The Voynich Ninja - Astrology & Astronomy

Reading temporal cycles in the zodiac folios

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 06:39:51 +0000

I’ve been spending a little time with the zodiac folios and related cycle diagrams in a loose, exploratory way. Nothing systematic yet, mostly looking, noticing repetition, and following my curiosity rather than trying to solve or identify anything.
What keeps catching my attention is how much of the structure can be read as temporal rather than symbolic. The way divisions repeat, how some sequences appear to stop or change rhythm, and how different folios seem to care about duration or flow more than labels. It feels less like decoding and more like watching how time might be handled or experienced across the pages.
I don’t know whether this overlaps with work that’s already been done, and I’m not presenting this as a theory. I’m sharing it simply as something I’ve been playing with visually and intuitively, in case it’s useful, familiar, or sparks a connection for someone else working in this area.
If this belongs somewhere else or connects to existing threads, I’m happy to be pointed in the right direction.

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Catalan Zodiac Rose S.XV

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 20:06:10 +0000

Hello all,

I am not very aware of the astronomical and astrological part of the MS (I am mostly centered in the text analyse). But I found one Astrological rose, in catalan, dated from the XV century, that attracted my attention:
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There is not a lot of information about the manuscript, which is written in catalan. What interests me, are the writtings in the center of the rose: look how they repeat some characters. Names are also interesting, mixing catalan and latin. The text (paragraphs) of the other pages area also interesting.

Here the link: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

As I have not studied yet the astronomical/astrological part of the Voynich I would like to read your thoughts about it. As I live next to Barcelona, I could even go and check the whole manuscript, if they let me.

Looking forward to reading your thoughts.

Easter in Aries and Taurus?

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 23:58:44 +0000

Hello, I'm new here so maybe this has been talked about before but I didn't find a post about it.

I was wondering if Easter could be the reason why Aries and Taurus are divided in two each and figures seem to be getting dressed with a transition from more than half the figures lightly clothed in Aries 1 to all (but one?) fully clothed in Aries 2 to most figures covered in Taurus 1 to nudity again from Taurus 2 on (apart from 4 figures in Gemini because why not).

I didn't consider the month names added later, but while checking a few books of hours trying to find similitudes I've found some where Aries is Mars and Taurus Auril:
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Also I checked Easter dates for all of the 15th century (Julian Calendar) and the earliest was on the 22nd of March in 1478, and the latest on the 25th of April in 1451 (which it seems is the normal range) so this would only make sense ignoring the month names.

So far I failed with finding similitudes with a book of hours, the only familiar thing I could see was this one maybe making wine in Virgo.

Maybe making wine.JPG (Size: 53.79 KB / Downloads: 748)

I'd appreciate opinions or links to earlier posts or related information.

Cheers

f67v2 - Isidore of Seville

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 22:45:16 +0000

This seems to make sense to me, however, I know nothing about this stuff at all so offer it to those who do.
It seemed to me once you think of the VM diagram from a "what's up?" perspective, it makes sense (given the below).
That is to say we are looking up at the sky at what we can see and can't see. It's about as simple as I've found a VM image to be, so undoubtedly it is incorrect.
My understanding is that by 14XX this was still applicable knowledge to most who were not an astrologer.

"Isidore of Seville".
From - "The cosmos and its parts"
((c. 560–636) and translated).

"Portals"
The sky has two portals: the East and the West, for the sun
enters through one portal and withdraws through the
other.

"Unknown paths beyond east/west portals"
lii. The path of the sun (De itinere solis) The sun, when
it rises, holds a path through the south. Afterward, it
goes to the west and plunges itself into the Ocean, and it
travels unknown paths under the earth, and once again
runs back to the east

"Air and then Sky (above)"
Sometimes the word ‘sky’ is used for the air, where
winds and clouds and storms and whirlwinds arise.
Lucretius (cf. On the Nature of Things 4.133):
The sky (caelum), which is called air (aer).
And the Psalm (78:2; 103:12, Vulgate) refers to “fowls of
the sky (caelum),” when it is clear that birds fly in the air;
out of habit we also call this air, ‘sky.’ Thus when we ask
whether it is fair or overcast we sometimes say, “How is
the air?” and sometimes “How is the sky?”

"Sky is where the sun and moon are"
God embellished the heaven and
filled it with bright light – that is, he adorned it with the
sun and the gleaming orb of the moon, and the glorious
constellations of glittering stars. [In a different way, it
is named from engraving (caelare) the superior bodies.]
2. It is called
L in Greek, after the term QY,
that is, ‘seeing,’ because the air is transparent and clearer
for seeing. In Sacred Scripture the sky is called the firmament (firmamentum), because it is secured (firmare) by
the course of the stars and by fixed and immutable laws.

