There was a lot of visual code in place in the relevant (C-14) Middle Ages. Part of that visual code was heraldry. Heraldry is clearly a part of the VMs. The cosmic nebuly line speaks for itself. And otherwise, heraldic connections might be a bit obscure and hard to read. The difficulties here are twofold, in the ambiguity of the source (VMs) and in the historical obscurity of the reference. Heraldry is doubly disadvantaged, but, unlike astrology and alchemy and medieval mumbo-jumbo, it is a relatively simple topic with fixed interpretations. In other words, a code. A code that could identify individuals and families and their noble ancestry and royal ranking, and ecclesiastical orders and ranking as well, without the use of the spoken or written word. A code. And not just through recognition, but in various cases through heraldic canting.

As to the text, there's plenty of it. No shortage there. Some attempts at interpretation remain in limbo, the rest have fallen through the grate. Various attempts to interpret the data occur, but they are lacking the direction for any specific examples of text. The VMs drawings may relate to the stars, but can they relate to and designate specific segments of text? In deed, they can. Heraldry is a visual code that gives the VMs historical grounding and textual specificity in combination.

Analysis of the VMs text, will depend on methodology. But the other part is selection of the specimen to be analyzed.

   

I don't recall having seen any explanations for this. Has anyone ever seen anything like this elsewhere? It looks like two "tails" coming out of a central point, but I have no idea what the intention may have been. I'm also not sure if the "tails" angle is a good one, since the outer lines seem to make two half circles towards the cloud bands. 

Conceptually, we can probably assume this scene takes place either in the sky or in the heavenly realm (or both). It is probably something you cannot touch when you are on earth, at least that would be the meaning of the cloud band in standard iconography. They also used a special method of painting, applying curved dabs of blue paint, maybe suggestive of clouds?

There is also a strange detail of a couple of lines bottom left on the inner circle.

The Rosettes page takes up 6 sides of the manuscript. There are other foldouts in the manuscript, but each side of those is like a separate page, so the Rosettes features by far and away the largest single image. A page this size is more costly than 6 individual sheets, because it requires a larger piece of vellum.

One could ask why the author(s) needed such a large sheet for the rosettes drawing, could the drawing fit on a smaller sheet without loss of detail? Was the topic particularly important that it merited a large sheet? Presumably the large sheet was purchased specifically for the purpose of the Rosettes drawing.

When Cary and I posted our grand overview of possible Christian themes in the Voynich images, a common (and justified) complaint was that the post was too long. Therefore, we decided to treat each subject separately, and to start with the Rosettes foldout.

What I thought would be a quick rewrite, ended up in a complete revision that took us half a year. We soon realized that this post about the Rosettes would be too long as well, and decided to chop it up into smaller, bite-size chunks. The advantage of this is that the post is compact and limited in scope, easier to digest. The disadvantage is that we can only present a part of our evidence at the time. But I think it is better like this.

Part one is online now. The second part is almost finished and will be published next week. 

The first piece of the puzzle focuses entirely on the "walls" connecting the outer circles: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

Finding the icons is problematic in the VMs.  Identifying the nature of icons is difficult. Defined as an image, figure, representation or picture. This definition lacks the essential *star* quality that makes an icon an icon.

Though it may not be easy to find icons, it is possible to find things that were iconic relevant to the C-14 dates. Where something iconic is something that goes without saying.  Certain understandings and interpretations that need no explanation because they were well known at the time VMs creation. And even though quite famous at the time, have gotten lost in the cascade of historical events.

The VMs cosmos is iconic. The understanding goes without saying, but the interpretation is a long and complex review of medieval representations. concluding with a focus of BNF Fr. 565 and Harley 334.

The Golden Fleece was certainly iconic. Does it occur, as has been suggested, in the VMs? Not just once, but twice? Discovered despite ambiguous representation. Confirmed by the existence of dual representation, pairing. And confirmed by association with other historical icons, as represented in the illustrations, either Melusine or the Agnus Dei icon. One icon confirms the other.

