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Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
- Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
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RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
ololololo > 09-10-2026, 01:08 PM
(09-10-2026, 07:05 AM)DG97EEB Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think we should rename Voynich as "The Greatest Hits of Medieval literature".. in one place we can find alchemy, Taccola, De Balneis, French goats, German words, German Crossbowmen, French wolkenbanden, German parchment (I'll post on this later), and herbals that could be Italian or German, oh and either Egyptian or non medieval containers... No wonder it's so bloody difficult to unlock... But something or someone unites these things....
This could simply be an educated person who read a lot of books and, perhaps, traveled. But I don’t think the Zodiac signs are that culturally bound. If the Author needs a Sagittarius, he’ll draw a person with a crossbow. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
BessAgritianin > 09-10-2026, 03:52 PM
(09-10-2026, 11:58 AM)pjburkshire Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't see the 3-part "Elixir of the Philosophers" recipe as a good match for f67v2. The colors on f67v2 are clearly green, blue, and red.
f67v2 has 3 colors but 4 faces; two of the faces are up and two are upside down. Which way is the top? The rest of the page implies rotation. A cycle of some kind. Possibly the moon. Possibly the seasons of the year. Possibly some cycle we haven't thought of yet. I think it is more likely to be Zodiac related than alchemy or geography.
So according you if it is not the philosoper's stone is not alchemy.
Do you think that the medieval alchemists were dealing only with the Elixir? The alchemy did have a lot of other subjects like metallurgy, pharma, paints etc.
According to my ijnterpretation the text is alchemic. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
bi3mw > 09-10-2026, 04:21 PM
(09-10-2026, 07:05 AM)DG97EEB Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think we should rename Voynich as "The Greatest Hits of Medieval literature".. in one place we can find alchemy, Taccola, De Balneis, French goats, German words, German Crossbowmen, French wolkenbanden, German parchment (I'll post on this later), and herbals that could be Italian or German, oh and either Egyptian or non medieval containers... No wonder it's so bloody difficult to unlock... But something or someone unites these things....
I assume that the VMS is, in any case, a composite manuscript. The topics of the individual sections could therefore very well be independent of one another. Such compilations were quite common in the Middle Ages. The fact that the various parts were written in different languages is also not unusual. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
DG97EEB > 09-10-2026, 04:49 PM
(09-10-2026, 04:21 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(09-10-2026, 07:05 AM)DG97EEB Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think we should rename Voynich as "The Greatest Hits of Medieval literature".. in one place we can find alchemy, Taccola, De Balneis, French goats, German words, German Crossbowmen, French wolkenbanden, German parchment (I'll post on this later), and herbals that could be Italian or German, oh and either Egyptian or non medieval containers... No wonder it's so bloody difficult to unlock... But something or someone unites these things....
I assume that the VMS is, in any case, a composite manuscript. The topics of the individual sections could therefore very well be independent of one another. Such compilations were quite common in the Middle Ages. The fact that the various parts were written in different languages is also not unusual.
I think it's entirely possible actually that they could have been written in different langages, and Voynichese is a single layer on top to normalise them all.. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
pjburkshire > 09-10-2026, 05:20 PM
(09-10-2026, 03:52 PM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
So according you if it is not the philosoper's stone is not alchemy.
Do you think that the medieval alchemists were dealing only with the Elixir? The alchemy did have a lot of other subjects like metallurgy, pharma, paints etc.
According to my ijnterpretation the text is alchemic.
Here again we get into the various ways of using words. I see the Voynich Manuscript as medical and spiritual (Zodiac, God, Heaven). I see the plants being in the manuscript because they were thought to have medicinal properties.
I think people mean different things when they use the word alchemy. When I think of alchemy, I think of trying to turn Lead (Pb 82) into Gold (Au 79). I see alchemy mainly as a chemistry thing, not a plants thing. Some people may include mixing plant parts under alchemy. I think of making medicines out of plants more as Pharmacology or Herbalism.
Mostly I see plants. I don't see minerals, elements, or crystals – other than that blue salt cube thing on f102v2 next to the "carrot".
