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+--- Thread: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens (/thread-5199.html)
RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Stefan Wirtz_2 - 04-01-2026
(03-01-2026, 12:31 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:What is true, however, is that the author could have come from anywhere. But the fact that there are almost no Christian symbols throughout the manuscript does not necessarily mean that the author was not a Christian. It is more likely due to non-religious themes.
I would add that he probably wasn't very religious.
We have a strong hypothesis that at the page f85r2 he mistakes rosary for some chain:
[..]
I would say it's a stereotype that everyone was religious in middle ages. Sure, there weren't officially declared atheists. But there were certainly people who simply didn't care, didn't go to church and didn't know religious symbolism.
This is a bit getting off-track here, but there are other options for that detail:
![[Image: 615183a08dd49ba72ecad7d7646245df.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/1200x/61/51/83/615183a08dd49ba72ecad7d7646245df.jpg)
The VMS figure can easily hold a wreath:
(Ms Germ.Qu 15 Bellifortis)
![[Image: 4ae8c1472b476fcc731afcc226ed3614.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/1200x/4a/e8/c1/4ae8c1472b476fcc731afcc226ed3614.jpg)
Wreaths were symbols for autumn (would be ok for her being a part of the 4 temperaments / humors) and fertility.
Even "knotted" or "un-knotted" was symbolizing the chances of fertility.
Melancholic's wreath appears unknotted to me, but nothing of a rosary at all.
So, as another variation, the author could be religious, but not necessarily in Christian religion, but in other or pagan beliefs.
RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - bi3mw - 05-01-2026
Somewhat off topic, but motivated by the speculation that the author of the VMS may have been a traveler, here is a relevant article. It was surprising to read how diverse the individual pilgrim groups were. This also applies to the late Middle Ages.
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Quote:The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Christian Access
The focus of Christian pilgrimage in Jerusalem is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and there are countless descriptions of the church by Western pilgrims, detailing the fluctuations over the centuries as to which communities were present and where they had their own spaces. The Franciscan Francesco Suriano, resident in Jerusalem between 1481-1484 and 1493-1515, for example identifies ten distinct groups of Christian Religious who lived in the church: Franciscans; Catholic and Orthodox Maronites; Greeks; Georgians; Abyssinians; Copts; Jacobites; Syrians; Armenians; and Nestorians.
Side note: Nestorianism spread as far as China.
RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Bluetoes101 - 09-01-2026
(04-01-2026, 02:13 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Now, can you show me a real apothecary jar that is 100 meters tall?
I think both things are probably wrong, neither is literal - Building or vessel.. I mean if you dip a toe in 15C alchemy a tower+vessel combo seeming to hold up the sky is not too hard to stumble on, it just depends how you look at what the drawer drew. Not implying it is alchemy-stuff, but I think it is more "story" than "map".
RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Jorge_Stolfi - 09-01-2026
(Yesterday, 12:39 AM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think both things are probably wrong, neither is literal - Building or vessel.
Well, on that diagram I see many buildings, towers, islands, walls, roads, a couple of suns, many stars. Maybe a volcano, a colonnade, a couple of square tent roofs on pillars. Maybe a volcano. And the whole Earth, tiny, on the NE corner.
I don't see any vessel, or any objects of the size of vessels.
Why are people so reluctant to accept those six things as towers?
Quote:I mean if you dip a toe in 15C alchemy a tower+vessel combo seeming to hold up the sky is not too hard to stumble on, it just depends how you look at what the drawer drew.
Alchemists used allegories to describe chemical processes. Their writings are largely undeciphered because the historians and paleographers who are interested in them do not know chemistry. As a result, in spite of their good intentions and great efforts, they produce totally nonsensical interpretations, as mystical/spiritual/whatever elucubrations. (I got to meet one such researcher in person when Rene and I visited Prague, ~2000).
Quote:Not implying it is alchemy-stuff, but I think it is more "story" than "map".
Alchemists' drawings tend to be "stories", but each" story" is probably short -- one chemical process at a time. The VMS Rosettes page does not seem to have a "story" structure. It looks very much like a "map" to me...
All the best, --stolfi
RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - R. Sale - 09-01-2026
A map of mythical and mystical imaginings. With all those circular text bands - on a map.
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Looking for geographic examples.
RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Bluetoes101 - 09-01-2026
/adopting argumentative figure for research (/sanity check) sake
Where is it a map of?