Heraldry is iconic. Red hats and blue stripes were iconic. The cardinal's red galero was traditional. The armorial insignia was historical. The combination was a unique historical event.

Swallowtail merlons are iconic. 

The ring and the cross were iconic to Saint Colette of Corbie. The double rainbow would have been iconic for La Sainte Hostie de Dijon. There were crowds in the street to validate the popular significance of such icons.

So, the icons exist in the VMs illustrations, it's up to the investigator to find them.

Hello all,

Has anyone ever made anything of these little faded things on f1r? I've seen a lot of discussion about the red things, but not about these.
Looks like an arabic alif, the word pig and half a pitchfork, so it must be important. 


   

For my own research, I have decided to make my own transcription (also rewriting the whole MS, including drawings, by using my own Voynich font). After a few pages, I have noticed that some minims are kinda weird...

For me it looks like the following:

EVA- n ( n), might just be an EVA-i with a ligature- therefore making a word daiin not daiin, but transcribed to daw/v/... instead regarding the count of i's.

EVA- s ( s), might as well be just an EVA-e with a ligature or a way to write c'h without the h.
EVA- r ( r) , when following the stroke also looks to me like EVA-i with an apostrophe = I'


and,
EVA- c'h ( c'h ) is in almost every case I found written from right to left.


What are you thoughts on this? Wouldn't using a wrong transcription harm the results of for example frequency analysis making it unreliable? How do you cope with these "symptoms"?

The idea would be to create a database and mapping for early ciphers, similar to the mapping of merlons.

Simple entries of date, location and cipher methodology would be sufficient, with substitution (simple vs. complex) most common. But there is also a potential of alternate methods being used, along with when and where that may have been - within relevant parameters.

Occasionally I got some interesting ideas before the New Year and I took time to systematize them to a certain extent in a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

There's a reasonable statement that if something does not behave like a flow of language then perhaps it is not a flow of language. Now, there's a question of how exactly to read it. Those who explore the "hoax" hypothesis judge that Voynichese is not a flow of language. I think that maybe Voynichese is not a flow of language instead.

I have some further ideas which it would be exciting to develop, but in terms of blog posting I wanted to pause at some point, lest it takes months or years.

Comments and suggestions most welcome.

From a question, recently posed in the "Of-Topic" thread, this seems to be very much on a relevant topic.

"What if the nymphs gender doesn’t really matter in the manuscript?"

It has been suggested, whether as 'stella' or 'anima', that the multitude of VMs nymphs are the personifications of stars or spirits of whatever type might be preferred.  This is a perfectly reasonable interpretation of some normal text or set of illustrations. That is a part of what the VMs attempts to project. That is not exactly what the VMs is. When the nymphs are examined individually, it opens up a whole host of problems.

In European languages that have common nouns with assigned gender, both star and spirit are generally feminine. Therefore, they are ideologically feminine, and therefore, they are pictorially feminine. If they are what they are expected to be, does their gender really matter? It is only where gender differs from the expectation, that gender should matter.

While there are numerous VMs nymphs that almost match this expectation, there are a notable number of exceptions. Exceptions which clearly contradict the expectations as generally presented. In other words, there are a number of intentionally ambiguous and even potentially masculine figures included in the VMs Zodiac sequence. Why was this variety of nonstandard figures represented by the VMs artist? 

Is gender relevant? Perhaps just in specific cases of historical (1), literary (2) and mythological (3) examples. However, there is also the problem of the dark ink that has frequently been applied to the VMs nymphs to emphasize their breasts. This would indicate that the identification of gender was important. But, to what purpose? Is it a distraction or an attraction? Are the nude, female nymphs of the VMs intended to disguise the 'others' hidden in their midst? Or are they enhanced to promote the investigation and discovery of hidden characters otherwise known to be relevant to European, medieval society.

(1) The Fieschi popes on VMs White Aries
(2) Lady Bertilak on VMs White Aries (Wife of the Green Knight)
(3) Castor and Pollux on VMs Gemini