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No text, but a visual code
RE: No text, but a visual code

Linda > 13-05-2026, 11:58 PM

(13-05-2026, 04:25 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. All of this may seem childish, but it is the way in which the most abstract ideas were expressed in medieval times.

Can you give a comparable example?
RE: No text, but a visual code

Antonio García Jiménez > 14-05-2026, 12:23 PM

Many medieval works of art have a childlike quality. I'm thinking, for example, of a work I know well: the Cantigas de Santa María, with its narrative miniatures of the miracles of the Virgin, reminiscent of comic strips. Or the story of the Norman conquest of England in the Bayeux Tapestry, which looks as if it were made by a child.

If a child heard an ancient preacher speak of the pains of hell, he would probably draw the torments of the damned that we see on the tympanums of medieval churches. We've all seen that miniature of Gregory the Great writing with a dove by his ear, meant to represent that his works were inspired by the Holy Spirit. If we tell a child that God spoke to the saint through a dove, I don't think they'd do anything differently.

I see some of this in the way the author has arranged the female figures in the tubes or the rows of figures in the pools waiting to launch themselves down the tube. It's like a comic strip depicting how astral influence is channeled.
RE: No text, but a visual code

Antonio García Jiménez > 16-05-2026, 09:12 AM

In a good number of the female figures we see that they not only have their feet inside tubes but also put one or both hands into other tubes. Perhaps the most striking case is that of the central figure at the top of folio f77v, which has its feet in a tube and both hands in tubes on either side.

What the artist wants to show with these shocking images is that the female figures travel through those tubes. They are the fluid that descends from the sky. Since he cannot draw them completely inside, he suggests it by placing their feet and hands inside the tubes.

To understand all this imagery, it's important to keep in mind how the universe was conceived in the Middle Ages. It was seen as a collection of several overlapping, closed spheres. Hence, at least in the minds of the Voynich authors, it was thought that the influence of the stars had to travel through conduits to avoid being lost, so that they could pass through the different layers and reach Earth.
RE: No text, but a visual code

Linda > 16-05-2026, 05:39 PM

(14-05-2026, 12:23 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Many medieval works of art have a childlike quality. I'm thinking, for example, of a work I know well: the Cantigas de Santa María, with its narrative miniatures of the miracles of the Virgin, reminiscent of comic strips. Or the story of the Norman conquest of England in the Bayeux Tapestry, which looks as if it were made by a child.

The Cantigas are preserved in four manuscripts:[5]

To (códice de Toledo, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS 10069, link to manuscript)
T (códice rico, Biblioteca de El Escorial, MS T.I.1, link to manuscript)
F (códice de Florencia, Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS b.r. 20, link to manuscript)
E (códice de los músicos, Biblioteca de El Escorial MS B.I.2, link to manuscript)

Well, it's not the first one i looked at, which was the last one, which is basically musical instrument related insofar as the drawings, which makes sense, since it is musical. I don't see the childlike aspect as the drawings of the instruments seem rather complex. But there are no comic strips per se.
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Ah, it is likely this one, I see what you mean by the comic strips, but again I do not see the commonality with the Quire 13 drawings, these seem much easier to understand, the story of Maria. (I confess I only looked at a few)
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Or this one which shows comic strips of sorts which include the musical instruments and the flow of the liturgical motions while playing to the figure of Maria and Child in the church?
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The first one in the list is not it, as there are no drawings, only decorative text and musical notations.
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The Bayeaux Tapestry also I can see within the context of the Norman conquest of England. Again I don't find it very childlike.

But I see nothing to show me that the medieval mind thought of fluid astral forces flowing through tubes, so I don't see the comparability.

Quote: If a child heard an ancient preacher speak of the pains of hell, he would probably draw the torments of the damned that we see on the tympanums of medieval churches. We've all seen that miniature of Gregory the Great writing with a dove by his ear, meant to represent that his works were inspired by the Holy Spirit. If we tell a child that God spoke to the saint through a dove, I don't think they'd do anything differently.
Yes but religious iconography is well known, and there is lots of it. It is indoctrinated into all who are born into it. But how does a child get the idea of tubal astral fluidity being involved in plant husbandry from religious iconography? It must come from somewhere else, no?

Quote:I see some of this in the way the author has arranged the female figures in the tubes or the rows of figures in the pools waiting to launch themselves down the tube. It's like a comic strip depicting how astral influence is channeled.

I see the comic book idea, but how would one see this as astral influence, that is what I was getting at, to understand it as such, would there not be precedents to tweak one's memory? Or are you saying this is the first exposition of this idea?

