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+--- Thread: folio 85r2 possibly representing the 4 academic faculties (/thread-6143.html)
folio 85r2 possibly representing the 4 academic faculties - blongblingi - 01-10-2026
Before i begin my claim, i must say that i'm a mere layman, and so if a lot of stuff here doesn't fit findings i didn't know about, i would love to hear about that.
Now that i got that out of the way, let's look at how the folio might represent the four faculties:
Medieval academia tended to have 4 faculties: Theology, Medicine, Law and The Arts. Here i will go through (what i think) each character might represent, from most to least likely (in my opinion atleast), as well as some of my (personal and unsubstantiated) speculations regarding the nature of the folio in general.
First, for the most obvious one (imo atleast) we have medicine, represented by the guy on the right. the urine flask clearly represents a medieval doctor so i won't go deep here.
Now, the man on the bottom based on this theory would represent theology: the similarities to St. anthony are already fairly established, and i believe it could be reasonable for a saint (though not anthony himself, asthe painting here could be a generic priest or saint) to represent theology.
for the man on the left holding a flower however, i suggest this: the man here represents the art of Rhetoric, which acts as a "representative" for the entire faculty of Arts and philosophy: i found a depiction in Cod. 2975, of rhetoric represented as a man holding a flower, with it being a pun on an older medieval book (from the 11th century) called "Flores rhetorici"
lastly, we can look at the man at the top, and finally i here suggest that this man is a representative of the faculty of Law. while i would admit this acts as a descent stretch, the finger here isn't simply pointed, but pointed upwards. as can be seen from the Heidelberg Sachsenspiegel, Cod. Pal. germ 164 from the early 14th century:
a raised right hand index finger demonstrates a verdict done by the judge. thus the only "big" feature from that side of the circle coincides with Law. Here we can also look at Cod. 2975 in that manner: philosophy is depicted as the "king of the Arts" in that manuscript, and what does a king do? (especially one whose entire being is deciding right from wrong ) , that's right- he judges.
now that i explained my chain of thought regarding that association, now it's time for a bit of speculation! what could this possibly tell us about the manuscript as a whole?
i mainly have 2 theories: 1. that the voynich manuscript doesn't discuss only medicine (as can be easily seen by the botanic paintings of unknown plants) but also theology, the arts and law. Or 2. to act as a sort of proof, either by claiming that men of different fields all support the contents of the manuscript, or that the contents of the manuscript can be applied to all sciences.
all in all, i hope that the smell of "rhetorical flowers" here was pretty good (but not good enough to get you guys hooked completely in) and would love to hear what you guys think about this.
RE: folio 85r2 possibly representing the 4 academic faculties - pjburkshire - 01-10-2026
I see medicine and I see theology but I don't see arts or law. What is your interpretation of the Rosettes page that is on the other side?
RE: folio 85r2 possibly representing the 4 academic faculties - blongblingi - 02-10-2026
given my theory about the 4 faculties in f85r2,there's also another possibility which i didn't think about when writing the original post: these 4 faculties could act as an "ordering of all human knowledge" , while on the other side we could see an "ordering of the entire cosmos": a human city in the outskirts, a garden in the middle (eden?) , mandala-like shapes representing otherworldly spiritual elements.
alternatively, it could also fit with a mapping of the sciences into the heavens like dante's convivio (written at around the same time as VMS), with 9 circles in the rosettes and one, much larger in 86v6 - 10 overall, much like dante's ordering of the sciences into celestial objects. however i'll admit there's plausibly a flaw here with the third circle in the rosettes featuring what seems to be a city and the large first one has the moon, (though that could be from it being the closest one, and thus occupying the first page, while all of the rest are together)
RE: folio 85r2 possibly representing the 4 academic faculties - Jorge_Stolfi - 02-10-2026
(01-10-2026, 09:25 PM)blongblingi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
I am not convinced by the "four academic departments" interpretation. However, the hallucination sub-processor in my brain was tickled by the drawing of a woman (not old!) using an ax to metaphorically chop a wooden speech into shape. See the theory I posted before about the "staff and rosary" of the "old lady" being actually a hatchet and chain that a housewife would use for collecting firewood.
By the way, does anyone remember the German printed book with the "seasons of life" drawings and accompanying poems that was posted somewhere on this website? I cannot find it...
