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

[Mark Knowles]

On the whole the patterns that you refer to here don't seem that similar to me anyway to what we see in the Voynich illustration.

Not that similar? What do you expect exactly? Which examples are better?

I am working on a paper on the representation of water in Medieval maps with many examples from contemporary sources which I hope to have ready soon. Both the blue and wavy lines that we see on the Rosettes folio fit with the style of representation of the time particularly in the region I associate with the Voynich manuscript, northern Italy. Also hashing is often used to show where sea or rivers meet land.

Just look at the most famous Italian map of the 15th century, the Fra Mauro map, and what do you see blue and white wavy lines representing water and distributed  distinctly drawn buildings just as we see in the Voynich. The fact that areas covered by the blue and white wavy lines are of different sizes and shapes on the Rosettes folio are very consistent with the representation of different sizes and shapes of bodies of water.

If you only look for similarity in images that fit your theory then you could be guilty of confirmation bias.

So, yes, I would say that your example is not that similar. Do you have other examples?

In your example we do not see the consistent pattern that we see through the Rosettes folio of blue followed by white wavy lines. Your example doesn't show hashing next to the blue and wavy lines like we see on the Rosettes folio, but rather much longer thinner rays. The semi-circular curves are much smaller proportionately than we see on the Rosettes folio. I have not dwelled too much before on this question as I am conscious that the simple geometric nature of the shapes that we are discussing might allow for multiple similar matches.