You were talking about the concept of tubal transfer of astral fluidity, saying that you saw it in quire 13.

Quote:it is the way in which the most abstract ideas were expressed in medieval times.

I took that to mean you had seen other examples of this idea expressed in a similar manner. That is what I was asking for an example of. If it was so common an understanding at that time, one would think there would be other examples. I can see no way to apply the examples you have given to obtain this result, I can only see the comic strip idea from those, which i already understood from the use of the term.

When I look for a precedent of astral influence on plants in the 15th century and add the word tubes, I get an ai summary of your theory for the Voynich Manuscript, nothing else. In all of quire 13 there are no stars, moons, or planets, nor plants or seeds, for that matter. I get that you are looking at the whole and pulling in the stars and the zodiac and the herbs, and I believe you can see the ideas you express, but I would be better convinced that others would see this at the time if there were examples of this sort of thinking as expressed by others from that time.
RE: No text, but a visual code

Antonio García Jiménez > 16-05-2026, 08:41 PM

I don't think anyone would say that interpreting Quire 13 is easy. If it were, it would have ceased to be a mystery a long time ago. The conventional interpretation is that the images have to do with women bathing or with female anatomy, but there is nothing in the rest of the codex to support that interpretation. The only reasonable thing to do is to look elsewhere in the book to see if we can find support. And what I maintain is that there is a valid interpretation because we have a context, the zodiacal section, where we see the same female figures holding stars.

Any theory about something unknown must seek coherence between its parts. My interpretation of Quire 13 is coherent not only with the zodiacal section but also with others, such as the herbal section, some cosmological pages, and the Rosettes. My recent posts have attempted to demonstrate this coherence.

Naturally, you may disagree, and there are probably others who disagree as well. But I maintain a theory that attempts to be coherent, and I would like to see an alternative theory that competes with mine in terms of coherence. A large majority of people are interested in deciphering the script, and what I say, and have always maintained, is that the Voynich imagery conveys a message. There's no need to wait to find out what the script says, if it says anything at all.
RE: No text, but a visual code

Jorge_Stolfi > 16-05-2026, 10:36 PM

(16-05-2026, 08:41 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The conventional interpretation is that the images have to do with women bathing or with female anatomy, but there is nothing in the rest of the codex to support that interpretation

Well, there is nothing in the book that suggests that the sections are part of a single work.

It is perfectly possible that they are independent texts, written by different authors at different times and in different places, whose only common thing is that they were translated/encoded/encrypted by the same Author into the same language and script, put to vellum by the same small set of Scribes (maybe even just one) and illustrated by the same third-rate Artist. Even Herbal A and herbal B may be two separate herbals that were brought together that way.

All the best, --stolfi
RE: No text, but a visual code

Antonio García Jiménez > 17-05-2026, 09:02 AM

I see that you make a large number of assumptions, the first being that the Voynich is not a single work. For me, however, it is clear that all parts are related, as I have always said and tried to convey in my last posts.

The fact that you think this way is because you don't give any importance to the imagery in the codex, which for you is mere decoration that does not convey ideas. To suggest that a medieval image is merely filler and conveys nothing is absurd in my opinion, especially given the large number of images we see in the Voynich.

I suppose you don't value the Voynich imagery because it clearly and unequivocally points to a Western European work, which makes your Chinese theory of the supposed text less credible. Like so many other researchers of the codex, you are obsessed with the script and don't see beyond it, when, as I maintain, any enlightened contemporary of the Voynich era would know what the book means just by looking at its images.
RE: No text, but a visual code

Jorge_Stolfi > 17-05-2026, 10:30 AM

(17-05-2026, 09:02 AM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I see that you make a large number of assumptions, the first being that the Voynich is not a single work.

I don't make that assumption. I am pointing out that it is a real possibility. Just as it is a real possibility that most details of the imagery are just decoration, or made up.

Quote:The fact that you think this way is because you don't give any importance to the imagery in the codex, which for you is mere decoration that does not convey ideas. I suppose you don't value the Voynich imagery because it clearly and unequivocally points to a Western European work, which makes your Chinese theory of the supposed text less credible.

I guess you can put it that way. But I would say instead that by assuming that the European-looking details of the drawings are a significant part of the contents you are excluding, right from the start, the possibility that the contents may be non-European. Not just "Chinese", but anything outside Northern Italy and Central Europe. Without proof.

Quote:To suggest that a medieval image is merely filler and conveys nothing is absurd in my opinion, especially given the large number of images we see in the Voynich.

