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• No text, but a visual code

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  bi3mw > 02-12-2024, 09:33 PM

  (02-12-2024, 08:50 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.... but its idea of the importance of the zodiacal degrees and decans in astral magic, as evident in the frescoes of the Schifanoia palace in Ferrara

  
  I would be interested to know what exactly is supposed to be “astrally magical” about the monthly pictures in Palazzo Schifanoia. Could you describe this in more detail ?

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Barbrey > 02-12-2024, 09:41 PM

  I’ve always wondered if the top left rosette with its 37 moons might be related to the decans, with their considerable role in astrological medicine. Decans in Egyptian art were usually figures riding quarter-moon shapes as boats. Thirty-six of them, but sometimes a 37th to account for the intercal of 5 days, as at the Temple of Hathor. I don’t know what the VMS writers would have had access to though regarding decans, I.e whether they would have imaged them as quarter-moons. I think they easily could have if they’d seen or read about something like the Temple of Hathor hieroglyphs, but don’t know if they were imaged this way in medieval astrological writing.
  
  Here are the 37 at the temple: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 02-12-2024, 09:43 PM

  So, do you think that a group of people set out to do something completely new without any roots in any current of medieval thought? It doesn't seem very logical. In reality, what I think is that we are trying to further obscure a codex that is already obscure in itself.
  
  On some occasion I have said that the fact that the signs of Capricorn and Aquarius are missing is not because someone ripped off the leaf, but because it is consistent with a manuscript of flowering herbs. In these winter signs there are no flowers or hardly any. The fact that Aries and Taurus are duplicated reinforces this idea because it would be about maintaining the structure of 12 signs and highlighting the importance that spring has in the birth and growth of herbs.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 03-12-2024, 11:35 AM

  In my last post I replied to R. Sale without realizing the subsequent posts of bi3mw and Barbrey.
  
  The frescoes of the Schifanoia Palace in Ferrara show the astrology of the decans exposed by the work of Albumasar and by the Picatrix. But they are not exactly the Egyptian decans since the fusion with Greek astrology makes them completely different in their iconography although their meaning is the same: the power of the stars and their influence on terrestrial life. There is an extensive academic bibliography on all this that relates the iconography and meaning of the deans to hermeticism.
  
  But what is interesting for Voynich purposes is the hermeticism related to myriogenesis, a system similar to that of the decans but referring to the influence of each degree of the Ecliptic. This system is seen in some of the works of Alfonso X the Wise, such as the lapidary.
  
  What we see in the VM are the zodiacal signs with human figures with stars in each of the degrees of the Ecliptic, which has an obvious parallel with the hermetic myriogenesis, as for example described by the Roman astrologer Firmicus Maternal.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  R. Sale > 03-12-2024, 08:45 PM

  The VMs cosmos is not hermetic because it does not have planets or planetary spheres. All the parts of the typical astronomical representation have been pared down to just three. The central, inverted T-O Earth, the surrounding field of stars, all inside a circular cosmic boundary. This so-called "Oresme" cosmos is the central part of the VMs illustration.
  
  Hermeticism is hierarchical, it's about moving from level to level. The structure of the three-part cosmos is practically anti-hermetical, in that it has eliminated all those layers. The artist is clearly more than some hermetic parrot.
  
  Historical comparison to cosmic illustrations in BNF Fr. 565 and Harley 334. With both items provenanced to Paris 1400-1450. The VMs artist used the three-part cosmic structure and (greatly) minimized the visual similarities.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 03-12-2024, 09:31 PM

  Fantastic! You have already decided with a couple of manuscripts that the Voynich has nothing to do with hermeticism.
  
  In all the posts I have posted on this topic I have not stated anything categorically. Talking about the VM you cannot make those types of statements. I have simply pointed out the possibility that this codex has to do with hermeticism and have shown some clues.
  
  The first indication is the zodiacal section showing the 30 degrees of each sign with a human figure, something that we see in works by Alfonso X the Wise that we do know are related to hermetism. Another indication is the number of hermetic works whose subject is herbs, of which there are a few, and even the influence of the fixed stars on herbs as in the Picatrix.
  
  But in addition, the rare Voynich herbs, difficult to identify, the cryptic script, the uniqueness of the astrological and astronomical diagrams and finally the entire codex as a whole exude such a mysterious air that it makes sense to relate it to such an esoteric doctrine like hermetic.
  
  Please, you can think what you want but don't rule anything out in advance.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  R. Sale > 03-12-2024, 10:47 PM

  I would say that the VMs artist knew and drew a lot of things that have long gone unrecognized. The cosmos is a prime example. In heraldry, something as basic as the recognition of a nebuly line, or as complex as heraldic canting and ecclesiastical tradition. It's not very mysterious, really not esoteric, but definitely can be obscure.
  
  The interpretation of two VMs plants, violets and costmary, based on the 'Mary's Garden' terminology, is more esoteric perhaps, but still not hermetic.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 04-12-2024, 09:27 AM

  This is starting to look like a dialogue of the deaf. Better to leave it here because you will end up taking the opportunity, as you have done other times, to tell your theory about the VM. Do it somewhere else.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 04-12-2024, 09:46 AM

  Whether or not the VM has anything to do with the Hermetic tradition, what I want to highlight is that this codex must have some root in the history of thought and beliefs. It is neither credible nor logical that a group of people get together and decide to do a work like the VM out of nowhere.
  
  The Voynich has always been the subject of research by linguists, cryptographers and computer experts, without any results. I think that when more people who are experts in the history of ideas and in iconography become interested in the codex, there could be some significant progress.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  R. Sale > 04-12-2024, 10:06 PM

  Agreed - with additions. There has been significant progress in the interpretation of various pages and elements on the "artistic" side. Again, I specify the VMs cosmos which displays both a detailed structural knowledge combined with the fantastical pairing, as an example. 
  
  From cosmology to heraldry to Mariology, each page plays off of a different set of images. The artist knew them all. Some progress has been made by individual investigators, one page at a time, one artistic element at a time, one cosmos at a time. It's not Newbold's vision of Andromeda, anymore. But there are some points of light from different lines of research which are compatible with the C-14 dating and that historical perspective.
  
  Not only are relevant details sometimes obscure, it is proven, in the duality of VMs White Aries, that there are two parts: the reality and the façade. The VMs artist employed deception and trickery, but again, that is obvious from the structure of the VMs cosmos.
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