Towers cut into the floor like Ethiopia, Castles with merlons like northern Italy and "towers" like Jerusalem (I didn't follow the thread entirely, maybe other places were suggested)? Plus everything else. Its not a reluctance, like I told Rich, I just go where the needle points. If someone finds a sunflower, cool. Now stuff changed. I have no theory and I don't care what the VMS is. Your buildings are impossible. I can't get in!
Where are the six towers holding up the sky in a map?
Alchemy is a bit mental, but I can see what that image shows easy enough. It's just my interpretation is of the core bits, someone who knows more can say more and maybe they are wrong, but we can see the core bits and without much knowledge. We know why the sun had gold feathers and the moon has silver feathers for example.
Anyway, how could it even be literal. Six buildings hold up the sky?
I have an example that covers maybe 80% of the ROS. I'm completely convinced I am wrong, so why are you sure that what it "looks like" (to you) is right?
I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but I can make a pretty valid argument for vessel and/or story. What is the argument for building and map?
It can't be that "its big" because nothing we build extends beyond the stars, or even sort of gets close..ish, being generous, and I like to think people born long ago were still relatively smart. Whoever did this made a maps of the stars and sun/moon after all. Did they really, literally, think buildings towered over (/or held up) the stars? I don't think so right now.
RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Jorge_Stolfi - 09-01-2026
(Yesterday, 02:58 AM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What is the argument for building and map?
The overall layout and every detail of the drawing says "map".
Quote:Where is it a map of? Your buildings are impossible. I can't get in! It can't be that "its big" because nothing we build extends beyond the stars, or even sort of gets close..ish. Whoever did this made a maps of the stars and sun/moon after all. Did they really, literally, think buildings towered over (/or held up) the stars?
It is the map of an imaginary/mythical/symbolic place. Like Atlantis, the New Jerusalem of Revelation, the Inferno of Dante, Hy Brazil, Middle Earth, ...
Arguments for it being imaginary include all of your points above, plus the archipelago of nine round islands in a neat 3x3 grid, the tiny Earth in the corner, the celestial symbols (sun, stars, starry canopy) as being "in" that place, the wolkenband around the central island, etc.
Quote:Six buildings hold up the sky? Where are the six towers holding up the sky ...?
The title I gave to this thread is incorrect, sorry. The towers do not seem to be holding up the sky, but surround it "honorifically", like bell towers surround some churches and mosques, and extend a little bit above it.
Quote:I have an example that covers maybe 80% of the ROS.
Sorry, I missed that. What are you referring to?
All the best, --stolfi
RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - MarcoP - 09-01-2026
(Yesterday, 02:02 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why are people so reluctant to accept those six things as towers?
In my case, because the manuscript has images of both towers and containers, and these You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., not like the towers.
RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - Jorge_Stolfi - 09-01-2026
(Yesterday, 08:21 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[We believe they are containers] because the manuscript has images of both towers and containers, and these You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., not like the towers.
Only some of the containers in pharma look like the six objects around the center of the Rosettes map. But all six of those objects definitely look like towers -- in shape, size, and placement.
The resemblance with the containers is just a coincidence. Like the armadillo and the sunflower....
Those six towers don't look like the other towers in that same map, but so what? The other towers don't look like each other either. There are round ones and square ones, with roofs like cones, like pyramids, or flat, with no spikes, one spike, two spikes...
By the 1400s there must have been hundreds of towers with bulging onion roofs in Russia, Ukraine, Persia, India, Pakistan and surrounding places. They were occasionally depicted on European maps and manuscripts. On that Catalan map they are used as icons to mean something like "Asian or Muslim".
For some reason the Author or the Scribe decided that the six huge sacred towers at the center of his imaginary world had onion roofs, like those depicted in those maps. Perhaps because of the exotic looks...
All the best, --stolfi
RE: Six onion-roof towers supporting heavens - MarcoP - 09-01-2026
(Yesterday, 11:43 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The resemblance with the containers is just a coincidence. Like the armadillo and the sunflower....
I don't think there are XV century European illustrations of armadillos and sunflowers, and I don't think that comparisons between different images all from the Voynich ms are like comparisons with external images.... so to me it's different from armadillo and sunflower.
I am not going to dismiss this level of similarity as coincidence. I don't intend to convince anybody, you asked a question and I gave you my point of view. If it's impossible for you to believe that these parallels can be convincing to others, I cannot provide any additional help. We will just agree to disagree.