Indeed and there are more still.

What all these pictures, that trace back to each other, show is that in this whole series of illustrations architectural details say much more about where and when the illustration was made, than what it is intended to represent.

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If the rosette folio is a map, it's more likely the merlons are literal, but if the rosette folio is something else (a fairytale world, a cosmological diagram, an engineering diagram, or a journal (which could be part truth, part myth in those days)), then maybe the merlons are just embellishments.

I still lean toward it being a map, but... that doesn't mean all of it is necessarily a map.
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It is possible that the architectural/building features on the page do not represent real buildings specifically. Even if this is the case then I would think it reasonable to assert that these specific details are based on memory of real buildings, so whether we are talking about, merlons, gatehouses, cloisters, flamboyant tracery etc. the author must have been acquainted with those in order to have reproduced them. A drawing of a fairytale world could fit that. A cosmological diagram with so many specific architectural and building features seems rather odd especially when there are so few details that one can say with any confidence are cosmological, these only being two suns it seems to me.(The * symbols on the page one could easily question as to whether they are meant to be stars and to infer cosmology from the circular shape of the rosettes also seems a stretch.)

I think it important to mention that there certainly appear to be fantasy elements to the Voynich e.g. nymphs and strange machinery, so why not on the rosettes folio? Certainly if it were a hoax document then it could all be fictitious.

It is also worth noting I think that on medieval maps there were fictitious places and creatures drawn, such as the garden of eden, as we find in some maps mundi, which were nevertheless supposed to represent the known world. So there was a blurring of the real and the mythical.

The four elements arguments seem to be backed up by few specifics. I have seen one medieval drawing illustrating the four elements which looks vaguely similar, but other than there being four circles connected by "rays" to the centre, current suggestions don't seem to touch on any of the many specifics of the page and justify them in the context of the page.

I think the question I return to is precedent i.e. in which tradition the page best fits for the early 15th century: fairytale world, cosmological diagram, engineering diagram or a journal. Precedent is a hard question, as always with the Voynich, as there is no other document that closely resembles that page, so we are left with deciding in which box or boxes the page best fits. I would rule out the cosmological or elemental theories that I have mentioned, for the time being, as they are so insubstantive and flimsy, from what I have read, that I think they are weak candidates.

So I am left asking, from that time period, are there examples of drawings of fairytale worlds that we can compare? (The earliest example that occurs to me of a drawing of a fairytale world in an illustration of Thomas More's "Utopia". By contrast a map of a real geographical area, but with some fairytale elements is I think something else.)

Or how does the 9 rosette page compare with engineering diagrams of the time?(I have not seen anything remotely close.)

Are you aware of a journal from that time that we compare in some way with the rosettes page?

As far as the page being a map one thing I find significant is what appear to be many geographical details on the page not just the many detailed buildings, but also what appear to be steep stopes/cliffs and what appear to me to be mountains or volcanoes coming from the bottom right and top right rosettes into the centre in addition something I was going to discuss separately was how water from seas/lakes or rivers is represented/illustrated on medieval maps in a away that is very consistent with the blue/white wavy lines we see on the page. As I have stated before, I, personally, don't view the central rosette nor the rays that eminate from it as really representing a geographical location, so I except that there could be non-geographic elements of the page.

The first reaction of many people to that page is that it is a map and I wonder whether the straightforwardness of that conclusion or merely a difficulty in conceiving where it could be a map of turns some people away from this idea. There are certain aspects to the page which seem hard to reconcile with it being a map of a real place/region, I certainly found that very difficult for some time; somethings just don't seem to make sense if it is a map on the face of it.

I would be lying if I said that it doesn't look like quite an odd map, but also it wouldn't be the only odd looking map of the period.

In my opinion there is a direct connection between the text on the individual folios and the rosettes page ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ). So the motives on the folios should be connected to the rosette page in some way.

It would be an odd map, period. With this layout, I'd be more inclined to approach it as a diagram that incorporates map elements.

(04-10-2019, 04:46 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It would be an odd map, period. With this layout, I'd be more inclined to approach it as a diagram that incorporates map elements.

