The Rosettes Page - March 2024

[MarcoP]

I like Koen's ideas, but it can't be a coincidence that so little makes perfect sense. Nearly everything depends on interpretation. It must have been designed that way, to titillate the imagination without giving enough information to make a solid identification of anything. There is probably nothing to identify.

Medieval images can rarely be understood directly. In the end, our only chance to understand them is through some very specific text. In my opinion, the zodiac wheels in Alfonso's astromagia You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. would be just as puzzling as the Voynich zodiac, if we couldn't read the text they illustrate. This also applies to monumental art, with the decans at Palazzo Schifanoia being a famous example: the meaning of the frescoes could only be recovered in 1912, when You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. matched the images with those of an illustrated text.

Images in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.'s cipher manuscripts are often impossible to interpret without reading the text (e.g. left: chaotic images due to retinal persistence; right: a mnemonic device based on a set of metal wheels).

   

And sometimes, as with You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or the Alchemical Herbal, even reading the text does not fully solve the mystery of the illustrations.

While I believe that it's difficult to exclude the presence of meaning, I share the pessimism about the possibility of ever coming to a reliable interpretation. Anyway, I would love to hear more of what art historians think of Voynich illustrations.