The Voynich Ninja

What are the the reasons that heraldry fails, or succeeds, as a method of interpretation in the VMs Zodiac and as a historical validation for the significance of Stolfi's markers in f71r?

(25-10-2016, 05:46 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What are the the reasons that heraldry fails, or succeeds, as a method of interpretation in the VMs Zodiac and as a historical validation for the significance of Stolfi's markers in f71r?

I don't see any indication of a coat of arms in f71r, maybe I'm not familiar with stolfi's markers.

R.Sale -  what do you mean with Stolfi's markers? I haven't been around yet for that long.

And isn't this folio one of those that may have been altered by a later owner? The paint looks sloppy and obscures details of the drawing.

If anything I believe this folio might indicate what happened to the manuscript a while after it was finished, but not the intentions of a supposed author or truthful copyist. That's just my impression of the folio based on what I've read from others.

Because colors have been added, it gives a bit more of a heraldic first sight impression, but I just don't see any convincing concrete evidence for that.

By coincidence, I recently read this 1999 quote by Stolfi through a comment from Nick Pelling:

Quote:The new Beinecke images left me more convinced that ever that most of the VMs colors are apocryphal and bogus.

And also:

Quote:The Painter too did not understand the book, but apparently did not have much regard for it, and did some very stupid things on occasion.

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Koen Gh,
Stolfi markers are geometric designs found in the circular bands of text on some Voynich folios.
Stolfi noted that they probably indicate where the text in a circle begins/ends.
On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the markers are roughly at 10 o'clock on both bands of text.

The markers are throughout the text and, in most cases, are at roughly 10 o'clock, as VViews points out. In combination with other things, it's one of the reasons I doubt that this is a fraud/hoax manuscript. Hoaxsters probably wouldn't imagine adding that kind of detail—they want to finish things quickly, and random text doesn't require beginning/end markers.

VViews and JKP are mostly accurate in their references to these patterns. Stolfi's description of the first Zodiac examples is at Rene's site. In the description of f71r, he uses the term: "start here" marker for the patterns in two of the circular bands of text around the central medallion. Stolfi used them to start his text transcriptions.

There are various markers to be found in several locations containing circular bands of text. Some markers are simple; some patterns are more numerous. Some patterns are complex, some are unique. The markers in the VMs Zodiac are both complex and unique. Besides the two on White Aries, there is another in Cancer. However, there are only these three examples of such markers in all of the VMs Zodiac and these are the only uniquely complex markers in the VMs. If this marker is simply used to designate a location to begin the transcription, why aren't markers found in every circular band? Does each band need to be transcribed? Or just these three? What is the 'purpose' of these makers, and why would an investigator propose something more than casual insignificance to these particular examples?

The answer is shown by a clear conjunction of parts between one of the patterned markers and one of the blue-striped tub patterns in White Aries illustration, providing the tub pattern is correctly understood in the traditional and historical sense. Religious tradition is invoked through this connection and the interpretation is reinforced in various ways that are built into the construction of this illustration.

Koen provides Stolfi's comment on coloration: "that most of the VMs colors are apocryphal and bogus." But if it's "most" but not *all*, are any colors intentional or accurate? If so, what examples? The situation in the VMs Zodiac is that much of it is not painted. And yet it contains one example of a page that is almost fully painted, which is the page in question: f71r. Coloration requires paint or some other system of designation. Almost everything on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is painted, with the exception of the animal in the central medallion. This offers some implication that the choice was made to leave the animal intentionally 'white' rather than accidentally unpainted. In addition to which, all the other VMs Zodiac animals in medallions have been painted.

Is the choice of color "apocryphal and bogus" in the matter of the *blue* stripes on f71r, or was it an intentional and accurate decision? What if the stripes were red and the hats were green? Would that option provide any sort of historical grounding? The choice of color and pattern is just as intentional as the creation of the proper hierarchical locations for the paired representations, etc., or the use and placement of papelonny patterns on the two preceding pages. The list of traditional, positional confirmations has actually been drawn into the complexity of the illustration. They are objectively there and a part of historical tradition, certain parts of which almost vanished into obscurity.


I see this thread has already been designated by a little 'brick wall" logo. Such an indicator seems to express an opinion with little in the way of positive interpretation. Might I have the courtesy of an explanation, (the *reasons* I requested initially)? If it is for a failure to reach a definitive interpretation of the VMs language, that is certainly true. But then many others should also be designated likewise. And then there are those who claim to have found this definitive interpretation. Another little logo will be needed for them.

