Not related to anything, I just found this strange. Does this mean they used a template?  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. vs You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
   

Here's another plant I've never been able to identify. The leaves are a bit like ground ivy, which is in many medieval manuscripts, and which spreads along the ground to form a ground cover, but it's not drawn like any other medieval plant. It has many of the same stylized qualities as f52r, which makes me wonder if some mnemonic or narrative is encoded into the plant.

It might also fit with Koen's Arma Christi ideas. It has candelabra/menorah and flail-like qualities. To me, these arch-like root stems (which also occur in another plant) have always looked a bit like reliquary containers but I couldn't put my finger on why they might be drawn that way or whether they might represent archways rather than a reliquary or monstrance:

   

One possible parallel that goes well with the idea of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: the symbolic trees in Liber Figurarum.

Quote:The Liber Figurarum is the most beautiful and important collection of the figural and symbolic theology of the Middle Ages. The "Figurae", conceived and drawn by Joachim of Fiore in different epochs, were collected in the Liber Figurarum soon after Joachim's death in 1202.

The complex and original prophetic thought of the Florensis Abbot, is perfectly illustrated in the figurae. It is based on the Trinitarian theology of history and on the concordist exegesis of the Bible. This masterpiece is well preserved into three wonderful codices: the Oxford codex, the Reggio Emilia codex and the Dresden codex. The reproductions exhibited in San Giovanni in Fiore, are taken from the Reggio Emilia codex, dated around the mid XIIIth century. The oldest manuscript is that of Oxford, produced between 1200 and 1230, by the Officina Scriptoria of a Calabrian monastery, probably the Abbey of San Giovanni in Fiore.

Quote:He theorized the dawn of a new age, based on his interpretation of verses in the Book of Revelation, in which the Church would be unnecessary and in which infidels would unite with Christians. Members of the spiritual wing of the Franciscan order acclaimed him as a prophet.

• REGGIO EMILIA, Biblioteca del Seminario Vescovile, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., ff. 1r-20v
  

• Dresden, Sachsische Landesbibliothek, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., ff. 87r-96v
  
• OXFORD, Corpus Christi College, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., ff. 4v-17v
  
• CITTÀ DEL VATICANO, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., ff. 198r-204v
  

When I joined the forum I mentioned that while I didn't have a theory or a solution, I did have a few pictures that I wanted to share because I thought I could see elements of design motifs from the VMS in there as well. I have searched to check that you haven't discussed these exact images before, but searches aren't always perfect so I'm sorry if some of you have seen and discussed these images before.

I want to show you a few images of illustrations and statues of Saint Barbara because I think her martyrology story has some interesting overlaps with the VMS themes. Saint Barbara is one of the early Christian martyrs and as with quite a few of the early Christian martyrs there's a fairly large gap (several centuries) between when she lived and when her name starts appearing in sources. By the later middle ages, she was a popular and established saint and her life follows some of the major tropes for early female martyrs namely, a Christian woman promised in marriage to a pagan man, she resists the marriage and is publicly humiliated/shamed/tortured, before being executed rather than marrying a pagan.

This summary of Barbara's Life is from wikipedia but the details are broadly correct

Quote:According to the hagiographies, Barbara, the daughter of a rich pagan named Dioscorus, was carefully guarded by her father who kept her locked up in a tower in order to preserve her from the outside world. Having secretly become a Christian, she rejected an offer of marriage that she received through her father.
Before going on a journey, her father commanded that a private bath-house be erected for her use near her dwelling, and during his absence, Barbara had three windows put in it, as a symbol of the Holy Trinity, instead of the two originally intended. When her father returned, she acknowledged herself to be a Christian; upon this he drew his sword to kill her, but her prayers created an opening in the tower wall and she was miraculously transported to a mountain gorge, where two shepherds watched their flocks. Dioscorus, in pursuit of his daughter, was rebuffed by the first shepherd, but the second betrayed her. For doing this, he was turned to stone and his flock was changed to locusts.
Dragged before the prefect of the province, Martinianus, who had her cruelly tortured, Barbara held true to her Christian faith. During the night, the dark prison was bathed in light and new miracles occurred. Every morning, her wounds were healed. Torches that were to be used to burn her went out as soon as they came near her. Finally, she was condemned to death by beheading. Her father himself carried out the death-sentence. However, as punishment, he was struck by lightning on the way home and his body was consumed by flame.

There's a plant I've never been able to make any sense of. Not even a tentative ID.

It's plant You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , and it's one that looks like it is trying to tell (or hide) a story.



Any thoughts on this one?

