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Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
- Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
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RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 30-10-2024, 08:40 PM
(30-10-2024, 05:38 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.@Barbrey: Here are a few interesting aspects on the representation of hermaphrodites in alchemy ( reference to your post #233 ). I translated the paper from German to English using Deepl ( so it's not perfect but good enough ) :
ACHIM AURNHAMMER, The hermaphrodite in the symbolic art of the alchemists
Such an interesting article! Thank you so much for the translation! -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 30-10-2024, 09:20 PM
(30-10-2024, 06:28 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(30-10-2024, 04:52 PM)Barbrey Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi nablator! You have to remember that the Book of the Holy Trinity seems to have about 20 different versions - I try if I can to use the earliest, the Munich version, which Barbara Obrist dated to 1420.
BSB Cgm 598 I suppose? There are several pictures of the hermaphrodite+dragon from various mss. of the Book of the Holy Trinity in Barbara Obrist's book Les débuts de l’imagerie alchimique but not from this one. In which book/article did you find the 1420 date? If it is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., it is the Nürnberg ms. 80061 that is dated 1420 so it is the earlier one maybe. It is the one that I linked in my post.
On the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. they date the Munich ms. to the second half of the 14th century.
Quote:[...] Munich BSB, cgm. 598, which can be dated after 1467
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On the Wikimedia page that displays the double-headed androgyne + dragon, 1417 (no other source has the 1417 date, so it is probably an error). You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quote:Nevertheless, in the Munich version, the dragon is green, as are most subsequent dragons going forward.
The dragons are very similar (because one ms. is a copy of the other) and only the wing is green on these pages:
Am I looking at the wrong pages or the wrong manuscript?
Quote:Adam McLean calls this one the Luciferic hermaphrodite and it has different properties, and that’s indeed a green wing.
"Hermaphrodite" and "androgyne" are not good descriptions of what actually looks like conjoined twins in the Aurora consurgens and a crowned two-headed monster with wings (therefore "Luciferian") in the Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit.
No, you are right, it should be Nürnberg. Sorry, that’s what I get for writing off the top of my head. I did get my pictures from Adam McLean’s site on The Two Hermaphrodites here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Re naming conventions: every scholar I’ve read calls them hermaphrodite, androgyne or rebus; you can find an alternative if you like. The article bi3mw just posted goes into at length the origins of this figure. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 30-10-2024, 09:27 PM
(30-10-2024, 06:56 PM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is alchemy in Voynich Science Manuscript.
The author, being a healer, needed medications. He used not only the plants as it is in the first part, but also created some. And he created some, according his knowledge and training.
Actually I cannot understand the blog of being deprived of Alchemy section.
The ancient alchemy is the today's pharmacy, chemistry, astrology, paintings colours, mining, cooking, metallurgy etc.
In other words: I respect Alchemy and do not denigrate it, as being ironized by our generation and its scientists.
Also there are proofs from the text too.
If one looks at 67 v1,2, what is your impression?
Complete process of chemistry, isn't it? There are other examples too as above mentioned.
BR
I agree Bess. I’d go so far as to say that entire balneological section is about alchemy/medicine with a focus on transformation (the Ovid stories), the quintessence or water of life, and the various chemical processes and equipment needed in distillation.
(30-10-2024, 08:09 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(28-10-2024, 09:53 PM)Barbrey Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don’t remember, R. Sale, and the free copy of the article I found has been taken down. It’s $40 on Brill (which my small college’s library does not have access to).
Which article are you referring to?
Variously colored dragons in the Book of the Holy Trinity:
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Quote:Let us first look at the Antichrist, Diabolic or Luciferic hermaphrodite, and we will here use the illuminated image from possibly the earliest version that in Nürnberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Hs. 80061, dated to 1420 by the scholar Barbara Obrist, and on the right that of the beautifully illuminated manuscript in Munich which is some fifty years later. The figure is entitled 'Contra justiciam' (against justice).
