The Voynich Ninja

A good paleographer can recognize a handwritten piece of text and tell you from which period, which country and surprisingly often also the name of the author.

A good painting expert can do exactly the same and can tell you immediately if the painting is probably a real or a fake Rembrandt.

My point is, if you study the VMS as hard as we do. You will recognize specific features.
Once you see that somewhere else, in a split second you will recognize that it is from the same period, same vellum, etc.

Like JPK writes, these sensible things have to be written down, specified enough to be detected and recognized.

JKP,

We are not looking a cloud bunnies or things that might have been. I thought we were looking at the pattern made by the *edge* of the lace collars and nothing to do with any patterns woven into the lace itself.

Just like clothing identified a person's origins, armorial heraldry identified either an individual or a particular family. Ecclesiastical heraldry was used to designate hierarchical ranks and orders in religious institutions.

I have made a comparison of VMs tub patterns with those from heraldica.org

However, if you are interested, simply check out the wikipedia article on heraldry. Skip the reading and just look at the pictures. Use the names of patterns that I have listed and the rest is self-explanatory.

(15-11-2016, 02:02 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If you feel we're not listening, perhaps the arguments need to be presented in a more convincing way.

Another possibility of course is: if we're not listening and responding to a post, we may just not have the necessary knowledge to do so. As JKP said, he doesn't "have the heraldic background to do this." So R.Sale, the ideas may be completely fine, but the patterns on medieval crests are probably a specialized branch of Art History in which few have training...

So, it seems your familiarity with heraldry is more from a historical perspective. My suggestion was to take a look at the rules and the traditional patterns on which heraldic designs are based.

Be that as it may, let's start at the beginning - at the top of VMs Pisces on the outer ring - and look for patterns that might correspond with those established by heraldic tradition some two centuries or so before the VMs parchment dates.

Definition: Paly - a pattern of alternating, vertical stripes. Two examples at the top of VMs Pisces.

Definition: Bendy sinister- a pattern of alternating, diagonal stripes from upper left (sinister) to lower right (dexter). Example at about 2 o'clock.
Note: Right and left are defined from the perspective of the person holding the shield.

Definition: Chevrony - a pattern of alternating, diagonal stripes in the form of multiple chevrons. Example at about 3 o'clock.

Definition: Barry - a pattern of alternating, horizontal stripes. Example after 3 o'clock.

Definition: Annulet - a ring. An example with multiple rings could be called annuletty, but no example has been found in use. Example at about 4 o'clock.

Definition: Semy of roundels - a pattern of circles (roundels) arranged across the insignia. Example before 6 o'clock.
Definition: Semy - scattered or generally in staggered rows. Like the old French coat of arms - azur, semy of fleur-de-lis or
Note: These patterns have a series of specific names depending of the tincture of the circles. Gold is bezanty because bezants are gold coins. But there is no color designation here.

Example: Paly - before 9 o'clock - third example.

Definition: Papelonny - a scale-like pattern, with etymological derivation from the French word for butterfly and reputedly based upon the scale-like structure seen on a butterfly's wing. I suppose the occurrence of eye-like designs sometimes seen on the wings are the reason there are dots on the pattern. Example between 10 and 11.

And on to the top of Dark Aries:
Definition: Plain -  an insignia that has a single tincture and no pattern. Example at the top of Dark Aries and another to the left.
Note: Of course it is difficult to say what tincture has been 'given' to an unpainted image. So I won't count them here. I'll count them on the next page, with examples of solid blues and greens, and a little dab of red.
Despite the simplicity they are rather uncommon.

But let's continue Dark Aries.

Example: Paly - number four - midway in the first quarter on the outer ring.

Example: Semy of roundels - number two at 3 o'clock on the outer ring.

Definition: Bendy - a pattern of alternating stripes on the dexter diagonal. Example at 4 o'clock on the outer ring.

Example: Papelonny - second example. between 10 an 11 on the inner circle.

And finally on White Aries there are the two blue-striped patterns, which I will not go into here, because the point has already been made. I have pretty much cherry-picked the best examples, and the examples themselves are not necessarily perfectly drawn and I clearly do not include an explanation for every tub pattern. The point is that heraldry does provide a useful set of definitions for the VMs examples listed above. Does some other system name and define any of the tub patterns? Perhaps ideas can be promulgated not just by the accuracy of specific images, but by their numbers instead. Then it's just a matter of how concentrated those images should be. There seems to be a modern expectation of 'why don't all tub patterns equate to heraldic insignia?' But even in these few pages the illustrations show much that is unfinished, incomplete, sloppy and ambiguous. Even so, there is no confusion in matching the traditional, heraldic definitions with the VMs illustrations. Ambiguity is clearly a tactic used in the illustrations and non-heraldic images may be intended to misguide investigators and take them off the track. After all, if you give up and don't find the papelonny pair, you won't discover the clever heraldic canting put in palace. And you will have no concept of the author's sophistication and 'slight-of-hand' deception.

The simple purpose of heraldic images is to introduce the idea of heraldry, in fact, the idea of paired heraldry. Paired heraldry in the paly patterns at the top of Pisces, paired patterns of the semy of roundels and the papelonny designs, paired heraldry of the Fieschi family and the origins of the ecclesiastical tradition of the red galero - disguised by an optical illusion.

Maybe this helps.  

R. Sale
Thank you for the references and examples of the fields.

What is the conclusion of paired and diverse patterns? Childish drawings? Obfuscation?