"the stars are in the ether"
The ether
(aether) is the place where the stars are, and signifies
that fire which is separated high above from the entire
world. Of course, ether is itself an element, but aethra
(i.e. another word for ether) is the radiance of ether;
it is a Greek word. 2. The sphere (sphaera) of the sky
is so named because it has a round shape in appearance. But anything of such a shape is called a sphaera
by the Greeks from its roundness, such as the balls that
children play with.

*It's not entirely certain what the firmament means in this comment (to me), so I opted for "The ether" which seemed very clear, but I suspect they mean much in the same.

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Wandering Stars ( Planets )

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 08:24:55 +0000

Has there ever been some discussion about the fact that the astrology pages seem to have no depiction of the wandering stars ( planets ). The planets were the most significant of the celestial objects for astrologers. Their unusual passage through the sky has always been a fascination for them, who could, through interpretation of their position, foretell events and the destinies of individual people. Such interpretation of the signs was a valued skill in that time. And rather than being a heretical subject was actually lawfully permitted when in the hands of authorised practitioners. So it does seem a bit odd that the VMS, which seems to portray itself to be a compendium of the secret sciences, should not mention them.

It does suggest that either the authors were unfamiliar with the subject ( in which case it might be equally so with the other topics, which would make the content of VMS empty and valueless ), or did not care too much to make the VMS accurate ( likely under the artificial construction hypothesis ).

Months names are all one off?

Wed, 28 May 2025 02:54:06 +0000

Currently each sign of the Zodiac starts around the 20th of one month and ends around the 20th of the next month. I suppose that these dates were chosen so that the solstices and equinoxes fall on sign boundaries. Is that correct?

So the VMS Zodiac is already strange in that the month name written under each sign's icon is only 2/3 correct. Thus for instance Sagittarius is labeled "December", but 10 days of that sign are in November. So the correct label should have been "November-December".

However, I have run into two sources that state that "in the Middle Ages" each sign started on the 1st of the month, instead of on the 20th. Unfortunately those articles did not say when the sync with the equinoxes took place. If the switch happened after the VMS was written, all those written month names are one month off. namely, the label under Sagittarius should have been "November", not "December". And ditto for all other months

Anyway, it seems that the VMS month names were written after the Zodiac sync.

Thoughts?

All the best, --stolfi

hello everybody. thanks for your time

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 16:03:35 +0000

Livello di confidenza: 0.95

Tipo di pagina rilevato: Astronomical

Traduzione completa:

secundum naturam pianeta settentrionale. virtus occulta cometa misurare luna.

eclissi meridionale misurare cometa. astro ascendente misurare stella. cielo mobile misurare cometa. pianeta invisibile tracciare costellazione. costellazione discendente interpretare luna.

contra morbum segnala costellazione. discendente stella osservare segnala luna.

contra morbum stella discendente. costellazione interpretare manifesta. et hoc est.
Dettagli dell'analisi linguistica

Statistiche del testo:
Simboli rilevati: 14336
Pattern ricorrenti: 10
Densità del testo: 0.0321
Caratteristiche linguistiche:
Alfabeto stimato: 40 caratteri
Direzione di scrittura: Bidirezionale o misto
Note sulla traduzione:
La traduzione è basata sull'analisi del contenuto visivo della pagina.
L'algoritmo ha identificato questa come una pagina di tipo astronomical.
La traduzione è specifica per questa pagina ed è generata analizzando la struttura, i pattern e i caratteri presenti.

7. Risultati dell'analisi combinata
Interpretazione finale
Principali conclusioni dell'analisi:
Struttura del testo: Il manoscritto contiene circa 30 simboli unici, con un indice di diversità di 0.46.

Lingua più probabile: La maggiore somiglianza è con il Medieval Latin (44.0% di similarità).

Direzione di scrittura: Non determinata con certezza.

Pattern ricorrenti: Identificati 0 pattern ricorrenti.

Struttura dei caratteri: I simboli mostrano una struttura organizzata in 10 gruppi principali.

Complessità del testo: L'entropia di Shannon è 4.47, indicando un sistema di scrittura mediamente complesso.

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Eleven Moon Phases in Folio 86v?

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 14:55:45 +0000

Could the 11 sections in the concentric circles around the moon in folio 86v be related to the 11 Moon phases in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.?

