Some time ago I tentatively promised to translate Wladimir's blog posts on the binding analysis.

Let me fulfill the promise at least partially by providing the translation of the very first post in the series, of April 2020: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (it being the shortest of all )

This I think is the first time the endeavour of the "language assistance" (one of Editor's voluntary tasks, btw) is undertaken in this Forum. It was my idea, so I just came to implement what I invented.

These posts abound with specific craftsman terms, such as headband and all that; being not that proficient in English (and in Russian neither) to correctly distinguish headband from tailband, I must have done some mistakes, feel free to correct me where I picked the wrong word.

The translation preserves the figures. In some cases I felt need to supply short editorial notes, those in italics. The title is as originally provided in English by Wladimir.

Attached Files

  Optional ROS and Q15 Mount.pdf (Size: 128.72 KB / Downloads: 84)

I've been learning a bit more about local herbs during this summer vacation, and one plant that grows literally everywhere is knotgrass (Polygonum aviculare). It appears especially well adapted to city life, springing up between tiles of many a sidewalk. In Dutch it is called "varkensgras" (pig-grass) and in German "Vogelknöterich" (bird-knotweed).

The way it radiates out from a central point is very similar to the behavior of the plant on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . Here it is next to the main image on the wiki:

   

Apparently knotweed can be eaten and has been used medicinally. The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lists an impressive array of sources: Dioscorides, Pliny, Galen, Pseudo-Apuleius, Pseudo-Dioscorides de herbis femininis, Hildegard (?) and more.

Compared to all images presented on the German wiki, I would even say the VM is more true to nature, capturing extremely well how the plant appears when you look down on it. The Vienna Dioscorides does an okay job and depicts a stem-like root just like the one in the VM.

In the "sky" part of the top-right rosette, there is a line of Voynichese text in a spiral. Some time ago, by coincidence, I noticed a similar "spiral in the sky" in depictions of Revelation 6:14: "The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up". I didn't pursue this any further since depictions of the event are really rare and it I didn't think Revelation as a whole was relevant to the Rosettes page (I still don't think so, but that's beside the point).



But now I'm thinking: no matter what one's view is on the Rosettes page, we are looking at a medieval document and a quote from the Bible is always possible. So even if I wouldn't know what to do with this on the level of the analysis of the whole page, it may still be interesting to consider this line of Voynichese in isolation and compare it to the bible verse.

Since there are a lot of variables involved and I believe in the power of collaboration, I wonder if you guys are interested in trying this exercise here together. There are a number of advantages why this particular parallel is suitable:

• It is a theory-neutral proposition. I am just putting the possibility out there that a particular line of scripture is used, which can be applied to many contexts. It stands alone to be tested neutrally.
  
• For example, various people believe the foldout to depict cosmic events, and/or the top right some kind of disaster like flooding. This line from revelation about a rolled-up-scroll-sky may have come to mind to the maker even if the page has no religious meaning overall.
  
• The text spirals itself, imitating the movement of the heavens being rolled up and reinforcing the parallel with a scroll. Assuming this interpretation is correct, the line of text itself does what it is about. 
  
• This means that we can compare an isolated line of Voynichese: the one that rolls like a scroll...
  
• ... to a concrete, limited piece of plaintext.
  
• The fact that we have a whole line of text may provide a whole different dynamic than trying to match individual words separately. It means not only nouns but verbs! Grammar!
  
• Even if it is all for nothing, we may still learn something.
  

• Various bible versions and languages
  
• This is a limited version of what Nick Pelling calls the Block Paradigm: you take a chunk of Voynichese and try to (force)match it to an expected plain text. How does one do this? How do you call (partial) success? How do you call defeat?
  
• We know which piece of scripture must certainly be included, but we don't know which surrounding verses may have been included as well, if any. Just for reference, here is a larger passage:
  

Quote:12 I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13 and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. 14 The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”

This is a question stimulated by a couple of observations. The first one is that we don't have any "ein" in all the Germanic marginalia throughout the MS, but we have quite a few occurrences of "en" there. The second one is a statistics observation which may be of importance if some kind of Germanic dialect is the language of the plain text. Since that's far from certain, I hold it back for now.

In short, in my latest pursuit of numericals, I've been in search for "ein".

The question is:

I recall from discussions in this forum, and from certain sources that I saw, that there have been medieval variants of the German word "ein", such as e.g. "ain" and, notably, "en".

I wonder whether there was/is a dialect which would substitute "en" (or something similar) not only for the distinct word "ein", but also for "ein" as prefix and suffix. For example, "Stein" would become "Sten", while "einander" would become "enander"

Something that immediately comes to my mind is Dutch, where "ein" is "een", and "Stein" is "Steen", but this is only "partial match", since e.g. there is no "reen" instead of "rein".

Regarding the VMs rainbows and whether or not the double rainbow is a throne that is unoccupied. And further as to whether this was an example of apophasis, of making note of something through the use of a literary device.

Not to mention literary, because it does not appear to function visually. There must be some sort of visual representation chosen <by the artist> to illustrate the artist's intention. A crown may be used to symbolize a king in both literary and visual examples. And if one knows the details of crowns, potentially there is much more to learn. Likewise a throne may symbolize a certain set of interpretations and both classical and Christian illustrations show rainbow thrones in the range of the medieval examples. This type of representative symbolism is metonymy and works in both literary and visual interpretations.