Heraldry does not provide the answers to the VMs. It is an essential part of something greater that substantiates a valid starting place for VMs investigation - because it is there on the page. The VMs is not designed to *feed* information to the reader. It seems more intended to test the investigator again and again with increasing difficulty.

Test Questions:
1) Can you find a simple pattern?   Ans: Pairing in the first five houses of the VMs Zodiac, multiplied among themselves, in the designs of the tub patterns, multiplied among themselves and on to Stolfi's markers and beyond.
2) Can you see past an optical illusion?  Ans: Clearly the illustration sits on the page, but we turn it to a radial orientation. (Again: f71r)
3) Can you differentiate between visual interpretation and positional description, with examples?
4) Can you read heraldic canting and give relevant examples?

This is a place of beginning that is based on what is drawn *in* the VMs.

The animal is left white because it is white in reality. The other animals that are depicted are not white in reality. 

And I think exactly the fact that the coloring is clumsy and inconsistent tells us the reason why especially this page raises questions about whether or not the paint is original. There are other sections of the manuscript where color has been applied with much more care and apparent skill than this one.

On the other hand, the penmanship on this page is fine, with quite some detail and variation that is in some places all but ruined by the paintjob. Other folios prove that someone involved had the skill and will to colorize nicely, leading to the assuption that the reds and blues and greens on pages like these have been added by a later hand.


About Stolfi's markers, they are there, but they could mean anything. Maybe they mark specific dates or locations or whatever. We just don't know.

(26-10-2016, 11:11 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.VViews and JKP are mostly accurate in their references to these patterns. Stolfi's description of the first Zodiac examples is at Rene's site. In the description of f71r, he uses the term: "start here" marker for the patterns in two of the circular bands of text around the central medallion. Stolfi used them to start his text transcriptions.

I don't think Stolfi was claiming that the purpose of these markers was necessarily to indicate where to begin reading the text, just that they served as convenient starting locations for a transcription since we can't be absolutely sure where to begin.

Quote:There are various markers to be found in several locations containing circular bands of text. Some markers are simple; some patterns are more numerous. Some patterns are complex, some are unique. The markers in the VMs Zodiac are both complex and unique. Besides the two on White Aries, there is another in Cancer. However, there are only these three examples of such markers in all of the VMs Zodiac and these are the only uniquely complex markers in the VMs. If this marker is simply used to designate a location to begin the transcription, why aren't markers found in every circular band? Does each band need to be transcribed? Or just these three? What is the 'purpose' of these makers, and why would an investigator propose something more than casual insignificance to these particular examples?

It's a good question.  It relates to the question of why the illustrations in the Zodiac section generally become more drab as one moves from the beginning to the end.  Even the text labels on the earlier diagrams seem to use more unusual words than in the later diagrams.  I personally doubt that this is because the illustrator got lazy as he went along, as is sometimes suggested.  I think it all follows a predetermined plan and serves some kind of purpose, but I don't know what that purpose is.

Quote:The answer is shown by a clear conjunction of parts between one of the patterned markers and one of the blue-striped tub patterns in White Aries illustration, providing the tub pattern is correctly understood in the traditional and historical sense. Religious tradition is invoked through this connection and the interpretation is reinforced in various ways that are built into the construction of this illustration.

It certainly seems possible that the markers are somehow related to the blue-striped tubs.  But I'm not sure you've made a strong case that any of this is necessarily connected to heraldry.  Are the markers themselves found in heraldry?

Quote:Koen provides Stolfi's comment on coloration: "that most of the VMs colors are apocryphal and bogus." But if it's "most" but not *all*, are any colors intentional or accurate? If so, what examples? The situation in the VMs Zodiac is that much of it is not painted. And yet it contains one example of a page that is almost fully painted, which is the page in question: f71r. Coloration requires paint or some other system of designation. Almost everything on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is painted, with the exception of the animal in the central medallion. This offers some implication that the choice was made to leave the animal intentionally 'white' rather than accidentally unpainted. In addition to which, all the other VMs Zodiac animals in medallions have been painted.

I basically agree that the coloration is intentional and follows some kind of plan, and was entirely added by the person or group who originally created the manuscript.  I don't see much basis for the idea that the colors were substantially modified by a later owner who didn't know what he was doing.

Quote:Is the choice of color "apocryphal and bogus" in the matter of the *blue* stripes on f71r, or was it an intentional and accurate decision? What if the stripes were red and the hats were green? Would that option provide any sort of historical grounding? The choice of color and pattern is just as intentional as the creation of the proper hierarchical locations for the paired representations, etc., or the use and placement of papelonny patterns on the two preceding pages. The list of traditional, positional confirmations has actually been drawn into the complexity of the illustration. They are objectively there and a part of historical tradition, certain parts of which almost vanished into obscurity.

