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Water, earth and air
- Water, earth and air
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RE: Water, earth and air
Jorge_Stolfi > 20-01-2026, 01:03 AM
(20-01-2026, 12:33 AM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not much for a „copy“, maybe inspired
I imagine that the Author wanted a circular diagram with certain generic features, like the curved roads/rivers/spokes and a representation of the world at the center. He sketched some of it, and gave the Scribe a book with some version of that Oresme medallion that he could copy the details from. So the Scribe copied the wolkenband and the T-O thing at the center, and put some stars in between. But the Scribe did not understand anything of that drawing. Not even how the wolkenband should be drawn. (But he did learn it before he got to the big fold-out.)
Even ignoring the blue color, both f68v3 and that Oresme drawing have a T-O diagram with the big sector at bottom, surrounded by stars and a wavy border with knobs. To me, those three matching details cannot be just coincidence...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Water, earth and air
R. Sale > 20-01-2026, 01:08 AM
That's ridiculous. AI isn't just artificial. It's totally fake. Pizan wasn't English.
There's a detail here that's been overlooked. You know, (to paraphrase) "Sometimes a good VMs investigation can depend on a mere scrap of information." [AI gives you that "scrap" without the 's'.]
As a general rule: T-O maps are geographical. *Inverted T-O* maps are representations of the elements. <The "T" is upside down> There are not many *inverted* T-O images of Earth in medieval cosmic diagrams. We're looking at them. The VMs is faint. Where's that retracer when you need him. The VMs is not necessarily a copy of BNF Fr. 565., but it certainly can be shown to contain a lot of the same information - despite the differences in appearance.
I can only urge <once again> to take a closer look at these examples showing the artistic techniques related to the depiction of Christian and classical personages.
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@Jorge
What do you think of this one? Looks like nebuly lines to me. Is it a "wolkenband"? Is it a circle with little knobs on bigger knobs?
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RE: Water, earth and air
Jorge_Stolfi > 20-01-2026, 02:16 AM
(20-01-2026, 01:08 AM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What do you think of this one? Looks like nebuly lines to me. Is it a "wolkenband"? Is it a circle with little knobs on bigger knobs?
I know practically nothing of heraldry, but from the few examples I have seen it seems that a "nebuly line" is most often rendered as a simple line with knobs. No little-knobs-on-bigger-knobs, no thick edges, no shading to suggest a pleated ribbon seen edge on.
And the term seems to be used only in heraldry.
Isn't that so?
So I would say that the last example you showed is an instance of wolkenband(s) and not of nebuly line(s), because (1) it has the graphical features listed above, (2) it does not seem to have anything to do with heraldry, and (3) it is a frame to indicate that the scene is set in Heaven not Earth.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Water, earth and air
R. Sale > 20-01-2026, 08:58 PM
It looks to me like the Taymouth artist first drew nebuly lines in ink and then painted them. <?>
Heraldry does use more simplified versions. Making things fancy doesn't contribute anything to use of heraldic canting. The alternative nebuly line pictured here has bifurcated knobs.
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And there's this version of Wolkenstein.
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The terminology comes from heraldry because the early use of canting is demonstrable and because heralds left written records <blazons>. How many artists have left written descriptions of their works? Instead, artists had more to gain from elaborated and embellished representations. Some of the historic "wolkenbands", where a repeating line pattern has crests and troughs that are bulbous, are based on a nebuly line - by definition. The artist can fluff up the fanciness as imagination and skill permit.
There are two scenarios. It's either the same line pattern, put to two different uses; or it's two separate, image-related developments with the same structural form and the same 'cloudy' interpretation occurring together, which <IMHO> is highly unlikely. -
RE: Water, earth and air
Jorge_Stolfi > 21-01-2026, 12:16 AM
(20-01-2026, 08:58 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There are two scenarios. It's either the same line pattern, put to two different uses; or it's two separate, image-related developments with the same structural form and the same 'cloudy' interpretation occurring together
The meaning of the wolkenband of artists has always been the edge of a cloud or cloud bank, used metaphorically as the boundary of Heaven. And I suppose one can trace the evolution of its graphical appearance from the original free-form strip of clouds into the stylized and stereotypical "pleated ribbon with thick knobby edges" of that Oresme medallion.
I can believe that the "nebuly line" or heraldry was originally meant to represent the edge of a cloud, as the name implies. But it may also have originated as just "a wavy line with swollen crests and throughs" on shields and coats of arms, and later it got that name in heraldry because someone thought it looked like the edge of a cloud. Or because it looked like a "stickman" version of the wolkenbands of artists, which were known to be stylized cloud edges. Do we know which alternative is true?
Quote:It looks to me like the Taymouth artist first drew nebuly lines in ink and then painted them.
