I recently found my way back to browsing Voynich research things and have been enjoying it enormously. I watched episode 1 of Koen G’s Voynich Talk series which led me back to Lisa Fagin Davis’ work. After reading her latest Voynich blog post and her very interesting article in
Manuscript Studies I found myself enjoying browsing the VM on Jason Davies’ Voynich Voyager tool. I was looking at the bifolios Lisa identifies as Scribe 2 that seem to have been shuffled into the outer layers of Quire 5, namely folio 33/folio 40 and folio 34/folio 39.
I was having a grand old time when something about the B style daisies on You are not allowed to view links.
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I wasn't sure but I was curious so I attempted to use my very imited graphic design skills and programs (i.e. microsoft paint and microsoft paint 3d) to see whether the daises were actually in the same spot. I took some screen shots of the areas of interrest on Voynich Voyager. I reversed the image of f40r, aligned it as best I could with You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. using the faint paint bleed-through visible on f40r, and then faded one image over the other. I have recorded that process to share what appeared here:
To me, it does look like the “inserted daisies” were placed in the sam position on both sides of the folio. At the same time, the daisies themselves do not align in a way that suggests one was simply traced from the other.
This may just be coincidence, of course.
But I am not entirely sure that it is. Koen G has pointed out elsewhere that You are not allowed to view links.
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(27-06-2024, 06:52 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.... are the two VM plants that have a "daisy" imposed on another flower. ...
So if these two daisies are actually aligned with each other on opposite sides of the same folio, that seems potetially interesting to me. Is the artist responsible for these two plants using a deliberate visual cue to signal some kind of relationship between these two plants?
I thought there was something very interesting You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. where Koen G posted an image of plant that he had found in Dioscorides manuscript Chig.F.VII.15 with a similar weird "rayed" daisy on an oddly structured plant. User Juan_Sali replied:
(26-06-2024, 11:22 PM)Juan_Sali Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Koen G. You compared the plant with the VMS You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. but I think that it is closer to the VMS You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , both plants are in the same folio, maybe it is not casual
Could it be that the two plants are meant to be related botanically, perhaps two members of the same plant family, marked by the shared daisy insertion as a visual cue?
Another possibility that occurred to me. Could they represent two stages in the life of the same plant? It is more far-fetched, given how different the two drawings are. But could the large bulb below the flower on You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. be something that develops into the triangular form beneath the flower on You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. as the rosette of petals emerges? The double stem on You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. versus single stem on You are not allowed to view links.
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Could this be a visual cue signalling a more symbolic or religious relationship between these two plants? That certainly seems plausible, though I don't know where I would even start to try and figure out what on earth it could mean!
Of course David Jackson’s suggestion in part 2 of episode 1 of Voynich Talk may be right: perhaps the B style artist is just a bit sloppy and isn't really interested in what the centres of flowers really looks like and just thinks they all look more or less like daisies. It could just be that the way these two line up with each other is an accident or coincidence.
I'd love to hear what other people think.