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Water, earth and air
- Water, earth and air
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RE: Water, earth and air
Antonio García Jiménez > 21-01-2026, 10:18 AM
Although it may be hard to believe, there is no Bio section in the Voynich Manuscript. It's a misinterpretation.
That sinuous lines with swollen knobs you're referring to also signifies the sphere of the fixed stars, the limit of the medieval universe.
I have argued many times, and will continue to argue, that those hundreds of female figures are a personification of the fixed stars. -
RE: Water, earth and air
Rafal > 21-01-2026, 01:28 PM
Quote: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 would agree. Theoretical heraldry is an incredibly complicated stuff.
You have a lot of concepts and strange words describing different parts of coats of arms. You have a lot of symbolism and tradition connected to each part and its variants. And you have a lot of rules and taboos what must be done, what can be done and what cannot be done. These rules apply to shapes, combinations of elements and its colors and so on.
And different countries have different names, concepts and rules. There is no universal heraldry.
And yet from time to time, someone broke these rules and created something different. In such way he created another exception and yet another rule
So an average educated man probably recognised most important coats of arms and had some deeper knowledge of his own coat of arms (if he had one) but that's all. You would have to be a "heraldry nerd" to notice the details and know the theory. -
RE: Water, earth and air
Jorge_Stolfi > 21-01-2026, 02:09 PM
(21-01-2026, 10:18 AM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.those hundreds of female figures are a personification of the fixed stars.
I grant that they may represent fixed stars in the Zodiac section. (Although each division of those diagrams is more likely to correspond to one degree on the Ecliptic; and that degree may or may not have a corresponding fixed star. And since there is also an explicit star in each sector, the nymph would be kinda redundant...)
But on the Bio section, again, there is nothing that suggests that the nymphs may be stars. The way they are arranged does not seem compatible with that claim. The activities they are engaged in are not the sort of things one expects would be associated with stars.
It is more likely that the nymphs in both sections are purely decorative, as human figures are in many astrological treaties.
I believe that most of the illustrations are spurious and not part of the book's contents at all:
- In the herbal sections, the contents is just the text, and maybe some part of the plant, like the root or the leaves.
- In the Zodiac section, the contents of each page is only the text in the rings, the list of the 15 or 30 labels, and the approximate period of the year that those labels refer to. The order of the labels was part of the contents (even though we cannot get it yet). The number of rays in each star may be signficant (but I doubt it). The nymphs, tubs, circles, and the figurative signs at the center are just decoration.
- In the Cosmo section, again, the contents of each page is usually the text and the labels in the diagrams, including their order. Perhaps the number of stars in each sector is significant, possibly also the number of rays they have. On f68r3, the diagram may be specifying the position and appearance of the Pleiades. On some pages, like f68v3, the diagram may contain significant "topological" information, like "the four rives that feed the Heavens alternate with the four rivers that water the Earth" and "the World is at the center of the Universe, and it is divided into three realms - Earth, Sea, and Pea Soup". But some of these apparently geographic/astronomical details may have been copied by the Scribe, from some book like that Oresme, just for its decorative value.
- And in Bio, the contents is again just the text, the tubes and organs (without the nymphs and other frills), the labels next to them, and maybe the general shape of the pools and tubs -- if the contents of the section is indeed not about anatomy but about a certain spa with reputedly medicinal hot water pools and springs and tubs.
- In the Rosette's page, the main contents is general geography of the imaginary/mythical/symbolic archipelago that is the theme of that page. The presence of a castle there, a tsunami there, a volcano over there, etc. may be significant, but their detailed shapes and styles probably are not. The wolkenbands probably have their usual meaning. Maybe the tubes represent something, but their number and position may be just arbitrary. Much of what we see is, surely or probably, just meaningless decoration.
I think it is important to realize that, if we strip away everything that is or may be just decoration added by an European Scribe/Artist, nothing of what remains can be connected to the European culture of the time.
All the best, --stolfi - In the herbal sections, the contents is just the text, and maybe some part of the plant, like the root or the leaves.
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RE: Water, earth and air
Rafal > 21-01-2026, 02:59 PM
Quote:The nymphs, tubs, circles, and the figurative signs at the center are just decoration.
So would you say Jorge that ladies at the Zodiac wheel don't have any meaning?
And it doesn't matter if they are dressed or naked, in standing barrels, laying barrels or without any barrels.
That it doesn't carry any symbolism and was just randomly copied from some treatise about bathing? -
RE: Water, earth and air
Antonio García Jiménez > 21-01-2026, 03:34 PM
The female figures we see in the zodiac signs aren't bathing in barrels. Do any of them bathe fully clothed?
They're in tubes, and these are the same tubes we later see in Quire 13. Everything in the Voynich Manuscript is interconnected. It's absurd to say these figures are mere decoration. -
RE: Water, earth and air
Jorge_Stolfi > 21-01-2026, 05:51 PM
(21-01-2026, 02:59 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So would you say Jorge that ladies at the Zodiac wheel don't have any meaning? And it doesn't matter if they are dressed or naked, in standing barrels, laying barrels or without any barrels.
Yes. I think I have finally figured out the barrels. The very first nymph that the Scribe tried to draw -- f70v1 (Aries 1), inner band, 12:00 -- came out so ugly that he had to cover the bottom half with a tub, and draw bands on the tub to disguise the legs and feet.
Then he drew tubs on the other ones to pretend that it was the plan all along. He still drew them naked at first, but after a few he went back and drew dresses over them. Maybe he got a pang of prurience, maybe he thought they would look nicer that way. But near the end of f71v (Taurus 1) he got tired of the dresses or lost his inhibition. On f72r1 (Taurus 2), after completing the inner ring with tubs and no dresses, he felt that he could draw the lower parts as well. His next try (outer at 12:00) was still awful. but as he proceeded clockwise he figured out how to draw a less awful version. And basically kept repeating it through the rest of Zodiac, and then on into Bio.