The colors may be significant to understanding what is going on.  But you know, the figure wearing your beloved "red galero" is clearly female as has been pointed out to you before, which basically moots the issue of the alleged "papelonny" pun.  Even setting these issues aside, the greater problem is that you're focusing on only a small number of the nymphs while ignoring all the others.  How do you account for all the other patterns that can be found on the tubs?  Are there heraldic interpretations for these and if not, then how do we know that the simple and common patterns (scales, blue and white stripes) on the tubs that you focus on necessarily relate to heraldry?

Quote:I see this thread has already been designated by a little 'brick wall" logo. Such an indicator seems to express an opinion with little in the way of positive interpretation. Might I have the courtesy of an explanation, (the *reasons* I requested initially)?

You sure you didn't accidentally click next to that icon when you were making your post?

Also, I don't think the pattern on the tub on 70v1 can accurately be called papelonny. In papelonny each row of scales is shifted 50% relative to the previous row, but on the tub in question most of the scales are aligned.  Here's a comparison:


Should we do a poll?

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Koen,

That is exactly my point. The whole page of White Aries is painted to emphasize the whiteness of the animal in the medallion. If the page is unpainted, then coloration is not defined. This apparently indicates that the application of paint of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was to some extent planned in advance. And it seems to contradict the opinion expressed in Stolfi's remark that you posted, which negates the possibility of intentional decisions in the choice of coloration. Specifically that paint was applied by someone who did not understand what s/he was doing.


I disagree. White Aries is white for a reason. And that reason has to do with the traditional dictates of religious sacrifice. Surely, as a proponent of Hellenistic influences, you are aware of the old tradition of sacrificing white animals to celestial divinities and dark animals to the chthonic deities. All the other VMs animals are darkly painted and this (f71r) is the only one, (with whiteness emphasized), that is suitable for celestial sacrifice. This suggestion of celestial connotations is very compatible with certain historical persons of high religious office also represented on this page. This is one of the objective, positional confirmations I have listed -  that the blue-striped patterns were put on the White Aries page *for a reason*! Because they share the celestial connection!

Sam G,

Now we're getting to it. One of the figures associated with the blue-striped patterns is *unquestionably female* and therefore the whole construction collapses. Let's look more closely at that illustration.

In keeping with the thorough painting of the page (f71r), the body of this 'nymph' has been colored red. So it seems unlikely that this figure is nude, as is generally seen on other pages. Then, in this pattern of red paint, there is something that looks like a breast, or a pocket on a shirt. Are we seeing something that is on the clothing or under the clothing? Certainly it is possible for overweight men to accumulate fat in such a way as to give a similar appearance *under* clothing. So the *unquestionably female* viewpoint is not unquestionable.

But also look at the structure of the illustration itself. Typically breasts are drawn with simple ink lines. But in this example, we have a collection of red dots. Do you think the artist painted each of these dots individually to create the current image?

Let's also look at the matter of the papelonny pattern. First of all, your alternating, black and white is not the best representation of this design. Take a look at the red and gold pattern attributed to Chotard Chateaubriand. All the scales are red and the lines used to define the pattern are gold.

Meanwhile, your 'Not Papelonny' counter example is simply not relevant. Besides the looping lines used to make the scales, it is crossed with a series of horizontal lines that are completely extraneous to the VMs illustration.

We have the VMs illustration, and in some cases the alignment of the scales does not match up with the line above. These patterns in the VMs are rather small, and perhaps a bit sloppy. And the VMs is not intended as an instruction manual for heraldry. Rather, I would argue that the illustrations are supposed to be evocative of heraldic patterns, sufficiently so that they convey the *idea* of papelonny, in this case, and that the reader is supposed to use that idea, rather than quibble about minor details. That is, if the evocative interpretation makes sense in context, the interpretation is likely to be valid, even if the actual image isn't perfect in every detail. And while that is certainly more difficult to accomplish in the construction of a visual pun. We do have the fact that the location of the two papelonny patterns clearly does mimic the placement of the two blue-striped patterns as to the intentional placement in a specific quadrant and a specific celestial sphere. How is it that pape and papelonny are aligned *in pairs?*

Incidentally, there is a historical connection between Chotard Chateaubriand, as suggested by the papelonny pattern, and Pope Innocent IV, suggested by the blue-striped pattern, through their mutual association with the French King Louis IX. And this is another factor that adds to the confirmation of the White Aries identification. The VMs creator knows the history and the heraldry that are relevant to  the origins of the tradition of the red galero. The subtle and inventive use that has been made of this information is clearly unexpected.