Voynich's anatomy

[Linda]

Well... If this were about balneology, there would be no need to encrypt it.
These could indeed be lakes, but in that case, we don’t know the context. Perhaps the author sketched them to indicate where he hid his great treasures, or anything else, but definitely not balneology.

I agree with you. For me it is a periplus that includes many different types of water and water bodies.

Three semicircles and three spines — the only similarity here is in the quantity. This is a very forced comparison, and this “intestine” looks least of all like a coastline. Why not just draw three semicircles and leave an empty space behind them? That would make it clearer that it’s a coastline.

I would agree with you there too, it is not the way I would draw it. I don't think it is supposed to clearly be coastline though. I think we are supposed to be confused. When I first started to investigate the idea many years ago, I found the Aegean Sea broken up into various smaller seas, and this part was called the Aegean, because it meant wavy. That is the part that stuck with me but I can't find the original link anymore. So to me that undulating shape is what said it to me, not so much the actual look of it, although I do see a resemblance (better in my minds eye though).

Well, I don't think there are too many lakes shaped like this, especially at this size. Notice that if you flip the yellow thing into the water, that peninsula there is where the sulphur springs and castle are, and if you tip over the vms version to match the tilt in the photo, that it puts the area in a more comparative setting.

Now this is more interesting and more convincing...

Thank you for saying that! There does exist a 15th century drawing of the lake (circa 1440) so some did know what it looked like, plus there are mountains all around to see it from higher up. And they were dragging ships through the mountains into it at the time also. It is a little more oblique of an angle so doesn't look quite as long. This drawing shows Malcesine much closer to the north tip, kind of analogous to the vms placement of the nymph getting poked in the eye. I think that is to show that Riva del Garda and Malcesine are within sight of each other, especially if the view from Riva is higher up (like standing on the rock, I think that is where they built the tower a hundred years later that is now just ruins. The nymph getting poked also has weird broken legs, the castle there was built upon previous ruins of other castles in that location. It was the same family rebuilding there as at Sirmione. 



Most likely, VMS was indeed not intended for a wide audience. But in that case, the clues are redundant, since we assume that the sender and the recipient of this manuscript knew what was written there, knew how to read it, and knew what to do with it.

It may have been only for himself or those close. I call it a periplus because of how it is laid out, but from that you could also make maps, OPof the portolan style, if you had seen one before, especially if you use some of the imagery in quire 14, I think the Rosettes hold clues and the four people fountain drawing also seems to lay out some dimension, or at the very least, provides mnemonics to me that allow me to use it that way. But i am no geographer, everything inhave learned about geography i learned because the vms showed it to me (plus some various rabbit holes inspired by the searches along the way). Imagine using the vms to recreate things like maps or herbals at a whim, to use or sell to others. I think that was its purpose, a master copy that even if stolen could probably never be used by anyone else as such.

For example, on F76v, why do you think the green water is drawn at an angle? Sloppiness? Because when I align the river motif at the top of the drawing with the actual river that i think it portrays, the analogous water body is situated at the same angle. That has to be more than coincidence, doesn't it?

Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe it’s not... Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about it

Yes, I have to keep that stance too, but here is a diagram I made before I realized the lower diagram has its main body of water set right side up, while the top part is turned. I don't know what it is about 45 degree angles but they sure do like putting things, or parts of things, on the diagonal. But i did find out that most local drawings or maps of the area were usually bird's eye from the southwest. So that could explain some things. I will be making a better version of this in future with the upper lake being more full to show the differences better and the lower lake with its main body rotated 45 degrees clockwise to more resemble the drawing. It makes sense to me in terms of a) you cannot see the rest of the lake from a vantage point outside the main body due to the ithsmus and may be a compilation of maps or descriptions from differing vantage points, and b) normally one would view the smaller section from the south given the mountains. The same thing happens with the Caspian Sea, for seemingly the same reason, as far as I can reconcile the differences.

Anyway, this is based on how these two waterbodies are situated when aligned with the river orientation as shown in the vms, with the waterbodies at the same scales but which is larger than they would be if drawn to scale with the river. There are two of the first one because I think it is talking about how it is an endorheic lake which means it has no outflow and evaporates. It is green because of the evaporation of salts that come from the ground water that flows into it from higher areas over the years, and is currently dried up completely but was full within most of our lifetimes. 

As you can see, the angle is very close and so i think it may be why it is drawn at that angle, i.e. for precision 's sake, since the angle can be preserved in the transition to a map, and result in a very highly precise map, certainly in comparison to the generally available maps of that area that I have seen from this time period.

But i see it as more of a congruent possibility, moreso because Ellie Velinska's identifications had worked out from foot to head when I put them in my page ordering, which i thought was also very coincidental.

Unfortunately, I haven’t read her study. I suppose that if it’s about anatomy, then the sequence is completely different — from head to feet.

I think much of it is probably here on ninja somewhere but probably more than a decade ago. I don't know if her website is still available. Yes it did work out backwards, and I have to say it did not make a complete human or anything, and I am still not convinced there is any anatomy in the vms, just allowing for the possibility.