12-06-2026, 07:28 AM
Hi everyone. It's been a while 
In the past weeks I've been busy researching a quite peculiar (possible) connection to the VMS. It all started when I saw an extract from a manuscript from the 13th Century Scottish mathematician and writer Michael Scot (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
It appears that Michael Scot's work was widely appreciated in the late 14th, early 15th Century South Germany, where it was copied a lot. His contributions mainly concern mathematics, astronomy, astrology and his travels to Arabic-speaking countries. Today, we can find a lot of his work in the form of 14th-15th Century copies from South Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
After having looked through a lot (a lot) of such copies, I found many parts of Michael Scot's imagery that closely resemble that of the VMS. I show some of these resemblances below.
Let's begin with crayfish, because it's one of the more unusual features of the VMS, because its legs are on its tail (incorrectly):
[attachment=16000]
Next, we have depictions of women next to stars:
[attachment=16001]
Many pipes that resemble those in the Rosettes section, are organs:
[attachment=16002]
There are depictions of cylinders containing people or things:
[attachment=16003]
Some animal faces look very similar to those in the VMS:
[attachment=16006]
People crossing hands:
[attachment=16004]
And some other unusual features:
[attachment=16005]
But the most unusual, actual artist style can be seem in this manuscript from the Admont Abbey Library:
[attachment=16007]
It seems to me, that whoever the VMS artist was, he/she might have been a fan of Michael Scot's work. Perhaps he/she was surrounded by many copies of his works? Maybe he/she was based in a library or abbey where many of his works were preserved and copied?
What do you think?
In the past weeks I've been busy researching a quite peculiar (possible) connection to the VMS. It all started when I saw an extract from a manuscript from the 13th Century Scottish mathematician and writer Michael Scot (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). It appears that Michael Scot's work was widely appreciated in the late 14th, early 15th Century South Germany, where it was copied a lot. His contributions mainly concern mathematics, astronomy, astrology and his travels to Arabic-speaking countries. Today, we can find a lot of his work in the form of 14th-15th Century copies from South Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
After having looked through a lot (a lot) of such copies, I found many parts of Michael Scot's imagery that closely resemble that of the VMS. I show some of these resemblances below.
Let's begin with crayfish, because it's one of the more unusual features of the VMS, because its legs are on its tail (incorrectly):
[attachment=16000]
Next, we have depictions of women next to stars:
[attachment=16001]
Many pipes that resemble those in the Rosettes section, are organs:
[attachment=16002]
There are depictions of cylinders containing people or things:
[attachment=16003]
Some animal faces look very similar to those in the VMS:
[attachment=16006]
People crossing hands:
[attachment=16004]
And some other unusual features:
[attachment=16005]
But the most unusual, actual artist style can be seem in this manuscript from the Admont Abbey Library:
[attachment=16007]
It seems to me, that whoever the VMS artist was, he/she might have been a fan of Michael Scot's work. Perhaps he/she was surrounded by many copies of his works? Maybe he/she was based in a library or abbey where many of his works were preserved and copied?
What do you think?
