(13-07-2026, 08:49 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Are you aware of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.?
I was reading this the other day
Of course, I don't deny that there might be a connection between VMS and this book, but I wouldn't immediately attribute a religious context to VMS.
(13-07-2026, 08:49 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Note that this T-O map is anomalous: it has two quarters at top and a half-circle below.
Couldn't the author just turn it around?
(13-07-2026, 08:49 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.However, this mistake may have been made by the BEEEEP.
It's a well-known fact that the VMS artist was not very good at drawing, so my focus is on the overall appearance of the drawing rather than the shape or the upper bumps.
(13-07-2026, 10:32 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.While f68v3 has been the subject of some interesting investigations, did anyone mention the 43 undulations, or Shirakatsi's wheel?
I don't know.
You can consider it yourself.
I tried to find a connection on the back of this book.
[
attachment=16553]
For some reason, the sun in diagram 1 looked similar to the sun in the second diagram.
In the month on diagram 3, the edge of the "scarf" is outlined in green. This may be related to the three green stars.
The upper "moon" (stylized as the Sun) resembles the Sun in Diagram 5.
But it's too questionable even for me...
Therefore, I assume that if these diagrams are related, it is not because of any deep meaning embedded in them.
The diagram 1 may depict the sunrise and sunset (I assume that there are not actually two suns, but one sun at different points. Similarly, the moon is depicted at different points).
3 and 4 are probably lunar months (regular). In diagram 3, there are 29 stars, and the number of days in a regular lunar month is 29.5 days.
But it seems that these are more "pragmatic" diagrams than visual ones.
(13-07-2026, 06:19 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[..]
From here, possible translations: opcholdg - Europe (Europa), otodol - Africa. It makes sense, since these are hapax. In the Asia segment, it's not a name, but rather a long text. [..]
I had a run upon this T-O vignette last year, you may have seen it already: You are not allowed to view links.
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In the Asia "half segment" text, the Vord
arol or maybe
aral appears directly behind some accidented letter; another one pointed already out that could mean "Asia", I think it was K. Schmeh.
As this is paralleling to the T-O vignette in The Map, I would agree.
But also, this approach needs again one thing which am refusing meanwhile: that the author(s) of VMS were complete idiots and did not know upside and downside of a TO map, in this case. Even though the TO segments are nowhere in this manuscript oriented(!) correctly.
As soon as we have to retreat to the assumption of VMS scribes/painters just have been too stupid, most surely our own ideas are wrong.
(14-07-2026, 12:47 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.that the author(s) of VMS were complete idiots and did not know upside and downside of a TO map, in this case. Even though the TO segments are nowhere in this manuscript oriented(!) correctly.
I see this as a primitive trick. Perhaps the author wanted us, as unwanted readers, to be unable to accurately identify the map.
I think that the meaning of the T-O map is either visual or astrological. There was no need for the author to add cities, Jerusalem, etc.
(14-07-2026, 11:04 AM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (13-07-2026, 08:49 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Note that this T-O map is anomalous: it has two quarters at top and a half-circle below.
Couldn't the author just turn it around?
Perhaps... But the topic of Oresme's book
Le livre du ciel et du monde was the creation of Heavens and Earth. In that illustration, where he is shown presenting the book to some big shot, the circle has water in the bottom half, and land partly covered with forest on the top half -- just as in the Genesis story.
All the best, --stolfi
(14-07-2026, 02:45 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (14-07-2026, 11:04 AM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (13-07-2026, 08:49 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Note that this T-O map is anomalous: it has two quarters at top and a half-circle below.
Couldn't the author just turn it around?
Perhaps... But the topic of Oresme's book Le livre du ciel et du monde was the creation of Heavens and Earth. In that illustration, where he is shown presenting the book to some big shot, the circle has water in the bottom half, and land partly covered with forest on the top half -- just as in the Genesis story.
All the best, --stolfi
Undoubtedly, there are similarities. But this meaning is not suitable for VMS if it is not a theoretical but a practical book (i.e. gives specific medical knowledge). The author has no need to know how the world was created and to look at such schemes.
(14-07-2026, 06:29 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Undoubtedly, there are similarities. But this meaning is not suitable for VMS if it is not a theoretical but a practical book (i.e. gives specific medical knowledge). The author has no need to know how the world was created and to look at such schemes.
But the geography of the world would be equally irrelevant.
The general theory is that many (most? all?) the illustrations are not entirely (not at all?) meaningful. They would be partly or wholly just decoration, (badly) copied by the Scribe from various scholarly books that were popular at the time, to make the book more sellable. Like Oresme's
Heavens and World, Taccola's notebook (or something similar), the
Balneis Puteolanum, some unspecified herbals, that German "poetic almanac" with the old woman and the rosary, etc.
