30-11-2024, 11:48 AM
Since I am the member of this forum who has most defended Panofsky's ideas in this forum, I feel compelled to participate in this conversation to quote Panofsky's opinion on the authenticity of the VM in these words: the Voynich manuscript, whichever its place of origin, date and purpose, is certainly a perfectly authentic document.
Panofsky not only, with his great knowledge, certified the authenticity of the VM but also gave it a meaning within the history of ideas and art by linking it to the lapidary of Alfonso X the Wise,
And, finally, his most important contribution to the understanding of the iconography of the VM, which I reproduce in full:
So far as can be made out before the manuscript has been decoded, its content would comprise: first, a general cosmological philosophy explaining the medical properties of terrestrial objects, particularly plants, by celestial influences transmitted by astral radiation and those "spirits" which were frequently believed to transmit the occult powers of the stars to the earth; second, a kind of herbal describing the individual plants used for medical and, conceivably, magical purposes; third, a description of such compounds as may be produced by combining individual plants in various ways.
Panofsky not only, with his great knowledge, certified the authenticity of the VM but also gave it a meaning within the history of ideas and art by linking it to the lapidary of Alfonso X the Wise,
And, finally, his most important contribution to the understanding of the iconography of the VM, which I reproduce in full:
So far as can be made out before the manuscript has been decoded, its content would comprise: first, a general cosmological philosophy explaining the medical properties of terrestrial objects, particularly plants, by celestial influences transmitted by astral radiation and those "spirits" which were frequently believed to transmit the occult powers of the stars to the earth; second, a kind of herbal describing the individual plants used for medical and, conceivably, magical purposes; third, a description of such compounds as may be produced by combining individual plants in various ways.