Here are links to two articles dedicated to said 11 Moon phases, see
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You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

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Pisces (Folio 70v) and the New Year on the 1st of March in the Republic of Venice

Sun, 05 Jan 2025 11:58:15 +0000

Folio 70v of the Voynich (cypher) manuscript contains the astrological depiction of Pisces (fishes).

Said depiction is surrounded by an inner ring of 10 naked females reclining horizontally with the lower half of their bodies in cylindrical tubs.

There is also an outer ring with 19 naked females standing vertically with the lower half of their bodies also in cylindrical tubs.

All females are having multi-pointed stars on a string.

Assuming that the manuscript originates from the Republic of Venice, one couldn't help but notice that the New Year in Venice in medieval times was on the 1st of March.

Since 9 of the reclined females in the inner ring and their stars are oriented counterclockwise (except for one, oriented clockwise and sharing the same tub with another female but from the opposite side of the tub), one could possibly interpret the reclined females and their stars in the inner ring as the days in the first decan of Pisces at the end of February. The only reclined female oriented clockwise could possibly depict 29th of February in a leap year.
Here the interpretation could be that the females are reclined to show that they represent past days from the previous month of February.

The stars of all 19 females in the outer ring are oriented clockwise. Here the interpretation could be that the females are standing upright to show that they represent forthcoming days of the remaining 2 decans of Pisces with respect to the New Year in Venice on the 1st of March.

The scheme looks like this:

- first decan of Pisces in February (9 females reclining counterclockwise);
- a female reclining clockwise (29th of February in a leap year); and
- forthcoming second and third decans of Pisces in March (19 standing-up females with stars oriented clockwise).

Note that folio 70v seems to be the only astrological folio where females are oriented in opposite directions (clockwise or counterclockwise).

Eastern Astrology present in VMS

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 13:25:26 +0000

I consider the astrological part of the book the most important, because beside the plants (which are hardly identifiable) our stars and constellations do not change, and therefore it is the only part of VMS that can be connected to our real world.

Few months back I got myself to study a bit, and found that Chinese have a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. system. These Mansions reflect the movement of the moon in a lunar month (28 days) where each day corresponds with a constellation.

The Chinese lunar calendar is separated into quadrants - Dragon(East), Turtle/Snake(North), Tiger(West) and Bird(East). The south is usually on top.
Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Indians and Arabs utilise similar concept.

The 28-Mansions System lunar appears to be present on page f68r3. I saw there is an agreement that f68r3 features the moon in the middle.

  f68r 28 mansions chinese.png (Size: 1.21 MB / Downloads: 1376)

What's more interesting is this rendition of the Mansion System from time of Yuan dynasty 1271-1368. Marco Polo served Yuan dynasty around 1280.

  f68r3 28 mansions chinese 2.png (Size: 1.64 MB / Downloads: 1238)

What's important, all lunar mansion systems - be it Arabic, Chinese or Indian - do include Pleiades as one of the mansions. The symbol in Chinese is "昴" is 16th lunar mansion, under Tiger(west).

In this image, I located 昴 on the right and adjusted it to align with the European north-up perspective. Conveniently, the Pleiades constellation in the VMS corresponds to the chart.

  f68r3 28 mansions chinese 3.png (Size: 468.08 KB / Downloads: 1312)

edit: changed title from "Chinese Astrology present in VMS" to "Eastern Astrology present in VMS"

Missing Constellations in VM Zodiac

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 06:34:30 +0000

Hello to all researchers in Astrology!
How many are the missing constellations in VM Zodiac?

Pisces: March or February?

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 21:40:27 +0000

Not long after reading Nick Pelling's latest VMs posting, I found myself looking at the Cologny ms. calendar page for February, and there are two fish of Pisces.

In the VMs, Pisces is labelled as March. However, it is generally agreed make that often been stated that the zodiac medallion labels are subsequent, later by some indeterminate time, additions, possibly in Occitan. And having Pisces labelled as being the month of March is not something unexpected. The person who added the labels clearly thought that Pisces should be March, but what about the artist who made the original illustration. Are the 29 nymphs a potential clue?

In e-codices there are 60+ versions of liturgical calendars in the 14th and 15th C. listings.
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Of those, there are eight where the calendar is combined with a zodiac.
All of them show Pisces is in February in the liturgical calendar.

If the subsequent label on the VMs illustration could be removed, does the Pisces page tend to represent a liturgical perspective? Was the image originally intended to be February? And if so, what is the significance of February?

