Days of creation / Scivias (Hildegard)

[CaryR]

It is indeed an extreme coincidence that you bring this up, since as Koen said, recently (so recently that we had not yet discussed it anywhere else!) I sent him this comparison that I noticed of Hildegard's egg-shaped cosmos and the shape in the lower left Rosette. I was especially interested in how similar the overall structure of the layers is. Not only the visual similarity of each layer, but also of their ordering of placement. Although Hildegard had very specific meanings for each layer, and I don't necessarily think those same meanings could apply to the VM, it makes me wonder if there is some conceptual link. Hildegard's depictions of the winds at the sides of the oval-shaped layers also reminded me of the four corners of this shape in the Rosettes, from which something seems to emanate in each of the four directions. 

The comparison that Koen makes to the shapes representing the first days of creation seem like they could be relevant too-- comparisons like this make me think that the Voynich may draw inspiration from a variety of iconographic traditions, combining it in its own unique way. 

I think it is likely that when the majority of text is oriented the same way next to certain parts of the Rosettes imagery, the image is meant to be "read" that way as well. When the bottom left Rosette is oriented like that, its "egg" shape also stands out as similar to a mandorla, a significant shape in Christian iconography. Some mandorla imagery, like this one from a fresco of the Chora Monestary, contains stars too:

   

I wonder if this VM rosette is conceptually linked to such a motif, which was expressed in a similar but unique way by Hildegard.