And, in the drawing of Magister Julius(?), it looks like the right hand was supposed to hold something up, but that something mutated into the edge of the book. Maybe the Artist was "inspired" by a doctor-holding-flask drawing?
All the best, --stolfi
RE: folio 85r2 possibly representing the 4 academic faculties - Koen G - 02-10-2026
Indeed, the figure with the vessel as Medicine is not a problem. Even if this weren't intended as a urine flask, one can still argue in favor of a vial of medicine or whatever. I am convinced the medieval viewer would have recognized this figure as "a physician" without a second thought.
Theology is, in my opinion, your proposal's biggest problem. In medieval stock images, the figure bent over a cane with prayer beads is rather read as "old" instead of "saint". Everyone would have had prayer beads in their household - this would not have been a specific marker of holiness. Moreover, the art of Theology is really about being learned, able to interpret scripture, rather than necessarily being a paragon of virtue (although early theologians, church fathers... would often become saints of course).
Why were old people so often depicted with prayer beads? On the one hand, this must have reflected some medieval reality. But the message is foremost a moralizing one: when your body no longer allows you to work the fields and death is right around the corner, your main concern should be with the soul. Pray those sins away, cleanse your soul, get ready to meet your maker. Old people bent over a staff are shown with prayer beads because praying to cleanse sins was all that was left for them to do on this earth. This has very little to do with one learned in Theology. It simply shows this person's attention has shifted away from their earthly, decaying body and towards the eternal.
The Trinity is a great symbol for Theology because only theologians understand it ;)
Flowers for rhetoric might work, although flowers were the medieval artist's favorite metaphor. Things of beauty, things of theological significance, youth, spring, the Virgin... A collection of flowers (Lat: florilegium, Gr: anthologia) was a gathering of excerpts from other text, often to make theological points. See also the "Liber Floridus". But this one isn't problematic.
The pointing gesture can mean that someone is speaking, and often shows that someone speaks with authority on a subject. Often shorthand for a scholar. See "Magister Iulius" in your woodchopping picture.
So in short:
Figure with vial: could stand for medicine or one of its subdisciplines, this is OK
Figure with cane and loops: preferential reading is old age. Even if the reading is "saintliness", that is not the same as "learned in Theology"
Figure with flower: could be rhetoric, but flower symbolism is very non-specific.
Pointing figure: stock pose of the scholar, could stand for any discipline.
RE: folio 85r2 possibly representing the 4 academic faculties - Rafal - 02-10-2026
@You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. You need to watch this video:
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Generally people found manuscripts with very similar imagery to f85r2.
RE: folio 85r2 possibly representing the 4 academic faculties - blongblingi - 02-10-2026
i watched the video (and loved it) and it's what made me think of that specific direction lol, i wasn't fully convinced by the "stages of life"/seasons proposal (i kinda lump them together, as the symbolism in both stages of life and seasons tend to follow similar patterns) there so i thought of it as an alternative option, specifically the insertion of the doctor inside the cycle (the only way it could've made sense to me personally if voynich was a highly edited copy, but even then: the seasonal imagery would've been very hard to miss for the rest of the 3, or even the two if we include the pointing figure as well, so if a seasonal theme was present throughout the circle in the original copy, i doubt that the copier, even if illiterate , would miss that imagery and insert a doctor and a scholar for no reason, even if he was from the page before, or perhaps an insane stretch with winter, a time of higher mortality, being represented by a doctor, but that would give us problems regarding his location).
also one thing which i just noticed now: does the scholar at the top wear a ring? i think that's a connection with authority (a royal seal perhaps? or a sign of wealth?) which i missed, and could possibly refute him being a "general scholar" , and "point" (pun intended) us to regal and legal authority.
also, if voynich was copied/ originally drawn by an illiterate, the elder on the left gives another possible avenue for why it could be theology, as the layman's interaction with the faith wasn't through the intricate understanding of the trinity, but by an elder priests and prayer beads. (though it could present another problem - i doubt the common peasant knew about a flower-rhetoric analogy or the concept of the four faculties of academia, so that would probably fall in that case )
RE: folio 85r2 possibly representing the 4 academic faculties - Aga Tentakulus - 02-10-2026
The picture showing the axe is about learning a craft.
The other one is about inheritance law and other judgements made in the presence of witnesses.