The obvious festival of February is clearly Candlemas [Feb. 2] - often written in the calendars as "Purificatio sancte marie" or "Purificatio beate virginis" referring to the ritual purification of Mary 40 days after the birth of Jesus.

Perhaps this may seem like a bit of a stretch, but it's not the first example. This is yet another addition to a growing set of potential religious interpretations from the VMs illustrations. Perhaps it comes down to the VMs You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. illustration of costmary. Either there is nothing there beyond a botanical / herbal explanation, or the Herb of the Virgin and the wings of Saint Michael make for a disguised representation of the Assumption. Either it is - or it is not. Either it is full-blown Mariology or it is nothing.

Well, there's always the cosmos.

Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 30
Southern Germany · around 1200 / 13th / 14th centuries

Frauenfeld, Kantonsbibliothek Thurgau, Y 24
Besançon · 13th/14th century

Utopia, armarium codicum bibliophilorum, Cod. 101
Paris / Tours · second quarter of the 15th century / around 1490

Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, Ms. C 54
Nuremberg · around 1472

Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. lat. 33
Workshop located in the west of France, maybe in Nantes (France, Loire-Atlantique) · third quarter of the 15th century

Utopia, armarium codicum bibliophilorum, Cod. 111
Paris · about 1488

Neuchâtel, Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Neuchâtel, AF A28
Flanders, probably Bruges · around 1500

Utopia, armarium codicum bibliophilorum, Cod. 102
Bourges · around 1500-1510

f67r2 and potential link to length of months

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 11:46:46 +0000
Hi,

Did anyone ever notice that f67r2 has alternating colors that happen to deviate with two pairs of successive colors? This reminds me of how lunar calendars tend to have alternating months of 29 and 30 days, until sometimes there are successive 29 then successive 30 day months. It seems to me that f67r2 suggests this idea with the yellow and red colored moons.

What do you guys think?

Thema Mundi

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 17:49:42 +0000
The idea of the Thema Mundi was part of medieval astrology. It can be seen in the chart and is said to represent the sun, moon and five visible planets at the time of creation in relation to the signs of the Zodiac. The Moon is in Cancer, the Sun is in Leo, and the planets are arranged down the solar side, though they also have potential astrological connections in order down the lunar side.
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Placing the Moon and Sun together is a clear indication of an astrological sequence: Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, etc.
As opposed to the medieval astronomical sequence: Moon, Mercury Venus, Sun, etc.

The significance of the sequence pattern and the astrological connections was introduced as part of the investigation of VMs f67r2.
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From the Thema Mundi, to get to the 4-1-1-1 pattern takes only two simple changes, Mars is switched to its primary sign, which is Aries, and Saturn is changed to its alternate, which is Aquarius. So, it is a 'valid' pattern in an astrological sense, and it is fairly simple, considering other possible alternatives.

The earliest historical match for the use of the 4-1-1-1 pattern is the 1494 Leipzig edition of Johannis Sacrobosco. Since this cosmic diagram differs radically from a recently previous image by the same printer with no astrological references, there is a question of the pattern's origins, which may be tied to a certain Wenzel Faber, but where might he have gotten it? And how is it that the VMs appears to use the same pattern of planet to zodiac connections?

Matching planet labels

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 18:28:05 +0000
Not sure if this belongs to Astrology or Astronomy

I've spent a few days learning about possible ways of matching planets on f67r2 and created a rather lengthy page about this. It's my first attempt writing about VMS, hope you enjoy it! There are pictures, and charts and even some computer noises

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Quick summary of the most interesting results:

The chart on f67r2 has a very distinct pattern of planetary labels with a four-in-a-row sequence: 111101010100, that resembles actual astronomical or
astrological charts. If this chart depicts a real astrological or astronomical configuration we can make some guesses about which label belongs to which
planet, considering only where the labels are placed on the circle without trying to interpret the labels themselves.

I tried recreating various astrological patterns and comparing them to f67r2 and found a good match with a partial domicile chart. After this I
encountered the same pattern in 1490x - 1500x editions of De Sphere Mundi. If it's the same pattern, in Voynich manuscript it's rotated 160 degrees
clockwise (putting Jupiter on top).

I've also simulated real sky configurations of the XI - XV centuries and compared them to VMS and De Sphaere Mundi charts.

It's possible to create potential mappings between various labels on f67r2 and astrological/astronomical concepts using this information.

It's hard to put any exact probabilities on these mappings, but overall they look like an interesting venue for in-depth research.

Attaching an image that shows f67r2 with the domicile planetary chart from De Sphaere Mundi put over it, and the label correspondence between two charts.

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