The Voynich Ninja

Koen,

JKP is correct in thinking that the subject is Herakles.

Since depictions of Herakles with his skin go back to well before the Christian era, then if you aim is just 'name the subject' - there you are, its Herakles (Hercules in the Latin).

However, the specifics of that image which you've shown tell us that it belongs to a rather horrid period in European history, and I very much doubt that you will find another such image outside the environment in which that particular manuscript was made.

I suppose for the sake of scholarship I should explain, with apologies to any whose feelings may be affected.

There is a three-way reference in that image: one being to Herakles and his lion skin; a second to the associations made between Jews and the 'lion of Judah'; and a third which represented murder of the Jews in Europe by a bizarre fantasy that it was done in retaliation - this last notion referenced by the Isaac story.  I have difficulty speaking of this sort of thing; enough to say that there's a vast body of documentary evidence about such a patterns of thought at the time, and also a great deal of comparable imagery - from certain regions, and less often in manuscripts than in other media.

For any well acquainted with medieval imagery (not just that in formally produced manuscripts) your image is a distressing one.

My aim was rather to illustrate that this was a very much evolved form of the lion skin. In Arab tradition, Heracles was sometimes shown holding the head of a certain demon rather than a lion skin. As JKP's imag wonderfully proves, some illustrators mixed up the lion skin and the humanoid head. This image shows an extreme offshoot of that scenario, where it is likely that the copyists copied from an image like the one JKP posted. 

As you say, one needs to go back way BCE to explain the roots of this image. Aratus will do to explain why he is kneeling, and the iconography if found already on Greek vases. 

I show this image to illustrate that it's not unlikely at all that BCE imagery ends up in the 15th century. Additionally, if the process of transmission can turn a lion pelt into a hums skin, then surely a tree can become a tail.

The difference of course is that the VM line of transmission is less well documented...

Koen.
We have a basic problem in trying to determine - as well as we can - the origin of the emblems now occupying the centre of the month-roundels.

This thread has demonstrated the problem pretty well.  Where some see the issue as one of provenancing the imagery we actually see in the manuscript (something I think your examples and Sam G., and Linda's have addressed) another current so firmly believes that the Voynich manuscript *must* belong to the Latin European manuscript tradition that they simply cannot see that a red heraldic lion, or a lion in a Latin bestiary are not remotely similar to the image we actually have.

Others again seem to experience something akin to panic at the idea that we may have non-Latin, non-Christian and non-European heritage at the heart of the matter which was incoporated into our present manuscript.

I find it interesting that this reaction, which one can define simply as "no you're wrong, you must be wrong" should occur, since it takes very little background reading in the history of such medieval texts as the bestiaries or the lapidaries or even the calendars to realise that a great deal of the informing matter came - and was known to have come - from sources that weren't from Latin Europe.  We have plainly pre-Christian Greek imagery in early copies of the Aratea.  The bestiaries text is well known to have come from North Africa.  Much of Iberia and North Africa remained under Byzantine rule for some time after the Arab invasions, and Tunis (where so many of these mosaics had been preserved) continued under Byzantine rule until fairly late.

There's no reason whatever that we should not have the imagery from any of those regions, and I agree with Koen, Linda, and Sam G. that imagery from the former Phoenician territories comes closest - whether in Syria or North Africa.  However, for the lion itself, with its crossed eyes, lifted paw, spotted hide and so on, I still prefer the Delian example.

The lion was emblematic of Carthage.  What we need to find is the city which had the leopard.   In a mosaic from Siena (15thC) we find many of the animals associated with a town, and that with the leopard is Luca.  I guess I need to find time to see if we have any pre-Roman coins or images for that city.... or any other which used the same animal.  One of these days...

Griffin - the emblem of Great Tartary. (Ancient Rus)

Unfortunately I did not find the location of the lion.

(28-09-2016, 06:58 AM)Wladimir D Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Griffin - the emblem of Great Tartary. (Ancient Rus)

Unfortunately I did not find the location of the lion.

Wladimir, I've seen some pretty fancy "flower tails" in Hebrew manuscripts and a few of the English manuscripts, but the one you posted is fabulous—even more elaborate.


The image is so interesting, I wanted to see more and went hunting and it looks like it might be from St. George's Cathedral (Yuriev-Polsky, Russia). Here's another version from the same cathedral:


Original image URL:You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

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

Leo from Zodiac man, National Library of Wales, MS 3026C, 1488-1498

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Ellie, I think you accidentally used a picture I edited by adding a nose. I explained that it was an edited image when I posted it but we must be careful not to spread it without that information.

(05-10-2016, 04:53 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Ellie, I think you accidentally used a picture I edited by adding a nose. I explained that it was an edited image when I posted it but we must be careful not to spread it without that information.

Ha-ha-ha. Sorry I lifted your modified VMs lion picture. I didn't notice it is not the original. I will go to the proper source next time
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