Rosettes and Revelations Pt.1: The Holy City - Koen Gheuens and Cary Rapaport

[Mark Knowles]

However, there is clearly a great disagreement among researchers about what makes an argument strong when it comes to interpreting these images.

Well, I think one important question when it comes to image interpretation is the problem of seeing a similarity between two images or two things when there is no connection.
Referring to the rosettes folio as I am example I know well. On first viewing we can see drawings of circles. As everyone knows a circle is a very common mathematical shape, so we can associate a myriad of different things with circles. Circles could represent planets for example. But I think we should be most careful when making associations between very common/simple shapes or patterns.
Nick Pelling associates in his book "The Curse of the Voynich" the "domes" in the central rosette with the "domes" of St. Marks Cathedral in Venice. There is clearly is a similarity there. But I personally tend to put that down to a chance similarity as many other aspects of the drawing that go against that connection it appears to me.

Koen: I was very impressed by the work that you did on the astrological drawings in the centre of each of the zodiac folios as I felt that you had demonstrated enough of a similarity to make a connection very likely. With a lot of illustration comparisons that people make it is much less clear as to whether they are chance coincidental similarities or geninue connections. I personally view the parallels that you find with illustrations in your "Holy Jerusalem" theory much less striking that those zodiac image comparisons, which to the extent that there are visual similarities they seem to me as though they could easily be accounted for by chance similarities.