No text, but a visual code

[-JKP-]

Just because a fifteenth.century man uses the same instrumental logic as us does not mean that he uses the same logic of knowledge. None of us believe today, as it was believed then, that the stars give their medicinal virtues to herbs. Nor do we believe that the worid is full of angels and demons.

But we are AWARE that they thought this way. We know they associated herbs, magic, stars and astrology. We are not completely ignorant of how they thought.

I never speak of an astronomical text. I try to avoid the word text because I just don't think there is any language in the VM. The only thing I am trying to convey is that there is a magic component in the VM without which it is impossible to understand.

You are constantly comparing the VMS text to the numbers to numbers on volvelles/astrolabes. Those are astronomical instruments.

I have read numerous books on medieval magic, including medieval texts themselves. They do not have any kind of obsession with only the numbers 4 and 8. They used many different numbers, with 12 being especially popular.

What makes me think that the glyph that looks like 8 is number 8 is precisely that it is not accompanied by any number but by 4 in its medieval form.They are two faces of the same coin. And the glyph that represents the number 4 in its old form is not easily replaceable by a letter like 8. Isn't it?

You still have not explained why the VMS would include 8 and 4 but not the other numbers, for 200 pages. Your only explanation is "they thought differently from us".