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Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
- Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
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RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
nablator > 17-11-2024, 10:27 AM
(05-07-2021, 05:25 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Addendum: Rupescissa, for example, saw the distillation as the third stage of the process to the philosopher's stone. Here again an allegorical connection to Christ is established.
Quote:Tara Nummedal (2013), Alchemy and Religion in Christian Europe, Ambix, p.314
The fourteenth-century Franciscan John of Rupescissa offers only one example from this rich tradition. In his striking interpretation of an earlier alchemical author, pseudo-Arnald of Villanova, Rupescissa likens the third stage of the philosophers' stone, a distillation, to the crucifixion. Observing the digestion of alchemical mercury and the ascent of its vapours to the head of the alembic, Rupescissa saw Christ's ascension on the cross: “mercury is placed in the bottom of the vessel for dissolution,” he wrote, “because what ascends from there is pure and spiritual, and converted into powdery air and exalted in the cross of the head of the alembic just like Christ, as master Arnald [of Villanova] says.” Likewise, the alchemical vessel that enclosed the final stage of the red stone resembled “Christ inside the sepulcher.” Once the flames had brought out the internal redness of the stone, the alchemist was to remove the red stone from its vessel so that it would “ascend from the sepulcher of the Most Excellent King, shining and glorious, resuscitated from the dead and wearing a red diadem, just as Master Arnald has attested.” Although Rupescissa spun out this analogy in words, it appeared in image as well, for example, in the successful Rosarium philosophorum, which appeared in print in 1550 as the second volume of a compendium of alchemical texts.
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Interestingly, two of the nymphs wear large diadems at the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . Who knows if that has something to say.
About the diadems, I found these interesting references in C.-G. Jung's analysis of alchemico-Christian symbols:
Quote:As the alchemists strove to produce an incorruptible “glorified body,” they would, if they were successful, attain that state in the albedo, where the body became spotless and no longer subject to decay. The white substance of the ash was therefore described as the “diadem of the heart,” and its synonym, the white foliated earth (terra alba foliata), as the “crown of victory.”
Source: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. This is from Senior, De chemia, p. 41: “The white foliated earth is the crown of victory, which is ash extracted from ash, and their second body.”
Quote:In Aurora [consurgens] the crown is given to the regina austri, Sapientia, who says to her beloved: "I am the crown wherewith my beloved is crowned," so that the crown serves as a connection between the mother and her son-lover.
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...
The soul descending from heaven is identical with the dew, the aqua divina, which, as Senior, quoting Maria, explains, is "Rex de coelo descendens." Hence this water is itself crowned and forms the "diadem of the heart," in apparent contradiction to the earlier statement that the ash was the diadem.
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The text of the Rosarium continues with a quotation from Morienus: "Despise not the ash, for it is the diadem of thy heart." This ash, the inert product of incineration, refers to the dead body, and the admonition establishes a curious connection between body and heart which at that time was regarded as the real seat of the soul. The diadem refers of course to the supremely kingly ornament. Coronation plays some part in alchemy—the Rosarium, for instance, has a picture of the Coronatio Mariae, signifying the glorification of the white, moonlike (purified) body. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
bi3mw > 17-11-2024, 09:11 PM
In relation to my post You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ) it should be noted that the color sequence can also be seen on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. from left to right. However, a red “arc” can be seen above the yellow one ( followed by white ). I would speculate that red means heating.
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RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Koen G > 19-11-2024, 09:41 AM
Quote:[Jupiter] let loose the south wind [...] When he crushes the hanging clouds in his outstretched hand there is a crash, and the dense vapours pour down rain from heaven. Iris, Juno’s messenger, dressed in the colours of the rainbow, gathers water and feeds it back to the clouds.
Omitted descriptions of clothing for obvious reasons. Read image right to left (the way the figures are facing). -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
nablator > 19-11-2024, 11:15 AM
(19-11-2024, 09:41 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quote:[Jupiter] let loose the south wind [...] When he crushes the hanging clouds in his outstretched hand there is a crash, and the dense vapours pour down rain from heaven. Iris, Juno’s messenger, dressed in the colours of the rainbow, gathers water and feeds it back to the clouds.
Omitted descriptions of clothing for obvious reasons. Read image right to left (the way the figures are facing).
That was my initial guess for the interpretation of Q13: the cycle of water (a mystery at the time, not well understood until centuries later), with or without allegories directly taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses. This one is particularly fitting, good find!