I don't want to quibble over English words. I want to focus on the text in the manuscript. Until we can clearly assign 21st century English/Latin/Czech words to the old Voynich words, we are just grasping at straws and pointlessly spinning our wheels.
Some people see Quire 13 as alchemy. I don't. We will never solve that debate by quibbling over the meaning of English words. We need to know the meaning of the Voynich words. Again I would like to point out the illustration on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. at the top. Nothing in the Voynich Manuscript has universal agreement but that illustration seems to have the most agreement. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
Jorge_Stolfi > Yesterday, 05:09 AM
(09-10-2026, 04:21 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I assume that the VMS is, in any case, a composite manuscript. The topics of the individual sections could therefore very well be independent of one another. The fact that the various parts were written in different languages is also not unusual.
Recapping 70 years of statistical chewing by many people, the statistics of the two "languages" seem too different for a simple change of topic and/or style (like, from conditional "if one takes..." to imperative "take..."); but too similar to be really two different languages.
My recollection is that many words, including some very common ones, occur in both "languages" with similar frequencies; while many words are completely replaced. And there seem to be a radical "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view." that acts on characters in such a way that the lexicons and word frequencies become surprisingly similar. I doubt that one could do that with two different languages, even close ones like German and Bavarian, Spanish and Portuguese, or Tuscan (modern Italian) and Neapolitan.
Thus my guess is that the difference is mostly a "spelling reform" (or, if you believe it is encrypted, a change in the encryption algorithm).
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
JustAnotherTheory > Yesterday, 08:11 AM
(Yesterday, 05:09 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.or, if you believe it is encrypted, a change in the encryption algorithm
To the best of my (uneducated, naive) knowledge of 15th century encryption techniques, I would say that in the 1400s the best "algorithm" for encryption was monoalphabetic, therefore we cannot possibly imagine a group of people coming up with a CIA-unbreakable encryption algorithm at that time, let alone creatively changing the algorithm mid-manuscript in order to confuse potential readers.
However, if we allow a few more decades more for the creation of the manuscript, we already have many more interesting options, like Alberti disks (not much dissimilar from f57v) and other variations.
Would it be so far fetched so say, that we are wrong about the creation date of the VMS? A lot of evidence now points to this observation.
It could even be that forgers wanted to sell the manuscript to a rich collector like Rudolf II, after all there was a huge competition amongst rich owners of cabinets of curiosities, to show off who had the most unusual objects, the most curious impossibilities, I can imagine Rudolf II easily falling for something like this. All that needed to be done is forge a manuscript that seemed to contain arcana knowledge gathered from all over the scientific and superstitious spectrum of the time.
After all, in the VMS we have vessels that appear to very closely match 16th-17th century ivory vases (see my recent post in the Imagery section), especially from Rudolf's very own Kunstkammer collection, as well as evidence for plant grafting, i.e., the creation of hybrid or "Frankenstein" plants, a practice that appeared only in the 16th century, and which was in fact used in Rudolf II's own court to show "impossible plants" to curious invitees.
So many possibilities that point towards a later creation date than the carbon dating of the parchment. And let's not forget, before the carbon dating was announced, a large number of experts thought that the manuscript came from either the very end of the 15th century, or the 16th century. -
RE: Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS
MarcoP > Yesterday, 09:34 AM
Trying to get back to alchemy. The Florence MS Ashburnham 1166 lead me to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., by Giovanni Carbonelli, Giovanni, 1925
The book discusses several alchemical manuscripts, but mostly Ashb. 1166 and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., created in Milan, 1461, the Oldani or Oldanis family were early owners (I hope the link works).
I haven’t looked much into it, but Carbonelli points out that the MS is partially enciphered with a simple substitution.
I understand the text on this emblem at f.22r reads “Atans a gratia”, possibly a mix of French and Italian/Latin meaning “I tend towards grace” (“tendo alla grazia” in modern Italian). Carbonelli says that the null characters are inserted at the start and end of words (this is the case with the null before A at the top of the emblem).
Some of the images are interesting, e.g. the alchemical ovens with swallowtail merlons.