And so, the question is which interpretation might best apply. Is there a specific event that was relevant to such conditions?
There was the papal gift of La Sainte Hostie de Dijon. It was a big deal! There were annual celebrations. But does this apply to the VMs? Is the VMs rainbow an empty throne?

Is the idea of the 'empty throne' a valid one? Are there other examples?

Three examples where an empty throne is the central focus of the illustration occur in different versions of a book by Christine de Pizan, Le livre du chemin de long estude.
 1)  Harley 4431, fol. 192v, which is 'The Book of the Queen'
 2) Ms Paris 836, folio 15r
 3) KBR Ms 10982 folio 33v, which is a CdP autographed version from the library of the Dukes of Burgundy

The idea of the empty throne clearly exists in association with other evidence and events having Parisian and Burgundian connections and was in part coincident with the Anglo-Burgundian occupation of Paris from 1420 to 1435.

On You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. there are two vords written on a leaf, half way down the right hand side. Right up against the trimming; it is possible that a glyph might have been trimmed away here.

You would expect such an annotation to be one of three things:

1. Scribal instruction (green leaves; smooth edge; out of paint; etc)
   
2. Plant name
   
3. Plant characteristic (poisonous leaves;good for nausea; etc)
   

• f1r: daicthy [line break] yto shol    daicthy yto shol
  
• f37v: chocthey [line break] yto chol  chocthey yto chol
  
• f67r1: yto daiir    (label?)  yto daiir
  
• f67r2: yteoor yto ykor  yteoor yto ykor
  
• f69v: chese yto odair  chese yto odair
  

• f105r: dor ail cheky
  
• f105v: okeed ail kchey
  
• f106v: chodar ail dal dar
  
• f108r: ar ail odaiin
  
• f115v: shor ail chodaiin
  

• f68v1: okeey ch ek chekeys
  
• f72r3: okar ch ches
  
• f76r: fchedy ch sal
  
• f100r: cthdaoto ch qeos
  
• f108r: qokar ch okeey
  

Suppose that the plain text character sequence P1...Pn maps to the Voynichese character sequence V1...Vm, where n and m are 1 or more.

Suppose that, likewise, another plain text sequence P'1...P'x maps to another Voynichese sequence V'1...V'y.

Would then one expect P1...PnP'1...P'x map to V1...VmV'1...V'y? Or is there anything in the observable properties of Voynichese that would immediately preclude that?

So I watched this video today: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  .. And it made me think that some stuff people depicted in the past looked nothing like what they actually look like, it made me wonder if it's similar with the Voynich manuscript... Maybe this has been pointed out in the past but I've never seen anyone talking about it, I'd like to know if anyone has any view on it.

After reading threads here I couldn't help but to join the "gold rush" here. I have a theory about possible authors of the MS and I didn't found it here so I decided to post it. Excuse my lack of knowledge in this field, I am just another wannabe expert throwing unnecessary opinions, so if you don't have time to spare, skip it. Else if you are open to the new theories and want to help me understand the history of he manuscript, leave some comments and thoughts.

In the year 1360 at the imperial court of the Charles IV. among other courtiers, there also lives his personal pharmacist Angelo de Florencia. Angelo is an expert healer and Charles took him to Prague from Florence, Italy. He had established a local apothecary there and also a small garden. Charles liked the small garden so he offered a plot to Angelo (approx. 1ha) in the New Town. The garden was named after him - Hortus Angelus - and had properties of a botanical garden and was the first of its kind in Central Europe. In the garden, Angelo grew vegetables, fruit trees, fragrant and medicinal herbs and ornamental bushes. According to the records, most of the species have never been seen before (species from Asia, for example it's possible that Ginkgos were also planted - so somebody had sources to travel far away)
Side note: It is also said that Francesco Petrarca was every now and then visiting the garden, which testifies to its worldliness.


After the death of Charles IV. Angelo still held the position of the personal pharmacist for his son, Wenceslas IV. Angelo died in 1408. All of his estates and rights were given to his nephew, Ludovicus de Florentia.

Is it possible that the manuscript was written by the two or other people from theirs inner circle? In my opinion, Angelo started writing the manuscript at a time when he was dying to pass on the informations and know-how to his nephew in some coded language that only initiates could read. Ludovicus then expanded the manuscript with further knowledge and experience. 

Unfortunately, in the 17th century, Count Špork had Hortus Angelus destroyed and instead built a Celestine monastery there and no paintings of the Hortus Angelus have been preserved, so we can only imagine about how the garden was structured. The garden was placed where todays Czech Post office is now (map You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

Possible look of the Hortus Angelus (the renaissance geometry was typical for the gardens)

Horti Ankelmanniani, early 17th century. 
(KLUCKERT, E.: European Garden Design. Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Cologne 2000.)

In the very manuscript, there are few signs showing the House of Luxembourg presence.

For example the known You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and the nymph holding the cross and ring(f79v) or the globus cruciger and the scepter in the center of the f85r2. I am sure there are more signs, but as I stated above, I am no expert.


Sources and more(in czech):
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Has anybody else read this article/post: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I haven't yet had time to read and understand it all, but it appears very thorough.