Cutest little monster ever to replace the dragon (not green, with two heads and lion's legs) (1517)
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So identifying the green pool that is not shaped like a dragon with a dragon/monster that is not generally green is a bit risky.
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RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 30-10-2024, 10:24 PM
(30-10-2024, 08:09 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(28-10-2024, 09:53 PM)Barbrey Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don’t remember, R. Sale, and the free copy of the article I found has been taken down. It’s $40 on Brill (which my small college’s library does not have access to).
Which article are you referring to?
Variously colored dragons in the Book of the Holy Trinity:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quote:Let us first look at the Antichrist, Diabolic or Luciferic hermaphrodite, and we will here use the illuminated image from possibly the earliest version that in Nürnberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Hs. 80061, dated to 1420 by the scholar Barbara Obrist, and on the right that of the beautifully illuminated manuscript in Munich which is some fifty years later. The figure is entitled 'Contra justiciam' (against justice).
Cutest little monster ever to replace the dragon (not green, with two heads and lion's legs) (1517)
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So identifying the green pool that is not shaped like a dragon with a dragon/monster that is not generally green is a bit risky.
Ha, yes it is risky as well as more tentative than the assertion sounded perhaps. However, to my mind the VMS authors likely had never seen the Buch. It’s not the illustrations I believe are similar; I think the authors of each were working with similar ideas, and as they’re of similar periods and possibly locations, some similarities in concept are likely identifiable but not identical in the two. I already had a working hypothesis that the blue and green waters were possibly celestial/fantastical and earthly. Thus, when I reached the end of the Hermaphroditus tale, I wondered: why is the hermaphrodite (no apologies for using the term!) standing in green water? I turned to other pictures of the hermaphrodite, and the ones I viewed, including some in the Buch, all had the hermaphrodite standing on a green dragon, or if the dragon was not green, it was against the backdrop of a green hill. I looked into it and that’s when I found that dragons not biting their tails were usually symbolic of prima materia.
So it’s more the positioning of the hermaphrodite that I thought comparable. One on a dragon symbolizing prima materia, signifying the emergence of the philosopher’s stone from its origin; the other from a green pool of water in a book with a hundred pages of plants - what other colour but green would be used to signify prima materia of a vegetative nature? - signifying the same thing. If anything, I find the VMS illustration more straight forward than the others. The half-in, half-out positioning, which will be repeated on the following page with Melusine and her fish, includes the additional meaning that philosopher’s stone was already present in the prima materia; it just took the alchemical arts to distill it.
The article you asked about is called “The Alchemical Transformation of Melusine” in a collection of essays called Melusine’s Footstep. The essays trace the changing symbolism of Melusine in late medievalism and the Renaissance. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 30-10-2024, 11:12 PM
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RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 31-10-2024, 12:12 AM
(30-10-2024, 05:33 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.These last few posts caught my eye, so i will cheekily add my two penn'orth.
1. Alchemical allegories and symbolism were always deliberately a bit vague / obscure / ambiguous.
2. Chemical reactions can be greatly affected by even small amount of impurities and back then i imagine having pure reagents was not so simple.
In this link the author suggests that,
"a green dragon devouring the Sun means that the gold was dissolved in aqua regia"..."the gold probably contained copper, which turns the acid blue-green"
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In this short video "Gold Chemistry: Gold in Aqua Regia"[ 41s ] by "Colorful Chemistry" . YT link -> You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
the green color of the solution can be seen, and a chemical explanation is in the video description, ( copper impurites in gold foil are suggested ).
Whilst here on the alchemy website animal symbolism page ->https://alchemywebsite.com/animal.html
we are informed that "Green Lion was usually a name for vitriol", but also that "The Green Lion devouring the sun ...can be thought of as aqua regia dissolving the solar gold
There are also the 2 meanings of "green lion" that the vegetable matter alchemists use , 'plant sap' is one, 'the raw energy of nature' is the other (see alchemywebsite link).