No reason why it can't be both about water and alchemy. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
cvetkakocj@rogers.com > 19-11-2024, 04:51 PM
(07-11-2024, 08:57 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.While Duke Jean de Berry (VMs cosmic similarities with BNF Fr. 565) has several connections with the Melusine of Lusignan, he and his siblings were the children of Bonne of Luxembourg and laid claim to "Melusine" as an ancestral figure.
Other potentially relevant connections to the Melusine of Luxembourg might include Sigismund of Luxembourg, the Holy Roman Emperor and Elizabeth of Görlitz (d.1451), Duchess of Luxembourg, for a time.
Hi, there, I think this is a good clue to the meaning of Melusine. By 15th century, the Cathari and Patareni were only a distant memory in Europe, however in Bosnia, the Bogomils who gave raise to Cathari in Freance and Patareni in Northern Italy were still active and had their own state religion, separated from Rome. They called themselves Krstjani (the baptized one).
As the name suggests, Bogomils were meek, pious people. Their women had high position in society and even in religion. They ran schools and hospitals. They were iconoclasts and focused mainly on the New Testament, claiming to represent original apostolic christianity. They interpreted the Bible symbolically, so they did not believe in heave, hell, purgarotry (other than the state of mind while a person is alive), nor in actual, but rather in symbolic transubstantiation.
I believe your assumption that 'melusine' may be an ancestral figure is correct, and it is most likely a reference to a Slovenian word -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Linda > 20-11-2024, 02:48 AM
(19-11-2024, 11:15 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(19-11-2024, 09:41 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quote:[Jupiter] let loose the south wind [...] When he crushes the hanging clouds in his outstretched hand there is a crash, and the dense vapours pour down rain from heaven. Iris, Juno’s messenger, dressed in the colours of the rainbow, gathers water and feeds it back to the clouds.
Omitted descriptions of clothing for obvious reasons. Read image right to left (the way the figures are facing).
That was my initial guess for the interpretation of Q13: the cycle of water (a mystery at the time, not well understood until centuries later), with or without allegories directly taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses. This one is particularly fitting, good find!
No reason why it can't be both about water and alchemy.
I could see the Ovid connection, as it is certainly on topic, but i think it would fit better with the lower drawing, although neither fits perfectly to me.
I don't see see the alchemy in it per se, but i certainly agree with there being many depictions of water cycles and connections thereof. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Linda > 20-11-2024, 03:00 AM
(19-11-2024, 09:41 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quote:[Jupiter] let loose the south wind [...] When he crushes the hanging clouds in his outstretched hand there is a crash, and the dense vapours pour down rain from heaven. Iris, Juno’s messenger, dressed in the colours of the rainbow, gathers water and feeds it back to the clouds.
Although I do see the general theme of precipitation cycles being shown, I don't see the depiction literally; but I understand the page better now, I think. Thanks for the fresh look. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Bluetoes101 > 20-11-2024, 12:00 PM
Something I read a while back reminded me specifically of this image in the manuscript. It is an article on "Tabula medicine 1416-1425"
More ambitious distillations aimed at producing the heavenly quintessence, or at the very least aqua ardens (burning water). The friars must have had a copy of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Liber de consideratione quintae essentie to hand, for they quote from it accurately under headings for “Cor” (Heart), “Demon,” “Facies” (Face), “Frenesis” (Frenzy), “Melancholia,” “Spasmum” [Convulsion] and “Venenum” (Poison). They never identify him by name, although Rupescissa was a Franciscan friar, writing from prison in France c.1350. Under the heading “Facies”, they tell us that wild strawberries are a hundred times more powerful against outbreaks of pustules on the face if administered as a quintessence. Rupescissa uses exactly the same words at two points in his text. We are not told in the ‘Table of Medicine’ how to extract a water from wild strawberries and combine it with quintessence, although Rupescissa does give a recipe. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
bi3mw > 04-12-2024, 01:56 PM
This question is indirectly related to the alchemical symbolism in the VMS, as the sorting is relevant to the interpretation of the process:
In his book and blog (“Voynich Codicology” ), Nick Pelling proposes a re-arrangement of the folios in Q13.
Quote:I argue (see “The Curse of the Voynich”, pp. 62-65) that the original page order for Q13 (the “water” section) was very probably f76-f77-f79-f84-f78-(centre)-f81-f75-f80-f82-f83.
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Is this sorting accepted or are there other suggestions ? -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
nablator > 04-12-2024, 02:50 PM