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RE: New video: "Is the Voynich Manuscript fake?"
asteckley > 30-12-2024, 05:42 PM
(30-12-2024, 08:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My main point is that no dating information (of any useful accuracy) can be derived from this.
There is nothing to suggest that one was copied from the other, in either direction.
When I showed the diagram found by Ellie Velinska to a group of medievalists, they were unimpressed and said that this illustration is common.
I guess I will be able ignore the similarity as soon as someone produces another medieval drawing that has even a couple, if not all, of the identifying features. (I think just a single ONE will likely suffice.) Without that evidence though, one can only assume that the group of medievalists were either not paying attention or just didn't know what they were talking about.
I don't think that is unfair to say; it would be far too easy to for them to substantiate their comment. And if one drawing is based on the other (and not on some third drawing that is only hypothesized to exist) then does have significant implications -- it may not nail down a date, but it would still mean there is a direct intersection between the provenances of the two manuscripts. And it seems there is a lot more reliable information about the provenance of the French manuscript. In fact, let's not forget that the only VMS provenance we have (pre-Wilfrid) hinges entirely on a couple of phrases (from dubious Latin translations) that refer to similarities far less specific than those seen in these two drawings.
I do think the fact that both diagrams have ~43 "undulations" is more likely coincidental though. (If the specific number was a significant element for the meaning of some common motif, it would likely be drawn without ambiguity. And so too if the VMS artist was intending to copy the French drawing to that level of detail. So the agreement in number seems more likely to be the fortuitous result of the scales involved.) -
RE: New video: "Is the Voynich Manuscript fake?"
oshfdk > 30-12-2024, 06:44 PM
I'm probably not very good with assessing images and certainly 10 years late to the party, but is there a specific list of similarities between two drawings? On the surface of it, if a T-O map commonly represents the Earth, located at the center of the cosmos, and the undulations are a way of representing Empyrean or Primum Mobile (not my vocabulary, I just asked ChatGPT what wavy lines outside the fixed stars sphere on a medieval chart could represent, I was thinking more like God's realm or chaos), then there is not that many different ways of drawing the whole cosmology. What other similarities am I missing? -
RE: New video: "Is the Voynich Manuscript fake?"
R. Sale > 30-12-2024, 09:12 PM
Not surprisingly, I dare say, I'm going to disagree <with comments prior to @oshfdk>. First of all, in Ms. Velinska's original posting, there was also an illustration of a cosmic diagram from Harley 334, which has certain similarities to the BNF Fr. 565 cosmos.
The thing about these cosmic diagrams is their simplified structure. While not unique, the structure clearly differs from the standard poly-concentric models commonly used at the time. While several later examples do exist, I believe BNF and Harley are the only good examk>ples before 1450. There is BNF Fr. 1082, but it is somewhat iffy.
In the investigation following the original discovery, Mr. Pelling searched for cosmic diagrams in other Oresme texts but found none. A similar search in various de Metz texts reveals various illustrations that follow the poly-concentric model.
Some interesting information can be found in the reported provenance of the two texts. BNF Fr. 565 was produced in Paris c. 1410 for the Duke of Berry (d. 1416), then went to his daughter, Marie (d. 1434), who, after her third marriage, was Duchess of Auvergne. Harley 334 was produced in Paris in the second quarter of the 15th C. The common factors here are the location and relative dates of production, nothing to do with the authors (since both were deceased) but instead with the structural model used by the artists.
Forty-three is an unusual number to match accidentally. I've been told there is some sort of lunar cycle. The undulations are not ambiguous in BNF, only in the VMs, where sometimes they are partial, and one must assume that no others are obscured where the curved spokes cross over the nebuly line. It's another example of visual trickery where the VMs artist has maximized the differences in visual appearance, yet maintains identity by matching structure, number, position, and color - all of which are objective. -
RE: New video: "Is the Voynich Manuscript fake?"
R. Sale > 30-12-2024, 10:04 PM
@oshfdk
The undulating line you mention is often referred to as a cloud band, (previously as a Wolkenband) and it serves the purpose of being a cosmic boundary. It was used by medieval artists to separate the human realm from the divine in illustrations where divinity (Christian or classical) was made manifest. It was also used in cosmic diagrams.
The variations are nearly as numerous as the artists who drew them.
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RE: New video: "Is the Voynich Manuscript fake?"
ReneZ > 31-12-2024, 03:01 AM
(30-12-2024, 05:42 PM)asteckley Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And it seems there is a lot more reliable information about the provenance of the French manuscript. In fact, let's not forget that the only VMS provenance we have (pre-Wilfrid) hinges entirely on a couple of phrases (from dubious Latin translations) that refer to similarities far less specific than those seen in these two drawings.
Two things:
I do agree that pursuing the origins of this illustration is worthwhile. But I think I already said that.