He possibly sketched them as simple lines. But he surely was not thinking of the heraldic device.
Quote:The alternative nebuly line pictured here has bifurcated knobs.
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And there's this version of Wolkenstein.
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But I understand that those variants either had to be specified as modifiers to "nebuly line" (presumably the case of the first example; what would be the blazon?), or were just unofficial fancifications by the artist who rendered the blazon (which may be the case of the second example). No?
Anyway, the "nebuly line" of heraldry is such a simple shape that illustrators can easily produce it without even thinking or knowing about heraldry or wolkenbands. I am pretty sure that the VMS Scribe was not thinking of either when he drew the leaves of f33v, f41r, or f50r, or the bottom pool of f82r.
In the latter, the wavy line is clearly meant to represent the edge of a pool. Not a cloud, not a boundary between Earth and the Heavens, not a coat of arms.
Considering that the Scribe almost certainly drew his "inspiration" for many of the Bio pictures from the Balneis Puteolanus, the shape of the pool's edge may have come from the illustration of a pool in a natural cave, surrounded by stalagmites. Maybe we can find a more specific image in some version of the Balneis...
The VMS Scribe used wavy lines with swollen knobs also on f75r, f75v, f79r, f79v, as the edges of some water-related thing. Possibly attempts to depict water splashing at the bottom of a waterfall (f75v), or under a spigot (f79r). Or a basin with many outlets which are used as showers (f75v, f79v). Maybe a natural one, like the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. near ancient Hierapolis.
On f80v, the two tubs at the top have double rings of such lines. They could be rings of knobs that divide the water into many rivulets. Or maybe just splashes from water that overflows the tub and falls on the round steps around it.
On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that style of line is also used as the edge of the billowy pillow of the armadillow.
On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that style of line is used around the edges of a water through and of the tubs of the three "Fallopian nymphs" at the top. But there too those lines seem to represent splashing of water pouring from the tubes above the nymphs.
It is not clear which was drawn first, the Bio section or the big Rosettes fold-out. On the latter we see two instances of proper wolkenbands, on the Central and East rosettes. As I commented before, the Scribe may have learned their meaning, and how to draw them properly, only after he mangled one on the Spiral Galaxy, f68v3.
Given the latter, I would bet that the Scribe did not know anything about heraldry either...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Water, earth and air
R. Sale > 21-01-2026, 06:03 AM
Strangely, perhaps, I would think that most any European person, who was able to read and write at that time, would have some familiarity with heraldry.
And look, it's that armadillo on the billowy pillow again, for the nth time, with all that drippy stuff underneath. That will need to go in the laundry. -
RE: Water, earth and air
Antonio García Jiménez > 21-01-2026, 09:01 AM
In the Voynich Manuscript, those knotty edges, or whatever you want to call them, represent the sphere of the fixed stars, the boundary of the medieval universe. This is so obvious that until it's fully understood, I don't think the imagery of the entire codex can be grasped. -
RE: Water, earth and air
Jorge_Stolfi > 21-01-2026, 09:42 AM
(21-01-2026, 06:03 AM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Strangely, perhaps, I would think that most any European person, who was able to read and write at that time, would have some familiarity with heraldry.
Is that so?
I suppose that even illiterate people would recognize the coats of arms of their lord and other important people. After all, isn't that why the things were invented: as personal or family logos on shields, that even illiterate villains and knights could "read"? As opposed to just writing their names, like we do today on the shirts of soccer players?
But how many people, even educated ones, would be able to describe a coat of arms verbally, by separating it into its devices and identifying the discrete type of each? Specifically, distinguishing whether a sinuous line was wavy, nebuly, engrailed, or invacted?
I can believe that many knights or other military officers would be able to do that, and that every idle nobleman would study that "science". But would a monk be versed in it, or an accountant, or even a notary public? Or even a medical doctor with a university diploma? I doubt it...
I have recently stumbled online on a 15th century manuscript in Latin, neatly penned in a scribal shop by a professional scribe who obviously did not know a word of Latin. I bet he could not tell a nebuly line from a sixfold rounded urdy or from a per fess bezant griffin fructed seagrant reversed, either...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Water, earth and air
Jorge_Stolfi > 21-01-2026, 09:49 AM
(21-01-2026, 09:01 AM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the Voynich Manuscript, those knotty edges, or whatever you want to call them, represent the sphere of the fixed stars, the boundary of the medieval universe.
Well, those in the Bio section definitely don't. Except perhaps for the one under the pangodillo, all the "sinuous lines with swollen knobs" in that section obviously depict edges of water bodies or splashing water. There is nothing in that section that would make one think of the Heavens, astronomy, or astrology.
All the best, --stolfi