I like ‘plant sap’ the best, of course. Just to confirm about vitriol and aqua regia: a green lion on its own might be vitriol, but when swallowing the sun it should be viewed as aqua regia because it can dissolve gold? That makes too much sense for alchemy! -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
nablator > 03-11-2024, 07:51 PM
(30-10-2024, 05:04 PM)Barbrey Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I’ve seen speculation regarding the green lion and dragon being conflated, but no confirmation, and to my mind they are almost opposite in idea.
The confirmation is in closely related recipes of the 'vegetable' stone. The first step is to extract the blood of the green lion (see the blood exuding from the green dragon in Ripley's scrolls?) by dissolution in vinegar and distillation according to the Verbum abbreviatum de leone viridi attributed to Raymond Gaufredi (Raymundus Gaufridus) who allegedly got the recipe firsthand from Roger Bacon back when alchemy was the favorite hobby of monks. There are several surviving manuscripts of the 15th century, I don't know if any older ms. exists. Probably not.
From the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., the English translation published in 1685 of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of the Verbum abbreviatum:
Quote:In the Name of Christ then, take a great quantity of the strongest Vi∣negar diligently distilled through an Alembick, in which dissolve a good quantity of the Green Lyon, being dissolved, distil through a Filtre, and keep it in Glass Cucurbits well stopp'd: If any re∣markable part of the Lyon remains undissolved, dissolve it with the aforesaid Vinegar, and distil through a Filtre, and being dis∣solved, joyn it with the other Waters before reserved in the Cucurbits, then take the reserved Waters (dissolutions) and distil them all in Balneo Mariae, applying Alembicks to them well luted, that the Cucurbits may not respire, put Fire under, and receive all the Waters, which will be distilled, but have a care that the dissolved Lyon be not altogether congealed in the Cucur∣bits, but that it may remain liquid or soft; then take all the Cu∣curbits, and put all that is in them into one Cucurbit, which lute well with its Alembick, and put it in a Furnace of Ashes, as is fitting, and put a gentle Fire under, because of the temper of the Glass, and because of the Heterogeneous moisture, which is in the Lyon to be rooted out: And take notice, that must be always done with a gentle Fire, but when the Heterogeneous moisture is gone over, strengthen the Fire by little and little, and have an Eye continually to the Beak of the Alembick, if a red Liquor begins to go over, but if it does not yet go over, con∣tinue the aforesaid Fire till it doth; but when you see the red Li∣quor distil, change the Receiver forthwith, and lute it well to the Beak of the Alembick, and then strengthen the Fire, and you will have the Blood of the Lyon exceeding red, containing the four Elements, very odoriferous and fragrant (after due putre∣faction) keep it therefore in a good Phial well stopp'd: Then take the Blood, and put it in a Phial close stopp'd to putrefie and digest, in hot Dung, changing the Dung every five Days, there to be digested for the space of fifteen or sixteen Days, and this is done, that the Elementary parts may be dissolved, and be fitter to be divided into the four Elements, and that by distillation; being putrify'd fifteen or sixteen Days, take it out, and put it into a sit Cucurbit, to be distilled with a gentle Fire in Balneo Mariae;
I bet antimony was inserted into the older recipe based on sericon (see Jennifer Rampling's note 10 below) in this 1683 edition of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:
Quote:First take 30 pound weight of Sericon or Antimony, which will make 21 pound weight of Gum, or near thereabouts, if it be well dissolved, and the Vinegar very good, and dissolve each pound thereof in a Gallon of twice distilled Vinegar when cold again, and as it standeth in Dissolution in a fit Glass Vessel, stirr it about with a clean Stick very often every day, the oftner the better, and when it is well moulten to the bottom, then filter over the said Liquors three several times, which keep close covered, and cast away the Feces, for that is superfluous filth which must be removed, and entreth not into the Work but is called Terra damnata.
The making of our Gum or green Lyon.