When it comes to precedents for Voynich MS illustrations, there still is a highly reputed herbals expert who sees a relationship between the Voynich MS illustrations and the Tractatus de Herbis tradition, in particular (but not only) Sloane 4016.
Further correspondence have been pointed out, for example with the 'Balneis' tradition.
The comos illustration is not at all unique to the MS.
Finally, let's not forget the infamous figure (estimate) of 10% : the number of manuscripts that have survived. -
RE: New video: "Is the Voynich Manuscript fake?"
Barbrey > 31-12-2024, 11:09 AM
Yes, I think the illustrations are too close not to be derived from the same source, and because of the dating it seems more likely to me that the VMS illustration was based on Oresme’s or some knock-off of his work.
What’s interesting to me, beyond the similarities, is the text BNF Fr 565 is illustrating. Aristotle’s On the Heavens. I think too often we’re presented with similar illustrations as if that’s somehow definitive but the textual context is then under investigated, as if dating is the only thing to be derived. . My own theory regarding the rosettes page and the balneiligical section relies heavily on Aristotelian natural philosophy as one of its foundational pillars. This illustration might not help the dating, but it certainly serves up yet another potential piece of useable evidence for my hypothesis. Moreover, by reading the text - which is what it seems to me was what interested the VMS author(s)- then the the differences between the two illustrations and the choices the VMS authors made in its changes might also be illuminated. -
RE: New video: "Is the Voynich Manuscript fake?"
oshfdk > 31-12-2024, 01:05 PM
(30-12-2024, 10:04 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The undulating line you mention is often referred to as a cloud band, (previously as a Wolkenband) and it serves the purpose of being a cosmic boundary. It was used by medieval artists to separate the human realm from the divine in illustrations where divinity (Christian or classical) was made manifest. It was also used in cosmic diagrams.
Where is this boundary supposed to be? In BNF Fr. 565 this wavy boundary is beyond the stars. I've checked my collection of planetary charts, this one from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. shows very similar boundary among other bands immediately surrounding the Earth, represented by some kind of T-O map with separate polar regions (?).
I wonder, if three distinct bands surrounding the Earth are named in the text. -
RE: New video: "Is the Voynich Manuscript fake?"
nablator > 31-12-2024, 01:47 PM
(31-12-2024, 01:05 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Where is this boundary supposed to be? In BNF Fr. 565 this wavy boundary is beyond the stars. I've checked my collection of planetary charts, this one from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. shows very similar boundary among other bands immediately surrounding the Earth, represented by some kind of T-O map with separate polar regions (?).
These bands represent the concentric spheres of the elements: earth, water, air, fire.
Quote:[The Aristotelian] system held that earth was the heaviest element, with the strongest movement towards the center, thus water formed a layer surrounding the sphere of Earth. The tendency of air and fire, on the other hand, was to move upwards, away from the center, with fire being lighter than air. Beyond the layer of fire, were the solid spheres of aether in which the celestial bodies were embedded. They were also entirely composed of aether.
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There are spheres above the 8th in Sacrobosco's Sphaera mundi, so it makes sense to put a "cosmic boundary" (same symbol, different meaning) in the simplified diagram of BNF Fr. 565 above the sphere of the stars (8th), whether it represents the 9th or 10th sphere, or both, or a separation between the spheres and the Empyrean is left to the imagination of the reader.
Quote:The total number of celestial spheres was not fixed. In this 16th-century illustration, the firmament (sphere of fixed stars) is eighth, a "crystalline" sphere (posited to account for the reference to "waters ... above the firmament" in Genesis 1:7) is ninth, and the Primum Mobile is tenth. Outside all is the Empyrean, the "habitation of God and all the elect".
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RE: New video: "Is the Voynich Manuscript fake?"
oshfdk > 31-12-2024, 01:57 PM
So, the wavy thing under the fire ring here is the air element? -
RE: New video: "Is the Voynich Manuscript fake?"
nablator > 31-12-2024, 02:27 PM
(31-12-2024, 01:05 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I wonder, if three distinct bands surrounding the Earth are named in the text.
In the text maybe not. Not on the same page anyway in this printed edition: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
But the spheres are all named in many manuscripts. Here the 9th sphere is the primum mobile, equating it to the crystalline sphere:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., fol. 17r.
C[a]elum Empyreum est locus beatorum et est sp[ha]era immobile.
Sp[ha]era nona vel primum mobile secundum theologos dicitur c[a]elum cristallinum vel igneum secundum antiquos ut dicit Aristoteles...
The text does mention the "spheres of the elements":
Many printed editions (this one is dated 1509) just have a single "sphere of the elements" in the center:
(31-12-2024, 01:57 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So, the wavy thing under the fire ring here is the air element?
Yes!