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No text, but a visual code

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  • No text, but a visual code
• No text, but a visual code

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  R. Sale > 02-07-2022, 09:56 PM

  The linguistic text and the many illustrations are two components of the VMs. The language is unknown and remains unread. The other part is the host of illustrations. How do we understand the VMs illustrations? 
  
  We need to know the *relevant* history. There has been much speculation. The C-14 dating provides significant guidance. A general time between 1400-1450 seems highly probable, but where does the VMs originate?
  
  Some years ago, there was the comparison of the VMs cosmos with the cosmic illustration of BNF Fr 565. There is a clear similarity for a very unusual cosmic structure: a three-part cosmos (Earth, stars, and cosmic boundary with a three-part, inverted T-O Earth, and a wolkenband with 43 undulations.) The provenance of the BNF text, the so-called 'Oresme' cosmos, starts about 1410 in Paris, and it was owned by Jean, duc de Berry (d. 1416).
  
  There was another historical ms., Harley 334, that is relevant for its cosmic structure, and also has a 'mermaid and her friends' illustration. It was made in Paris 1425-1450. And Paris, incidentally, was not held by the French between 1420-1435
  
  There's more going on here besides flowers and stars. The problem in matching the VMs to historical events is discovering sufficient detail about the *relevant (to the VMs)* parts of history, religion, "science", and traditions such as heraldry. The VMs artist has made the choices and we need to 'catch up' with those different references. The VMs mermaid is Melusine of Luxembourg.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 03-07-2022, 04:35 PM

  No, the linguistic text is not one of the components of the Voynich. It is an assumption that no one has been able to prove.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  R. Sale > 03-07-2022, 07:59 PM

  Then let's call it the part that tends to look like 'linguistic text'. As opposed to the part that tries to appear as illustrations. As I mentioned, it is unread. There may be no text at all, as you say. Perhaps this supposed language is all gibberish. Or perhaps only 90% gibberish. Have the good parts been marked out with Stolfi's markers?
  
  The cartoon-like nature of the VMs illustrations is the perfect foil for the subtle representations of various cultural factors in play in medieval Europe closely coincident with the latter years of the VMs parchment C-14 range. Of course, there is a lot of historical tradition that carries forward into the 1430s and beyond: heraldry (armorial and ecclesiastical), mythology (Melusine and Philomela), religion (Colettine Poor Clares, Premonstratensians, Agus Dei, and Devotio Moderna), science (Oresme and Shirakatsi), and history (Valois and Fieschi).
  
  The investigator, unaware of these 'insignificant' details accumulated from various researchers, is going to miss out on these historical interpretations. The myth of Melusine is an example. The myth is not well-known. The interpretation with VMs You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is fairly recent. And there is a connection to the historical Valois dynasty, particularly the dukes of Berry and Burgundy.
  
  And, even beyond the obscure details of history, there is disguise. There is trickery in the VMs and there is deception. In the cosmic comparison, form and structure are maintained, but the difference in appearance is maximized. In the heraldic interpretation of VMs White Aries, there is intentional duality and there is historical, religious tradition (the cardinal's red galero) behind the facade. There is a drawn connection to one of Stolf's markers and segment of unread linguistic text. <Actually, there are two markers and two segments on this page.>

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 03-07-2022, 09:50 PM

  No, I don't think the script is gibberish, not all of it, not even 90%. It is simply a means of communication that makes sense in the fifteenth century but not in ours. It may not be serious either but a game.
  
  Your interpretation of the book seems to me to have a good dose of imagination. I think everything is much simpler.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  R. Sale > 04-07-2022, 11:45 PM

  If the apparently literary part is presumed to have meaning in the 15th century interpretation, as you say --- why not the illustrations, that they also make sense in the 15th century, but not in ours? A whole century has passed since the VMs discovery. Finally, a few things have been learned. The VMs cosmos is not Roger Bacon's telescopic view of the Andromeda Galaxy. The VMs mermaid is not a generic mermaid. A figure with historical, mythological and ancestral connections to certain Valois rulers of the C-14 era has been substituted in place of the generic mermaid seen elsewhere.
  
  Who'd have guessed it? Certainly not someone as unfamiliar with the pagan mythology of western Europe in the Middle Ages as myself! I had never heard of Melusine. However, I found the evidence and the ninja discussion to provide the best interpretation currently available for the VMs "mermaid" illustration.
  
  It does take some imagination to try to step back in history, to rediscover the details that have gotten "lost" over time. Things that can be clearly seen in the VMs illustrations, but without relevant context they transmit no meaning.
  What was the armorial insignia of the pope who instituted the Roman Catholic tradition of the cardinal's red galero?
  It was Pope Innocent IV (Sinibaldo Fieschi):   Heraldic Blazon: bendy, argent et azur.
  
  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
  Ambiguity is a form of trickery. Of course, when nothing is known in the first place, then that's it.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 05-07-2022, 12:03 PM

  There is no literary or linguistic part in the VM. The script is just a system that links the stars and herbs, a kind of astronomical table, nothing more.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 11-07-2022, 11:50 AM

  I would like to talk about the enormous importance of an instrument of knowledge that we all have. I mean common sense. In the study of the Voynich I believe that common sense has a great value.
  
  Even if I know absolutely nothing, if I come across a book in which, above all, I see rare herbs and astronomical and cosmological diagrams, my common sense tells me that both things must be related. As I see that there are parts of the plants in another section next to some luxurious containers, I say to myself: of course these are medicinal herbs. A quick search on the Internet confirms that for medieval thought these medicinal virtues came from celestial influences.
  
  In addition to the images I see a script with strange glyphs. It is not any known alphabet. It could be an unknown language or a cipher, but my common sense tells me that despite more than a century of research by highly qualified people nothing has been found. So, my common sense tells me again: what if it is something else, something that made sense to whoever did it?

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 15-07-2022, 12:57 PM

  One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is how little attention is paid to the few researchers with a certain reputation who have dealt with the Voynich. For example, someone as qualified as Erwin Panofsky said that the female figures in Quire 13 represented astral spirits, but except for me and I suppose someone else, no one seems to take notice.
  
  I have the impression that we will continue to talk about nymphs and the biological or balneological section for many years to come. Maybe the next century will look different

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Koen G > 15-07-2022, 01:03 PM

  We shouldn't underestimate the extent to which this manuscript overwhelmed and baffled even established scholars at the time. Don't forget that Panofsky hopped on the "New World" train as soon as it passed by.

• RE: No text, but a visual code

  Antonio García Jiménez > 16-07-2022, 07:40 AM

  I don't understand the allusion to Panofsky and the New World. He, like so many intellectuals of Jewish descent, had to flee from Nazi Germany. The only thing that really matters is that he was someone very qualified and competent to talk about the Voynich.
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