Then put all these cold Liquors thus filtered into a fit Glass Vessel, and set it into Balneo Mariae to evaporate in a temperate heat, which done our Sericon will be coagulated into a green Gum called our green Lyon, which Gum dry well, yet beware thou burn not his Flowers not destroy his greeness.
The Extraction of our Menstue, or blood of our green Lyon.
Then take out the said Gum, and put it into a strong Retort of Glass very well Luted, and place it in your Furnace, and under that at the first, make sober Fire, and anon you shall see a faint Water issue forth, let it waste away; but when you see a white Smoak or fume issue forth, then put too a Receiver of Glass, which must have a very large Belly, and the mouth no wider then it may well receive into that the Neck of the Retort, which close well together that no fume issue forth of the Receiver. Then encrease your Fire by little and little till the fume which issueth be reddish, then continue the greater Fire, until drops like blood come forth, and no more fume will issue forth, and when that leaveth bleeding let it cool or asswage the Fire by little and little, and when all things are cold, then take away the Receiver, and close it fast suddenly, that the Spirits vanish not away, for this Liquor is called, our blessed Liquor, which Liquor keep close stopped in a Glass till hereafter. Then look into the Neck of the Retort, and therein you shall find a white hard Ryme as it were the Congelation of a Frosty vapour or much like sublimate, which gather with diligence and keep it apart, for therein are contained great Secrets which shall be shewed hereafter, after the great Work is ended.
Quote:One basic recipe for the vegetable stone, found in hundreds of permutations in alchemical literature, employs a metallic body called ‘sericon’ as its prime matter: usually taken to denote minium (red lead). The minium is dissolved in strong wine vinegar, and the resulting solution heated until a thick gum remains in the bottom of the glass.10 When distilled, the gum yields a white vapour, the fumus albus, which is collected in a receiver and condensed to form a liquid, which is then subjected to further procedures. Owing to the circumstances of its manufacture, the vegetable stone was regarded as combining both mineral and vegetable qualities. In this form, it was regarded as a safe and legitimate product for human consumption, and therefore provided one basis for the medicinal aurum potabile—an objective which cannot have been assisted, in practice, by the use of toxic lead compounds.
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I have elsewhere described this lead-and-vinegar method as ‘sericonian’, to distinguish it from approaches based on different ingredients and processes (Rampling, 2010, pp. 128–129). In England, this approach was commonly associated with the figure of George Ripley, a canon-regular of the Augustinian priory at Bridlington in East Yorkshire who flourished in the 1470s, as attested by the colophons of his best known works, the Compound of alchemy (1471) and Medulla alchimiae (1476).11 In the Medulla, for instance, Ripley gave instructions for the manufacture of the vegetable stone from sericon, and its subsequent combination with the mineral ‘fire against nature’ (a corrosive mixture of cinnabar, vitriol and saltpetre) to produce a powerful transmutational elixir—the aqua composita, or compound water (Ripley, 1649, pp. 143–145, 170–172).
10. The gum is sugar of lead, or, in modern parlance, lead acetate. In some cases ‘sericon’ is interpreted as verdigris, or copper acetate. In texts from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, it is often reinterpreted as antimony (Rampling, 2009, chap. 4).
A variant by Samuel Norton:
Quote:Based on his close reading of Raymond’s Epistola accurtationis, Ripley’s Medulla, and
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other sericonian authorities, Norton offers Elizabeth I his interpretation of the cover
names applied to successive stages of the vegetable stone’s manufacture. From lead
is made first adrop (minium), then sericon or the green lion (the gum made from min-
ium), menstruum (an oil drawn from the gum), and finally the blood of the green lion
(a menstruum made from the oil).68 The result is a complex and nuanced reading of
the various terms employed in sericonian practice—Norton’s only innovation being
to recast sericon as the gum (sugar of lead) rather than minium itself. Several decades
later, in 1599, Norton would record these steps in a handsome “tabula,” printed in
1630: a tree that sprouts, appropriately enough, from the body of the red toad (Bufo
rubea), which signifies lead (Saturnus plumbum; fig. 1). -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Barbrey > 04-11-2024, 12:35 AM
Interesting stuff! Thanks for posting. I have read some of those passages before but as my focus was not primarily on practical alchemy, I missed that entirely. I do think if people start taking alchemy as a topic, particularly people like Jennifer, that permeates the VMS, more and more of these detailed processes will be found in the images.
