 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(06-05-2017, 10:12 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..... Why can't Euphorbia fruit have a double meaning? It's named after a famous doctor to an ancient king and the resemblance to a scepter or a guardian angel might be a reference to this important person.....

Just to clarify, when it comes to identification of plants according to well-known traditions, I'm fully on your side. Provided the illustrator(s) had no interest in hiding something.
I already had the idea that some plants might be depicted as described, but not on this subject. Of course, Euphorbia is a possible interpretation, but maybe it's too good to be true.

Now I have to stop myself, otherwise it will be completely off topic.

I don't think it's too good to be true. I studied ALL the plants in the VMS for several months before I even began identifying a single one. I wanted to learn the VMS iconography first and then look at individual plant IDs and there are many completely accurate naturalistic plants in the manuscript, regardless of what people say. Even the ones that are somewhat stylized do it in a rational and mostly consistent way.

I have IDs for many of them I haven't posted yet because I simply can't find enough free hours in the day to do it.

Upon further investigation on the subject I want to check whether the so-called "digitus virilis" as a gesture could have a meaning here or not. All I've found so far are vague references. So I looked at the "usual suspects" and came across the Rutland Psalter. There is a scene with sexual content that could show this allegorical finger. Is this what is meant by "digitus virilis" ?


right: British Library, Add MS 62925, c 1260, folio 62r

By the way, the position of the left man's arm is very....strange. 

The Voynich figure... originally only the pointing arm was visible. It's his proper right arm, that goes across the body just like in the comparison you posted. I don't know how the extra arm got added, but it's clear that the mess has been hidden under thick blue paint.

Upon checking the BL manuscript I'm a bit confused since this is a marginal scene. It almost looks as if the figure's pose was used as an example, like a model but perhaps with a different meaning.

(07-05-2017, 08:54 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Upon further investigation on the subject I want to check whether the so-called "digitus virilis" as a gesture could have a meaning here or not. All I've found so far are vague references. So I looked at the "usual suspects" and came across the Ruland Psalter. There is a scene with sexual content that could show this allegorical finger. Is this what is meant by "digitus virilis" ?


right: British Library, Add MS 62925, c 1260, folio 62r

If it is an unusually large nose (compared to other noses in the MS), and does seem to suggest a reference to someone specific (whether real or mythical) or from a specific group.

The legend of the Salerno medical school is that it was founded by doctors from four different religious or cultural groups, often they are described as a Jew, Arab (or Muslim), Christian and Pagan.

He does have a strange nose, like a parrot's beak. Also, he's wearing a special hat or cap.

I can't check it in detail now since I'm on my phone. But it lookds like medieval jews usually had a hat shaped like a funnel in the middle ages. Some had skull caps though.

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I just did a google image search for medieval jew and it brought up this image from a Hebrew calendar. The nose looks very similar.

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Also, aren't there attributes like these in the figures on one of the other roundels? It's a palm branch and a citron.

You'll find that medieval illustrators frequently drew Jews or Muslims with large noses and frequently drew Jews with pointed caps (many regions had dress codes and people of certain professions or ethnic groups were expected or required to wear certain iconographically recognizable styles of dress, something that is also part of China's history).

It was not always mandatory. Many local regions have their own style of dress that set them apart from others, called "national costume" (although it's sometimes different for each town) and they wear the traditional styles proudly, but some were also mandatory. During the plague years, doctors wore "beak" masks with herbs in the noses and in some areas, these were required, just as soldiers are required to wear uniforms and Red Cross trucks in war zones are required to have crosses.

Many of the English manuscripts use the hawk nose/pointed cap/turban cap conventions when drawing images related to the crusades.

(07-05-2017, 10:23 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view...... Upon checking the BL manuscript I'm a bit confused since this is a marginal scene. It almost looks as if the figure's pose was used as an example, like a model but perhaps with a different meaning. .....

Not directly related to this marginal illustration, but at least they are mentioned:

Quote:Hutcheson, G. S. & Blackmore, J. (Eds.), Queer Iberia, Duke University Press, 1999, p. 137

.... There is also ample documentation from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of, for example, the use of the digitus virilis (cf. Ger. elfte/steife Finger 'the eleventh/stiff finger') with this meaning in carnivalesque genres (Aigremont 328; Catholy 247). Compare the visual pun in The Rutland Psalter (c. 1260), apparently the manuscript illustrator's suggestion as to what the learned Latin scribe can do with his pen .....

The reference to the Hebrew calendar is definitely interesting and deserves a closer look.

So this is potentially interesting, but I know very little about these subjects, so I'll just share it as is:

[attachment=1366]

The picture of the Jewish figure only came with the following information on the wiki (it looks like a scanned illustration from a printed book):

Quote:This figure, in a detail of a medieval Hebrew calendar, reminded Jews of the palm branch (Lulav), the myrtle twigs, the willow branches, and the citron (Etrog) to be held in the hand and to be brought to the synagogue during the holiday of sukkot, near the end of the autumn holiday season.

It would be useful to find the actual calendar where it came from.

The figure's attributes, however, reminded me of another figure in one of the roundels on the large foldout. Since these are at times assumed to be related to the seasons or some form of marking the time, I wonder whether the reference to sukkot might be relevant.

On the citron:
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