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"De Balneis" - a recap
- "De Balneis" - a recap
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"De Balneis" - a recap
ReneZ > 13-09-2017, 06:49 AM
In the wake of last week's Voynich MS publication by Nicholas Gibbs in the Times Literary Supplement, the historical discussions of the manuscript copies of "De Balneis Puteolanis" in relation with the Voynich MS were picked up by several people, and the information may be found scattered over several blogs, including those of Nick, JKP and Koen, but also in (what seems to be) the first "rebuttal" article in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
I attempted a first brief summary in the comments of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , but I believe it deserves a bit more, and in a more central place.
These discussions were triggered by the fact that Gibbs did not mention any of these earlier references. Now while he might be excused for not having read all web resources about the Voynich MS, this does not apply for the recent Yale volume. Not only are the "Balneis" manuscripts mentioned in the essay by Jennifer Rampling, they also figure in the Preface by Ray Clemens, with a rather prominent illustration on one of the first pages.
Nick, in a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , presented a quote from a Voynich mailing list question I asked Jim Reeds on 19 Feb 1996. The answer came pomptly, on the same day:
Quote:Toresella is thinking of some late 1400’s books describing the public thermal baths of Italy. This sub-genre of topographical book has, typically, sections describing the special medicinal properties of the waters in each of several towns. Each section might have an illustration showing what the baths were like. The page layout and the architecture is similar to what we see in the VMS.
The second part was a follow-up by Brian Smith on 9 March 1998:
Quote:It is a reproduction of a 15c copy of “De Balneis Puteolanis” which was written by a Petrus de Ebulo c. 1200. The content was very reminiscent of an herbal — a picture of the bath and a page of text describing it physically and its healing properties. The pictures generally showed a large tub surrounded by pillars or other building elements. Some of the tubs were shown being fed by streams flowing down from mountains in the background or from pipes. A few naked figures stood in each tub, usually men but sometimes women. All of the tubs were single-sex. The style of the illustrations was unlike the VMS but I came away feeling fairly confident that the “balneological” section of the VMS is, in fact, balneological. “De Balneis Puteolanis” would not be at all out of place in a work otherwise about herbs and astrology and the VMS pages showing large tubs stretching across the width of the page would not be out of place in “De Balneis” (if drawn by a more skilled artist).
Following this mail, I found a a link with some illustrations. This particular site no longer exists, but now there are of course on-line digital copies of several of the manuscripts.
It's worth stepping back to the first mention that traces back to Sergio Toresella. His opinion about the Voynich MS, reported by Jim Reeds, and partially reflected in his 1995 paper, had an enormous impact on the general opinion about the MS that prevailed in the old mailing list. He strongly argued for an Italian origin, a humanist handwriting, and a possible relationship with the tradition of alchemical herbals, even though the MS clearly isn't one by itself. In particular the Italian origin seems to have been largely accepted by the majority as likely.
. . . to be continued . . . -
RE: "De Balneis" - a recap
-JKP- > 13-09-2017, 07:20 AM
Yesterday evening I was working on a follow-up blog on this subject of bathing that I will get posted as soon as I can finish the summary (hopefully tonight, but I have to finish some work for clients first).
Fortunately, there's not too much overlap with what I wrote and what you've posted here, René. It's mostly about the fact that I MISSED the connection between Naples and the bath complexes when I was studying Naples and the VMS in 2008, and how I did not know about the structure and popularity of Pozzuoli until I heard about the Ebolo manuscript from other Voynich researchers. -
RE: "De Balneis" - a recap
Koen G > 13-09-2017, 07:22 AM
Thanks, Rene, always useful to have a clear overview.
1996... Seems like Gibbs' plagiarism spans millennia. -
RE: "De Balneis" - a recap
ReneZ > 13-09-2017, 10:35 AM
. . . continuation.
It may be hard to imagine now, that in the late 90's there were no online digital pictures of the Voynich MS. This made discussion more difficult. Several people had a B/W printout (the "copyflo") at home, but not everyone.
My enthusiastic mail copied by JKP at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. also goes back to a contribution to the mailing list of March 1998.
At least now it is easy to visualise what I was trying to say:
It should be understood as well that this was a time where there was a general belief, instilled primarily by D'Imperio, that the Voynich MS was unlike anything else, so any comparison with something that could be traced seemed like big news.