All the best, --stolfi
(14-07-2026, 08:09 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The general theory
Or the theory of forgery?
(14-07-2026, 08:09 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.to make the book more sellable
We have no information that the book was bought by anyone in the 15th century.
By the way, one of its owners (Barshius, I think) said that the book was useless to him and only took up space in the library. I assume that this was how she was perceived at the time - she was very interesting, but unreadable and incomprehensible. She was useless to a medieval doctor.
(14-07-2026, 08:09 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But the geography of the world would be equally irrelevant.
It is possible that the author perceived this as basic information that one should know in principle, that one should know to understand astrology, etc.
(13-07-2026, 06:19 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Now I believe that there is a relationship between ALL the diagrams in this book.
Note that the figure in diagram 4 is almost the same as in diagram 3. The difference is in the number of spikes - 16 for the third and 12 for the fourth. The inner star (which is colored yellow) has 12 red rays...
Diagram 5 also has a yellow star in the center, and it uses only yellow and red colors. In addition, there are 12 phrases arranged in a circle in diagram 5 (if we consider rfchykchey ykchys as a single phrase)! This is the same number of rays as in diagram 4.
It turns out that the increase is not only from 2 to 3, but also from 2 to 5! But what does Diagram 1 mean?
According to basic astronomical logic, we might think that this is the Milky Way. This would create a chain of "Milky Way - Some Nebulae - Sun - Solar System," but this... cannot be true. In the 15th century, the Milky Way was considered a band of stars.
From the point of view of medieval science, diagram 1 should represent a geocentric model. Indeed, the center shows a T-O map that can be compared to the Earth. The stars surrounding the Earth are the stars, and the blue cloud is the celestial sphere. This is consistent with the medieval belief that the stars were fixed to the celestial sphere. Curved bands can symbolize the rotation of celestial bodies around the Earth.
If this is the case, then Diagram 5 is practical and describes celestial bodies that are important for astrology.
But I don't think it's getting closer, it's getting further away. Starting from the Earth and ending with the cosmic scale, from which the celestial bodies can be seen (in the author's imagination).
However, this is not a complete proof, as the content of the text is unknown, but the visual data confirms my assumptions.
From here, possible translations: opcholdg - Europe (Europa), otodol - Africa. It makes sense, since these are hapax. In the Asia segment, it's not a name, but rather a long text. Perhaps this would make sense for the Chinese theory, where it might refer to China.
It is also possible that the first diagram is directly related to the fifth diagram, or that it is not related to any other diagrams at all. It doesn't fit well into the "approximation" chain 2-5.
(14-07-2026, 08:50 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.We have no information that the book was bought by anyone in the 15th century.
And I did not mean that it
was sold (although we cannot possibly know that at this point).
I meant that the Author (who possibly was a bit stressed financially at the time) presumably thought that he could make some money from his
transcription transliteration transcription. And that hope would be what drove him to turn it into an illustrated vellum book. Objectively, it should have been very valuable to some scholars -- even if they could not read it right away, or if the attached Voynichese-Latin glossary was only two pages long.
Quote:By the way, one of its owners (Barshius, I think) said that the book was useless to him and only took up space in the library. I assume that this was how she was perceived at the time
He did refer to it that way -- but then offered his own "origin theory" (the first one we have on record):
Quote:... From the pictures of herbs, of which there are a great many in the codex, and of varied images, stars and other things bearing the appearance of chemical symbolism, it is my guess that the whole thing is medical, the most beneficial branch of learning for the human race apart from the salvation of souls. This task is not beneath the dignity of a powerful intellect. After all, this thing cannot be for the masses as may be judged from the precautions the author took in order to keep the uneducated ignorant of it. In fact it is easily conceivable that some man of quality went to oriental parts in quest of true medicine (he would have grasped that popular medicine here in Europe is of little value). He would have acquired the treasures of Egyptian medicine partly from the written literature and also from associating with experts in the art, brought them back with him and buried them in this book in the same script. This is all the more plausible because the volume contains pictures of exotic plants which have escaped observation here in Germany.
Your Reverence shines with ardour to bring the best things to light. I do hope you will not consider it beneath you to act for the common good and bring forth the good (if any there is) buried in unknown characters in this book. ...
(from You are not allowed to view links.
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Thus Barschius
did in fact think that the book might contain valuable information, if only it could be deciphered. So much so that he refused to send the book itself to Kircher, sending instead faithful copies of some pages (as he says in that letter).
(By the way, from that letter we can also infer that, by ~1630, there was no legible annotation on the book that could have identified its author and nature; and any attachments that might have accompanied the book, like a glyph pronunciation table or glossary, had been lost before the book got to Barschus.)
All the best, --stolfi