But, in fact, in most Medieval manuscripts the images are clearly superfluous, derivative, and merely decorative. The theme of the image came from the text, and the details were provided by the artists, not by the book's author. And Medieval European artists generally drew Medieval European people, dresses, weapons, castles, etc, even when the illustration was supposed to show Egyptians, Babylonians, Aztecs, ...

In most medieval manuscripts, images may have had a pedagogical function, namely making it easier for the reader to understand the contents. But they are not the primary container of that contents.

Turning your claim around, it is absurd to propose that the text of the VMS is just irrelevant filler or decoy. It is obviously an essential part of the contents -- at least as important as the images, if not more. Even in the Cosmo and Zodiac sections, the labels and text were obviously meant to be there. And the Starred Parags section is ~25 pages of solid text, no figures: would that be just filler, too?

All the best, --stolfi

(PS. I vaguely remember someone criticizing a book by saying that the only merit of the contents was to prevent the covers from collapsing onto each other. Too bad I don't remember the author...)
RE: No text, but a visual code

Antonio García Jiménez > 17-05-2026, 05:06 PM

I share some of your ideas because they seem well-founded, but all this stuff about Chinese theory seems like complete nonsense to me. A mysterious European traveler who spent years in an Asian country was told about medicinal and herbal books. Someone dictated their contents to him, and he invented a new writing system to record it phonetically. Upon returning to his country, he asked someone to copy it...

I'm sorry. I can't take this seriously. It seems like a good script for an Indiana Jones movie. Didn't it occur to this mysterious traveler, during all that time, to make drawings of the oriental medicinal plants that he was told about and that they would surely show him?

The problem with your theory, like others that focus obsessively on the script, is that it disregards the Voynich imagery. And the images are an indispensable part of understanding the codex. If I see female figures with their feet and hands inside tubes, I have to ask myself what that means; I have to try to give an answer.

I do believe that the script is a secondary element of the codex, but I do believe that it serves a purpose, which is to reinforce the astrological content of the book. To me, they are groups of astronomical symbols arranged in such a way that they must have some astrological meaning that I am still unaware of.
RE: No text, but a visual code

Jorge_Stolfi > 17-05-2026, 06:01 PM
(17-05-2026, 05:06 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A mysterious European traveler who spent years in an Asian country

Again, there are many documented cases of that happening before 1400. In general, we know of each of those cases because of a single manuscript that survived by chance, like a letter from a missionary to a bishop that was preserved in Church archives. We know about Marco Polo's travels and deeds only because he happened to share a prison cell with a writer. Merchants usually did not keep diaries or write reports to anyone.

When Vasco da Gama first reached southwest India by sailing around Africa, he was surprised to find an European from Poland living there, with some high status in the Court.

In the 1500s, Jesuit Matteo Ricci was surprised when a Chinese man walked into his newly set up church in mainland China, pointed to a picture of the Virgin Mary, and said "I know her, she is Esther, right?". It turns out that he was a member of a Jewish community in Western China, founded by a Jewish missionary. Their rabbi had died, and the faithful were upset because no one could read the Hebrew Scriptures. But the man heard that, many miles to the East, there was this other foreign priest who spoke of Abraham and Moses etc. So he went there, to ask Matteo whether he would come with him and be their rabbi.

How many other Europeans might have been living in Asia, like those -- whose existence was lost because they were not met by any official expedition or mission from Europe?

Quote:Someone dictated their contents to him, and he invented a new writing system to record it phonetically. Upon returning to his country, he asked someone to copy it...

Well, which part of that does not make sense?

Quote:It seems like a good script for an Indiana Jones movie.

As Mark Twain noted, "the difference between fiction and reality is that fiction must be plausible."

Quote:Didn't it occur to this mysterious traveler, during all that time, to make drawings of the oriental medicinal plants that he was told about and that they would surely show him?

Well, what is your explanation for the Pharma section?

Quote:If I see female figures with their feet and hands inside tubes, I have to ask myself what that means; I have to try to give an answer.

As I wrote, on European Medieval manuscripts most of the details of the images are just decoration provided by the artists. Often the whole image is just, well, imaginary.

The description of the Tower of Babel in the Bible is just this
- ... they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there ... "... let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. ... “... let us build ...a tower with its top in the heavens ..."
That is all. Now look at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., an check how much of that image is meaningful information about the "actual" tower, as reported in the Bible, and how much is just made up by the artist. In that painting, even the river was totally invented by Brueghel.

As for the nymphs with feet in tubs, I have a proposed explanation but it is in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

All the best, --stolfi
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