Konrad Kyeser's Bellifortis

[DG97EEB]

This is very different from Stolfi's Chinese theory

My theory about the drawings is independent of the Chinese Theory.  It says that most of the drawings are just decoration provided by the Scribe, with minimal instruction by the Author. 

For example, for each Zodiac diagram  I think he told the scribe only "Arrange these 30 labels in two concentric circles, with a nymph and a star next to each. Then in the center draw an archer, like the one in this book here".  

For each Herbal page, he might have specified "Copy the root of the plant from this sketch I made, copy the leaves from this page of this book, and add some flowers at the top.")

I used to think that the Scribe made up all those decorative elements from his own mind.  But, thanks to all the research that has been posted here in the past few months, I have changed my mind.  It now think that everything that the Scribe did not copy from the Author's draft was copied from books provided by the Author.  That scenario in fact is more consistent with my image of the Scribe as an uneducated simpleton.  It could have been the Author's teenage nephew.

In particular, we now know that most of f68v3 (the "Spiral Nebula") was copied from [some version of] that Oresme book. Including the cloudband, the stars, and the T-O map at the center.  The meaningful (non-decorative) contents of that illustration may be only the eight curved rivers or roads connecting "Heavens" and "The World" to something outside both.

And the "water slide" of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was probably copied from [some version of] the cave scene in the /Balneis Puteolanis/, and/or from some drawing by Taccola.

And the middle part of f85r2 was copied from [some version of] that German book with poems about the four seasons of life.

And now we also know that the Scribe often did not understand the pictures that he was copying.  He totally misunderstood the cloudband on f68v3 and drew it as if the starry area was either a pool or a thick plate, with a "nebuly" outline.  On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. he mis-interpreted the small side channel and the siphon feeding it (from Taccola?)  On f85r2 he mistook the rosary for ... duhh ... and the doctor's urine sample flask for a perfume bottle... 

(By the way, about that old woman with the rosary:  In the best of the original versions that were posted here, I interpreted the "staff" as a light hatchet, and the "rosary" as a chain to carry a bundle of dead branches for fuel.  The meaning being that in the fall people collect firewood to prepare for the winter.  Could it be?  What did the attached poem say?)

All the best, --stolfi

Thank you, and apologies for misrepresenting your ideas. 

I fully agree with 90% of what you've written, in that the bad copy hypothesis is far and away the most likely. I strongly suspect the scribes were given the text already written and copied it verbatim, and I strongly suspect they were given a pile of books and given guidelines.  I also agree it could have been a family affair. For a while I was thinking a Stadtartz/chief Apothecary and his wife, given that she may have been a local midwife, and their kids to teach them.  Unfortunately this is where I'm not aligned with you, as I don't think the text carries semantics (although there is clear evidence of lexicon, and this does therefore not preclude some kind of personal notation system), and was simply a pedagogical tool, with the information in the pictures for the family to refer to.  

...but this is the joy of the Voynich. Many origin stories and theories, and they can't all be true