Somehow, no comparison of other verses of the "Balneis" have been compared with the biological/balneological illustrations in the MS, at least to my knowledge.
Much later, the comparison was revived by Adam McLean, and several pages with image comparisons may be found through You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . -
RE: "De Balneis" - a recap
ReneZ > 13-09-2017, 02:34 PM
To round up the "recap" I would not be the least surprised if references to the "Balneis" manuscripts are to be found in the correspondence between Anne Nill, Theodore Petersen and Richard Salomon.
I don't have a complete copy of it, and I have not read everything that I have either.
They covered many things in the 40's and 50's that are the topics of discussions in the various modern on-line fora. -
RE: "De Balneis" - a recap
MarcoP > 13-09-2017, 04:17 PM
(13-09-2017, 10:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. . . continuation.
It may be hard to imagine now, that in the late 90's there were no online digital pictures of the Voynich MS. This made discussion more difficult. Several people had a B/W printout (the "copyflo") at home, but not everyone.
My enthusiastic mail copied by JKP at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. also goes back to a contribution to the mailing list of March 1998.
At least now it is easy to visualise what I was trying to say:
Thank you Rene!
This is great! I can see that the nymphs and pools might have been inspired by the De Balneis tradition, but these "tubes" really look like internal organs to me too.
Did you ever formulate any idea about the possible meaning of these "internal-organs" nymphs? The text you present could very well have been illustrated without nymphs. What do you think their function can be? -
RE: "De Balneis" - a recap
ReneZ > 13-09-2017, 06:40 PM
Hi Marco,
I can think of several things, but nothing especially new.
Several of the Q13 pages look more like pools with real human beings, while others (esp. f77v) look like organs.
(I remember that Ellie Velinska once made a reasonably good point about one page representing the human ear.)
Now the interesting part is that, while f77v does not seem to be about baths, it still seems to be a parallel for the text in the Balneis. It could work very well without the women, as you say.
Now the baths are both meant for external use (bathing in it) and for internal use (drinking it).
So perhaps that's why the women also appear outside and inside (???).
On a more simple note, it could just be that the author/artist liked the idea of drawing women / nymphs there.
The exact role of nymphs in the zodiac section is also not entirely clear and could be figurative / allegorical. -
RE: "De Balneis" - a recap
MarcoP > 13-09-2017, 07:31 PM
(13-09-2017, 06:40 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Now the baths are both meant for external use (bathing in it) and for internal use (drinking it).
So perhaps that's why the women also appear outside and inside (???).
On a more simple note, it could just be that the author/artist liked the idea of drawing women / nymphs there.
The exact role of nymphs in the zodiac section is also not entirely clear and could be figurative / allegorical.
I find it hard to believe that the presence of the nymphs is arbitrary and non-significant, just something the author liked. But as always, who knows?
One reason to support the meaningfulness of these women is that several of them seem to be individually labelled.
The parallel with the zodiac nymph is also relevant: the zodiac nymphs are individually labeled, each of them holds a star and they appear in a layout similar to the 360 angels in the zodiac wheels of Alfonso's Lapidario. I believe these nymphs (and the angels in the Lapidary) are personifications of the power of the stars. Darren Worley has pointed out You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in which the personifications of the planets hold "tailed stars". These nymphs could be something similar, applied to fixed stars along the ecliptic.
Also in the zodiac wheels, as with the "internal organs" nymphs, the women do not seem to be necessary. The angels in Alfonso's Lapidario also seem to add little information content to the diagrams. But in my opinion there are conceptual reasons that make the introduction of these human figures meaningful.
Anyway, this is one the most original sections of the manuscripts and making sense of it is quite difficult. Yet having some partial matches like the De Balneis manuscripts (images and text) opens the possibility for further research. Thank you again for sharing your insightful analysis of f77v! -
RE: "De Balneis" - a recap
Koen G > 13-09-2017, 10:11 PM
Just as an aside, the folio shown by Rene is one where several people before me have argued similarities between the constellations and nymphs from Q13a. Cassiopeia (in the middle) is obvious and there are several clues. I believe this image is about here place in the Milky Way, which explains the bottom horizontal structure. I have no idea about the top horizontal structure.
On the other hand, this folio is also the one which most clearly and most consistently suggests parts of human anatomy. It's remarkable how both interpretations cross paths here.