The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ?  Is that also a definition or why do you link those to the blue lines ?

The reason I did not include White Aries in the previous posting is that it is another long and tedious explanation, but, since you ask. The heraldry on White Aries tubs is significantly different from from that of the first two VMs Zodiac pages. On the first two pages there are examples of pattern, but essentially they are without painted coloration. On White Aries it's the opposite. Almost everything is painted. And on many of the tubs there is color but no pattern, (with several obvious exceptions). Heraldry is a combination of color (tincture) and pattern.

The Sanderson insignia has certain, apparent similarities with  the tub pattern of this VMs figure, in that both are patterns of alternating, apparently vertical stripes. And in both examples, one set of stripes is blue. The Sanderson example also has a diagonal black band across it, a bend sable, with three gold rings on it, three annulets or. It helps understand the illustrated insignia if you can learn to read their blazons. A blazon is the traditional written description of the insignia.

So, looking at examples with color and pattern, and trying to construct a blazon for the VMs images is one way to further investigate the VMs illustrations. The primary line of investigation, then, turns out to be the two blue-striped patterns on VMs White Aries. But trying to write a blazon for these patterns, runs into immediate difficulties. There are ink patterns and there is blue paint. How can this be interpreted? This is a line of investigation that is complex, interesting and ultimately pointless. The reason for this is that certain choices of interpretation have already been accepted and they lead the investigator in the wrong direction.

When the investigator looks at the White Aries page, it is natural to see all the figures in their radial orientation. That's the way all the characters are presented. And it is natural, consequently, to see the orientation of the stripes on the tubs in line with the radial orientation of the character. HOWEVER, that is not the only possible interpretation of this illustration. If you isolate the two blue striped patterns, if you remove all radial influences and determine the direction of orientation based on the vertical and horizontal of the page itself, you will see a different orientation for these striped patterns. And even though the alignment is not perfect, both of the VMs patterns orient to the dexter diagonal. This alternative interpretation is clearly a secondary interpretation, a hidden interpretation.

Now, for those in possession of the necessary historical detail, things might click into place, especially after you notice the hat, as pictured in Stellar's prior posting. But if not, then nothing is found. The historical details are found in the biographies of the Fieschi popes, Innocent IV and Adrian V.

The Fieschi family blazon is: bendy, argent et azur. Alternating diagonal stripes, literally silver and blue, but silver is white, and white is something not painted. Comparing the simple Fieschi pattern with the VMs examples there are three problematic areas. The first is the direction of orientation. If you see the reality of dual interpretation, then you see the intentional use of ambiguity, an intentional disguise made by the use of an optical illusion. *An intentional disguise.*

The second problem is the combination of paint and ink as noted above. The attempt to find a combined interpretation produces a stalemate. Why is that? If the ink patterns in the lines are intended for interpretation according to the hatching system of tincture designation, or anything vaguely similar, then there is an obvious problem, not with potential interpretation, but a more fundamental problem with use of tincture designation systems. Different systems of tincture designation are *NEVER* used in combination. The solution is not found in the interpretation of combination, but through the rejection of contradiction. And if it's not yet clear which part should be rejected, then give up and go home - or keep on digging.

The problem with disguising and retaining identity in heraldic insignia is that one cannot remove or replace what is essential to identification - however, one can add superfluous elements to cause ambiguity. And the superfluous elements can be recognized, by those who know the rules of heraldry, because they produce a result that the rules do not allow.

Both of these factors are intentional attempts to disguise a hidden identification that would otherwise allow that identification to be much more obvious. And there is a third potential difficulty in the identification, which has to do with the number of lines in the pattern. How many lines should there be? In the Wikipedia biographies, there is also a representation of the Fieschi insignia. And there you will find the current interpretation, which is given the blazon, bendy, argent et azur, in six parts. *In six parts*, meaning three blue stripes and three silver/white lines. Thing is - the counting of parts was instituted in the 1800s. And that was long after the Fieschi popes, long after the VMs parchment dates, and probably well after the creation of the VMs illustrations. Besides which, the patterns on the VMs tubs presumably go all the way around, so the determination of the number of stripes is not possible.

So, if the investigator can see through the misdirection of the radial illusion, remove the intentional obfuscation, and not get hung up in the modern penchant for counting the number of parts, things will look a lot different. A pair of bendy patterns in blue and white, along with a red galero are significant clues that define a unique historical event that occurred when Sinibaldo Fieschi, as Pope Innocent IV, made his nephew, Ottobuono Fieshi, a cardinal in 1251 CE. Cardinals may be distinguished by their red galeros. Other colors indicate other hierarchical ranks or orders. And it was Innocent IV who instituted this tradition. And in the VMs illustration, the proper hierarchical placement in the celestial spheres for pope and cardinal is the positioning that is represented, along with other examples of the objective use of location.

So at the time of the VMs parchment dates, we have a 200 year old religious tradition, a standard practice widely known by virtually all associated with the dominant religious institution in Europe at the time. And a tradition likely to be known by the educated and literate persons of the VMs era, because the same institution was the source of their education. And obviously things are vastly different in the modern day. The VMs author felt the need for disguise and obfuscation. However, if investigators cannot discover what has been hidden behind what is essentially a Groucho Marx disguise, it is in all probability because they were not familiar with the essential heraldic and historical facts in the first place. Such information would have been much more familiar to church officials, monks, nuns, etc. at the time of VMs creation. And the papelonny pun provides an incontrovertible confirmation.