That’s my aim, if I have one:I don’t want alchemy dismissed, because the VMS often uses its own symbol, not used before, as metaphors.
For instance, once a reader understands the nymphs not as mythical creatures, or even female, but as substances, defined by narrative, context or accoutrements, the entire balneological section, as well as pages of the zodiac, take on an entirely new meaning. The only thing the nymphs have when naked and apart from the aforementioned, are pregnant bellies, signifying life or reproduction. If you think of them as substances, like sulphur, mercury, possibly the elements, and definitely the water of life/quintessence, everything starts to come into focus.
I will give you an example: I believe starting at the bottom of the “Melusine” page, reading up, then reading down the prior page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. or the Hermaphroditus page, one can read a summary of the alchemical Magnum Opus, the Great Work, including the most important three stages: Nigredo (Black),Albido (White), and Rubedo (Red). I’ve only come to this theory recently, but a conversation with Koen about one of the images has made me almost certain I am on the right track. I will post the key points with images later.
But since you seem to know the images, nablator, I will begin with the “Melusine”page on f79v. The bottom image is a green pool of water with animal bodies, among which is a nymph rising out of a fish. She is looking upwards as if she wants whatever is up there.
So let’s put this in alchemy terms, ignoring “Melusine” in search of a soul entirely. As I stated before, the green pool can be seen as prima materia. The animals are symbolic of “bodies” in the prima materia. The fish is one of those bodies, but a different type of body to signify one of the three most common substances in alchemy: salt. Salt symbolizes the body in alchemy. Specifically sea salt, thus the fish. . “Melusine” is just a substance that must be separated from the salt or body.
In alchemy, her substance at this point should be a combo of sulphur, mercury, a bunch of other things and impurities. The goal of alchemy is to take this mass,which contains the quintessence, isolate sulphur and mercury, separate them, modify them, and put them back together again as the philosopher’s stone/quintessence.
Let’s move up to what look like pipes and then a nymph or substance. I believe this is representative of various practices to distill or sublimate the hybrid substance. Notice that the green changes to blue water in the pipes. Think of the substance/nymph coming out of this process with all impurities washed away, leaving only the two necessary substances - sulphur and mercury, the incipient, potential water of life, behind, thus the water becomes blue.
Up we go to our dead character. Death in alchemy is the signature of the Nigredo phase in alchemy, which is what we’ve been following, but it’s this figure that really alerts the reader because this is where the substance turns black. In alchemy, it’s often symbolized by a skeleton, a black raven, other black animals, the death of a king, entombment, or just as here, a dead figure.
This step is putrefaction. Basically the mass is left to rot for, traditionally, 40 days and it turns black. But there’s more with this symbol. Koen directed me to a very compelling illustration that looks exactly like this nymph (I will insert it later when I have more time to play with inserting links and illustrations). The Whore of Babylon. I can’t think of a more apt character to symbolize the rot and corruption of this step.
Now it’s during this step that the peacock or rainbow sub-stage occurs. The VMS authors have left it out but you can see it at the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . The black mass becomes very oily so that you can see rainbow colours in it. This oily substance and the remainder are separated, and a “resurrection” (symbolized by the nymph with cross) occurs: the sulphur and mercury are resurrected as two separate substances, thus beginning the albedo phase, which can be followed at the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and then the Rubedo phase to complete the process in what I interpret as the story of Hermaphroditus.
Will end here. It’s highly speculative and I’m not sure anyone else can see it but me! But I have studied semiotics, and immersed myself in alchemical imagery, so I hope this interpretation, faulty as it may be, can be taken seriously.