However I should point out that there are quite a few maps from that time that you would think were less likely to be a map if it were not for the fact that they have readable text. So it looks odd, but it is not uniquely odd. The oddest thing about the page is, of course, the text. I may upload a few other maps of that period that look less like maps than the rosettes folio. There are very many features which are common to maps of that time and not found in any documents that are not maps.

The extent to which it is distinctive I regard as a function of the creativity of the author in representing the map in his/her own way. My earlier quote from Professor Harvey is relevant in this regard. On the basis of having spoken with Prof Harvey I asked him if this would be an odd map and he said he didn't think it was particularly odd.

I think, from what I have seen, it would be very odd as a cosmological or elemental diagram. Maybe there are cosmological or elemental diagrams that exhibit the kind of features and details that we see on the page and it would be very interesting if anyone has examples of such.

However there could very well be elements to the page that are not map features in fact I think there are as I have already stated. (The two suns could be seen in those terms though they may mark the directions east and west.)

So when you say:

"I'd [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]be more inclined to approach it as a diagram that incorporates map elements."[/font]

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]I suppose I would turn that around and say:[/font]

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]I am inclined to approach it as a map that incorporates a few non-map elements.[/font]

The following are geniune maps, but if we could not read the labels would you think they are maps?

I see your point Mark, some of those have little in common with what we think of as maps. 
But there's one thing that sets the VM "map" aside from those: its geometrical structure. If you look at the examples you posted, there is something naturally chaotic about them. But the VM large foldout is very structured. The circles up, down, left and right connect to the centre by converging lines. The circles in the corner have something "pointing" towards the centre. All circles interconnect by pathways. And yet, each circle is like its own island.

So if it is a map (which I doubt), it is one that has been subjected to a transformation in order to fit it into the unnaturally structured 9-circle scheme. That's why I say it's more like a diagram than a map. It is geometrically structured like the Fludd diagram we discussed a while ago (which didn't lead to much) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(04-10-2019, 08:05 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I see your point Mark, some of those have little in common with what we think of as maps. 
But there's one thing that sets the VM "map" aside from those: its geometrical structure. If you look at the examples you posted, there is something naturally chaotic about them. But the VM large foldout is very structured. The circles up, down, left and right connect to the centre by converging lines. The circles in the corner have something "pointing" towards the centre. All circles interconnect by pathways. And yet, each circle is like its own island.

So if it is a map (which I doubt), it is one that has been subjected to a transformation in order to fit it into the unnaturally structured 9-circle scheme. That's why I say it's more like a diagram than a map. It is geometrically structured like the Fludd diagram we discussed a while ago (which didn't lead to much) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

My own personal perspective is that the author chose a way which fit his mapping needs and also which was in his own unique style. I regard the outer circles as locations on a strip map, the causeways being the strips. This fits within the paradigm of what are termed "itinerary maps". I think one thing that is interesting about this is it represents a return journey by a different route, what one might call a circular tour of different locations. I think the strips are akin to what we see in Matthew Paris's medieval map of his journey from London to Jerusalem.

So the way I see it, is if you planned a journey starting from:

Austin, Texas

to 

Phoenix, Arizona

to

San Francisco, California

to

Salt Lake City, Utah

to

Madison, Wisconsin

to

Columbus, Ohio

to

Nashville, Tennessee

to

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

and back to

Austin, Texas

(I chose US locations to avoid using European locations and to make it clear this is just a hypothetical example.)

you might wonder what is the best way to represent your journey. Well, it is kind of very roughly a circular journey. Your geography of the USA might not be very good, so it might be simpler just to draw each location in a bubble/circle and arrange them in a circular way. To save some space and use your whole square page you might put the circles on the edges arranged in a 3x3 square grid. Now with the space in the centre you might draw a circle with the American Eagle or some other patriotic symbol in it to unify or relate to the rest of the page. In the strip of land between the big circles you might mark other places you visited on your journey, so for example between Austin and Phoenix you might mark Santa Fe and nearby a cactus.(cactus??)

Given that in modern times accurate representation didn't have the same importance that we give it in modern times, so choosing to represent a circular journey in this way seems quite sensible and logical to me.