01-07-2020, 01:35 AM
Antonio, newbie here today and have spent the last hour reading the first half of your thread. I also believe the primary purpose of the text is to relay how heavenly forces, particularly astrology, affect the medicinal properties of plants. But I also think it is based, fundamentally, on hermetical and alchemical beliefs, and therefore describes the hermetical god's influence through the stars on the cycles of both soul and life regeneration. I think the rosette page is a map or diagram of the author's perception of these cycles which closely follows ideas to be found in the Corpus Hermeticum and/or very similar ideas in circulation.
That said, I think your emphasis on astrology could open up some of the script (as opposed to language) but not all of it.
Two "numbers" that you mentioned earlier might be cases in point. The number 9 for me as found represented in the spiral in the cosmos of the top right rosette, and its placement at the beginning and ends of lines, is representative of soul regeneration. It's an o shape (god or heaven) with a tail that points back. Whereas the 4o is very specifically mentioned in Caps(and represented in the bottom right rosette) in the hermeticum as the number of God and Generation of bodily life - reincarnation of plant and animal life. These are different processes - only the human soul can know god, so humans go through both soul and bodily reincarnation, whereas in plants and animals the soul is life and it is therefore a bodily reincarnation only.
I won't go through this whole hermeticum philosophy, but even if my own thoughts are totally wayward, I want to point out that just a listing of astrological and astronomical symbols, while relevant, would not appear to me to account for the "why" of the manuscript. How do stars work on plants and then the human body to prolong health and life? What's at work in the stars that would enable them to do such a thing. I always think of the cental rosette "pill bottles" that also double as places of worship as a case in point. The medicine treats the body both physically and spiritually. I think this kind of duality pervades the manuscript. Body and soul, heavenly and cthonic, etc.
These are just my thought intended to expand maybe on your own but I do think you are onto something. I'm just thinking your emphasis on the script as only astronomical signs might be too great.
Something I just discovered today because I looked up the word Aeon after encountering it in the hermeticum. These seem to be ages (accounts differ) of 2600 years or so, regarding the procession of equinoxes. We are presently in the Age of Pisces, with only two known known Ages having gone before - Aries and Taurus. I thought this was interesting if we disregard missing folios for a second, because it seems that for this reason astrologers did sometimes begin the houses in Pisces. But also, with two "known" Ages having gone before, (Pisces starts in 1 ad, which is why Jesus ended up, by coincidence, with fish symbolism, so some historical or mythical history was known about the 5000 years prior) so I wondered if that's the reason Taurus and Ares, the two known Ages, were split to differentiate the first and second halves, and why some figures were clothed (becoming more civilized?). You can't say this manuscript isn't food for the imagination!
That said, I think your emphasis on astrology could open up some of the script (as opposed to language) but not all of it.
Two "numbers" that you mentioned earlier might be cases in point. The number 9 for me as found represented in the spiral in the cosmos of the top right rosette, and its placement at the beginning and ends of lines, is representative of soul regeneration. It's an o shape (god or heaven) with a tail that points back. Whereas the 4o is very specifically mentioned in Caps(and represented in the bottom right rosette) in the hermeticum as the number of God and Generation of bodily life - reincarnation of plant and animal life. These are different processes - only the human soul can know god, so humans go through both soul and bodily reincarnation, whereas in plants and animals the soul is life and it is therefore a bodily reincarnation only.
I won't go through this whole hermeticum philosophy, but even if my own thoughts are totally wayward, I want to point out that just a listing of astrological and astronomical symbols, while relevant, would not appear to me to account for the "why" of the manuscript. How do stars work on plants and then the human body to prolong health and life? What's at work in the stars that would enable them to do such a thing. I always think of the cental rosette "pill bottles" that also double as places of worship as a case in point. The medicine treats the body both physically and spiritually. I think this kind of duality pervades the manuscript. Body and soul, heavenly and cthonic, etc.
These are just my thought intended to expand maybe on your own but I do think you are onto something. I'm just thinking your emphasis on the script as only astronomical signs might be too great.
Something I just discovered today because I looked up the word Aeon after encountering it in the hermeticum. These seem to be ages (accounts differ) of 2600 years or so, regarding the procession of equinoxes. We are presently in the Age of Pisces, with only two known known Ages having gone before - Aries and Taurus. I thought this was interesting if we disregard missing folios for a second, because it seems that for this reason astrologers did sometimes begin the houses in Pisces. But also, with two "known" Ages having gone before, (Pisces starts in 1 ad, which is why Jesus ended up, by coincidence, with fish symbolism, so some historical or mythical history was known about the 5000 years prior) so I wondered if that's the reason Taurus and Ares, the two known Ages, were split to differentiate the first and second halves, and why some figures were clothed (becoming more civilized?). You can't say this manuscript isn't food for the imagination!