Quote:That it doesn't carry any symbolism and was just randomly copied from some treatise about bathing?
As I mentioned above, there are still two main theories about the theme of the Bio section: either the description of a hot water spa with supposedly medicinal virtues, or a treaty of anatomy describing organs and the real or imaginary flows of fluids between them. I can't make up my mind between the two; although I think the latter is more likely.
In the first case, some of the pictures are indeed meant to describe baths, and the nymphs in them are indeed bathing ladies; but several of them seem to have been (badly) copied from the Balneis Puteolanum; especially f75r, that depicts a natural water slide in a cave that ends in a pool. Maybe there are other obvious copies. The rest of the pictures would show the organs of the body that benefit from the baths, and the vital flows that are helped by them.
In the second case, the pools, tubs, waterfalls, and nymphs would be just decoration, possibly decoys to protect against any sort of "holy inquisition" (not THE one, of course; nor THAT OTHER one with two, not, three, not, four, four main weapons). The illustrations of organs and tubes would be meaningful contents, but stripped of all frills and decoration. Like this, but without the nymphs:
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Water, earth and air
Antonio García Jiménez > 21-01-2026, 06:02 PM
To complete the picture, all we needed was the Holy Inquisition! -
RE: Water, earth and air
Rafal > 21-01-2026, 06:57 PM
Quote:The female figures we see in the zodiac signs aren't bathing in barrels. Do any of them bathe fully clothed? They're in tubes
There are stanger things in VM than supposed women bathing in clothes.
They are some cases of nymphs in laying barrels/tubes.
If they are tubes, then they are rather short. And they definitely have a bottom.
See this thread: People in barrels
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RE: Water, earth and air
Jorge_Stolfi > 21-01-2026, 08:03 PM
(21-01-2026, 06:57 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
Whoa! What is the source for the top left image, with the Naiad(?) and the fish?
Quote:They are some cases of nymphs in laying barrels/tubes.
That is the Pisces diagram, f70v3/f70v2. It is a big(ger) puzzle for me because I cannot quite place it in the evolution of the Scribe's "artistic" skills.
The style of the nymphs and tubs in the outer circle would place Pisces somewhere between f70v1 (Aries 1, which I think was the first one drawn) and f72r1 (Taurus 2, when he gave up on tubs).
I think that the barrels are the result of poor planning (something that the Scribe obviously excelled at). The circles framing the three text rings, by themselves, would have left enough space in the inner figure band for nymphs in upright tubs, just like those in the outer band. But for some reason he added an extra ring with decorative patterns just outside the inner text ring. And then he drew an extra circle just inside the middle text ring. You can see it more clearly at 08:30, just above (outwards) of the label okaldal . Maybe he intended to put another band of decorative patterns there. Anyway, the space between those two circles was then insufficient for nymphs in upright tubs. Hence, I think, the horizontal barrels.
It is possible that he first tried to draw just the nymphs, from the belly up, without tubs or barrels, starting at 12:00; but after one or two more he went back and added the barrels. But there is quite a bit of inconsistency there. The nymph at 06:00 is standing outside the barrel, but the next ones are again half-in. There seems to have been another planing error between 09:00 and 12:00 that forced him to draw the barrel at 10:30 half-hidden behind the barrel at 11:00 -- which is the only one with the mouth and nymph facing clockwise. To complicate matters, those nymphs were heavily BEEP sorry.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Water, earth and air
R. Sale > 21-01-2026, 09:34 PM
@Jorge
For someone who said in Post #24: "I know practically nothing about heraldry...", the "overnight" transformation to the statement in your Post #29, where you wrote; "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..." is simply amazing.
I bow before you. [[Actually, I'm laughing so hard, I can't stand up straight.]] I had to look up 'seagrant'. AI gave me more scraps of information. That makes it even funnier.
First of all, there are standard definitions of line pattens. Can we all use the same terminology???
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Considering the catalog of relevant 'Manuscript Miniature' images. Early examples of cosmic boundaries with noticeable nebuly tendencies are found in six sources between 1300-1340, but going on before 1300 requires an increasing allowance for pattern variation and fewer examples.
Artistry and heraldry are established a century before the VMs. Even if the basic patterns had come from different sources, they would have been conflated by the C-14 dates. Nebuly for clouds; wavy for water; rayonny for fire. [Pillow is not an option.] The VMs was just prior to the era of Ficino's conflation, planets = metals = gems = colors = virtues. The whole nine yards.
Step 3: Presuming the VMs has medieval influences, if not real medieval origins, *apply* those medieval definitions to VMs illustrations. The result is an interesting trail of interpretation that connects the VMs critter to the historical Apocalypse de S Jean [BNF Fr. 13096]. Like the cosmic comparison, the uniqueness of the original sources, and the similarity of the VMs representations should incite a bit of curiosity. One might propose several connections with medieval heraldry in the VMs that similarly demonstrate knowledge and intention by someone. However, part of that intention is to include ambiguity and even obfuscation. And additionally, the use of obscure, medieval information has confounded investigators prior to the "information age". Obscurity is coming back for another round.
The VMs artistry displays a depth of knowledge, the existence of an obscure, heraldic fur, (So obscure that it is omitted from many references.) that the modern investigator likely does not possess and would have trouble finding, even if s/he knew to look for in the first place. The use of heraldic lines and the existence of heraldic canting would not be recognized, if the intended object cannot be properly named.