I follow Lisa Fagin Davis on twitter and earlier today she tweeted that she had written a piece in the Washington Post about the VMS and all the people who try to solve it:

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I think it's a really interesting and well written piece and might perhaps even signal her opinion of one or two of the potential solutions that haven't been made fully public yet.

(No the answer won't be 42 or 56. More like 8).

OK, please all be aware that the following is speculation. I like it but it may very well be completely wrong.

This links the meaning of the rosettes diagram to the rest of the book, and gives a tentative explanation what was the purpose of the book.

Looking at the centre there are, what I considered before, six tower-like objects carrying the sky. I changed my mind on that. In the present interpretation, I propose that these are medicine containers. Just like in the pharmaceutical / small plants section.

[Of course, there are also much simpler containers there, but I could imagine that the book could include low-quality or cheap medicine in these, and high-quality or expensive medicine in the elaborate containers. That isn't critical. My suggestion is that the entire diagram illustrates where the power of this medicine comes from].

The sky above the containers is the sky or the universe, through which the medicine receives its power. This power is transmitted through the sky via eight channels from eight sources. These are the outer circles, which all have some pipes or other connectors that transmit whatever power it is they have.

In that sense, the figure as a whole may be closely related to f68v3 , the so-called spiral galaxy, which also shows eight channels connecting the earth (T-O map) with the sky/universe. If only we could read the text in these eight channels.

One of the eight influences seems to be Earth (upper right). Another interesting one is in the upper left corner, which looks a lot like the plant of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . The four circles that are not in the corner are similar to some individual diagrams in the cosmo section, and I have no idea of course what they represent. It could be quite a weird cosmology that the author had put together.

As a whole, this could suggest that this picture puts together why the medicine of the owner of the book is superior. (Especially the expensive stuff in the fancy bottles). Who knows he really was selling concoctions in such flasks.
The remainder of the sections in the MS would have their expected meaning, explaining the individual herbs, the way the composites are combined, the astrology needed for calculating the day and time to take the medicine, and possibly the incantations / spells to recite, at the end of the book.

Oddly enough, this could work both in case the MS has a meaningful text, or in case it is a medieval hoax.

So it would be nice if some evidence was found of a late medieval quack who was selling medicine in such fancy bottles.

I only have five minutes and then I have to get to a meeting, so this has to be quick, but I thought it might be worth a dedicated thread...

I've never been able to figure out this guy on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. :


   


One of the things I've seen in medieval manuscripts that might be similar to this image is engineers using stakes and logs to build fording aids so soldiers or travelers can get across rough streams by sidling along the log and using it to grasp and balance.




But... since we're also looking at Christian-themed possibilities in the last few threads, I thought I would add this. Not all images of the crucifixion have the same kinds of crosses. I've seen several different arrangements of the two thieves with their arms behind their backs or above the logs as in this example. It's not exactly like the VMS pic, and there's only one log man in the VMS, but hey, if we are exploring ideas, might as well post it to get the thread doing...


            

7th century Coptic crucifixion BL Or 6796; Dortmund c. 1475 by Derick Baegert (public domain)

   
Vaux Passional, National Library of Wales Penarth MS 482D, c. 1503

No, it's not quite the same arrangement, I offer it simply as food for thought and discussion.

Since the VMs critter of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is an interesting comparison with the image from the "Apocalypse of S. Jean"  (1313, Liege). And since the Apocalypse text was in the library of Phillip the Good, Duke of Burgundy (d. 1467), perhaps it will help to know more about the library.

So far, it's a work in progress. Any help appreciated.

Some info here:
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From this source, most of the books in the library of Philip the Good were commissioned after 1445. The Apocalypse was created in 1313.

Philip the Bold (1342-1404), grandfather of Philip the Good, was also a bibliophile, as was Margaret of Flanders, the wife of Philip the Bold, and she brought with her the book collection of the counts of Flanders. On the basis of chronology and geography, this may be a better source for how the 1313 Apocalypse entered the collection.

It would also be interesting to know which texts by Nicole Oresme were in the Burgundian collection.

I was wondering whether a similar strategy David used on the "coins" folio could be applied to understand You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (with the bird root). 
I'm pretty certain that the bird represents the Holy Spirit (it's even got the halo) with "God rays" is it descends. Within the Arma Christi mindset I saw this most logically referring to Pentecost, when the Spirit descended on the 11 remaining apostles.

But the rest of the plant is hard to understand in this context. However... if we apply his suggestion of converting flower counts to bible verse, we get a clear 1:7.
   

Here's Mark 1:7-10.

Quote:7 And this was [John the Baptist's] message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ”