Voynich You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. feature marginal illustrations and a mix of Voynichese and words written in the Latin alphabet. I think these two small sets of marginalia belong together, i.e. they are too similar to be unrelated.
D'Imperio wrote:
“There are small drawings of people, animals, and other less easily-identifiable objects on some pages. Folio 66r, as has already been noted, contains a drawing of a man lying on his back clutching his stomach as if sick or dead, and surrounded by various indeterminate small objects. The last page, 116v, has several sketches of people, animals, and other mysterious shapes in its upper left corner”.
(I guess she mistook the figure in 66r as a man because she only had poor quality reproductions of the illustrations)
In my opinion, the two illustrations represent two “patients,” together with the substances to be used to cure them. I guess this interpretation is widely seen as the most likely, but I would like to know what others think. In particular, I would be interested in different interpretations of the two sets of illustrations and corresponding visual parallels.
Here are a few illustrations that I consider relevant to the subject:
Patients are often illustrated as naked, possibly a way to make them immediately recognizable from people curing them (e.g. J and K). Sometimes, they are naked even if there is no physician in the scene (e.g. D, E, F, G-left, H, L). G-left is only wearing some kind of headgear. like the woman in VMS 116v.
Patients are often represented as sitting (D, H, L, K). The posture of (D) is particularly similar to that of the woman in VMS 116v.
Less frequently, patients are represented as lying in bed (J). The closest I have found to the figure in VMS 66r might be (I), which however is different in many respects: the subject is a dressed man lying on his side. Actually, this is not the illustration of a patient, but of the correct posture in which one should sleep. One could note that this illustration does not present anything that could be interpreted as an ingredient for a medicine.
In some cases, the patients seem to touch or point to the suffering body part (e.g. E, G-right, H). This seems to be the case also in VMS 66r.
Often, the substances to be used in the cure are illustrated as well. In herbal illustrations, actually the ingredients are the main subject and the patients are secondary details (L, G). D illustrates the application of Peony to cure epilepsy. C features a goat, a possible parallel for VMS f116v. (J) features a bowl of soup, a possible parallel for the cylindrical container in VMS 66r (this illustration of “polte de orzo” / “barley broth” was pointed out by Rene on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
Illustration (F) is of particular interest because the corresponding text is an incantation with crosses (to cure spasms). VMS 116v also seems to include an incantation with crosses.
A point for which I have no explanation is why the two marginal figures are both women (while, in most of the examples I have seen, the patients are men). Since female figures are prominent in the whole manuscript, I doubt this is a coincidence.
So, here are some things that relate to the number 'five' or occur in fives. Perhaps there are other examples.
As I have already mentioned, it is position 5, in the seventeen symbol sequence, where there is a certain glyph with three relevant, medieval interpretations.
In position six is a glyph that has been interpreted as a quincunx. This is a symbol found in astrology, used to designate the house that is *fifth* from the primary house - the natal house in astrology, but in the traditional Zodiac, the fifth house is Leo. However, in the VMs, because the VMs has Pisces first, the fifth house is Cancer. Let's look at Cancer.
Two things about VMs Cancer:
1) It has an example of "Stolfi's marker". This is the short, patterned space in the circular band of text. Middle ring, nine o'clock, as I recall. And there are only two other such examples in the VMs Zodiac - both on White Aries.
2) The image of the central medallion is a pair. And as a pair, it is the *fifth* house in a series where the central medallion is either paired internally or duplicated externally to make a pair. Five pairings in sequence, and more within this set if other factors are considered. And more pairings besides, on the same Zodiac pages.
Back with the 17 symbol sequence, two of the potential interpretations of Symbol 5 were numerical and one was from the Greek alphabet. But the Greek symbols are also potentially numerals. The same symbols occur in sequence with an interesting exception. Three additional symbols were added as numerals. The first of these is the insertion of the old letter 'digamma' as the number '6'. The Greek alphabetic sequence and numerical sequence only match for the first *five* symbols.
So there is nothing here that can't be plainly seen or easily known. Does it potentially all tie together? That is the question. Certainly this sort of suggestive thinking was common in the medieval period. And whether the author was such a person or not, s/he still may have known and used such method.
A new book about the Voynich manuscript is set to be released in August:
The Voynich Manuscript: The Complete Edition of the World' Most Mysterious and Esoteric Codex
Hardcover – August 15, 2017
Amazon link:
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Dr. Stephen Skinner (Foreword)
And introductions by Dr Rafal Prinke and Dr René Zandbergen
Apart from these introductions, the press release also mentions that the book "reproduces every single page of the Voynich in full-colour photography." Is this the same as the recent Yale edition?
Additionally, and perhaps most interestingly, an e-mail sent out from the publisher reveals that it also contins "a fascinating new theory about the identity of the author. Based on careful study of the images depicted, the plants portrayed, and the lack of any Christian imagery, the authors conclude that it was a Jewish person residing in Italy who must have written the manuscript."
In my search for parallels to the circular field of labeled stars on the 68r folios, I found an item which I believe is worthy of comparison with these folios, so I'm posting it here for discussion.
The object is the so-called Star Mantle of Henry II, gifted to him by a certain bishop Ismahel of Bari in 1020.
It soon ended up in the Bamberg Cathedral, where it underwent a significant restoration in the 15th C, during which the blue background was added (the original was purple silk) and the labels (tituli) were methodically un-sewn and rearranged differently so as to form new words and sentences. Apparently, there were originally many more labels than have survived.
Although they placed the labels differently, the placement of the stars and other elements was respected. However, the arrangement of stars here is not a literal map of the stars: "The placement of the images corresponds neither to a map nor to a celestial globe. The distribution of figures seems to be entirely arbitrary" (p. 22 in the referenced text below)
It is also worth noting that while the surviving mantle is only a semi-circle, the original one was actually fully circular, with a hole in the middle for the wearer's head to fit through. The emperor thus literally became the axis around which the heavens moved.
Here's the largest image I could find:
A good in-depth read about it can be found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Considering that this mantle was restored in Bamberg in the 15th C, I wonder if such a prodigious object could have inspired the creators of 15thC manuscripts in Bamberg and beyond (the mantle was extremely famous at the time, in fact, the thousands of pilgrims coming to touch it are to blame for its early deterioration)... Of course, I am wondering if this object could have inspired the Voynich artist.
Conversely, the field of labeled stars it features could have been inspired by a now-lost depiction of the heavens. The author of the paper linked below suggests Gregory of Tours' De Cursu Stellarum as an influence, but concedes that this model alone doesn't explain what we see on the Star Mantle.
It would be very interesting to know more about Ismahel of Bari and the creators of this mantle.
What do you all think about this artifact as a parallel for the 68r folios?
Jacek and Agnieszka have kindly been keeping me in touch with their study of the written text, even though aware that I'm not in a position to offer any useful comment on 'cracking' the language.
You can find the paper at academia.edu by searching 'Jacek Sygula' there.
I'll be honest and say that I'm not certain the paper isn't a hoax.
Would anyone better able to say something useful about the content care to comment?
During a workshop held at the Beinecke this week, several manuscripts in the collection are being explained to students.
One of these is the 'Rothschild Canticles', and its picture on the Beinecke facebook page immediately drew my attention.
It is this one: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Both (tiny) volumes have been fully digitised:
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Imperfection, though frequently unavoidable, is generally seen as a detriment. In VMs investigations it is often problematic in the comparison of images. But the VMs is also something like a topsy-turvy world where things are not what they seem, but they are what they are.
I have been wondering, from the perspective of the VMs composer, who would be the person most likely to make sense of the contents? And in the medieval era the majority of people were still illiterate. Those who could read were often associated with and educated through the church. It might be assumed that it would take a determined individual to even attempt to make sense of VMs contents - a person that is devoted and meticulous.
And the VMs itself is extremely problematic. Is it a natural 'foreign' document of unknown origin? Is it encoded, encrypted? Does it make sense at all? Without being able to read the text and given the strange botanical, astrological, balneological, pharmacological illustrations, the VMs is like an intentionally weird haystack in which a few useful needles have been hidden - such as the Oresme cosmos and cloud band, in two parts.
So if the VMs is an intentionally covert document, who is it hiding from? Not from the illiterate majority. It needs to hide from the determined, inquisitive, meticulous minority. How can that be done? One technique is the use of imperfection. Take the example of the 4 by 17 symbol sequence of VMs f57v. It might be a potential candidate for a VMs alphabet or numerical sequence, *but* not all four sequences are identical and there are other glyphs found in the text. Those meticulous investigators who require consistent detail as a criterion for further investigation will be deterred. That which was hidden remains hidden (the existence of positional relationships in the glyph sequence).
It is not necessary that every correspondence is perfect. What is needed is to show the existence of this complex construction is intentional. And it can only be intentional because it is too complex and contains multiple, independent factors that accord with history and tradition which provide verification. In a manuscript where little makes much sense, there are subtle, obscure and ambiguous inclusions of normal, standard, traditional, historical information for the prospective reader's potential discovery and subjective interpretation. The challenge put forth by author/text is one of recognition and understanding of this *normal* information in a strange environment. Does the reader pass or fail? Is the investigation derailed by minor discrepancies rather than seeing the evidence as a whole. Are the potential, subjective interpretations denied even before the existence of objective, positional confirmations is discovered? Are there intentional discrepancies and imperfections intended to divert and deter those who require everything to be totally nailed down and verified in detail? Part of the purpose of these complex constructions in the VMs is that they are hidden.
![[Image: capture-d_c3a9cran-476.png]](https://voynichviews.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/capture-d_c3a9cran-476.png)
![[Image: orionv.png]](https://voynichviews.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/orionv.png)
![[Image: 51XtVKxyXlL._SX320_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51XtVKxyXlL._SX320_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
![[Image: star-cloak2.jpg]](https://flextiles.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/star-cloak2.jpg)
