The current series of posts explains how the Q13a images are artificial constructs of two layers, and each nymph is like an actor playing two parts at once. I started this line of investigation back in 2016, and now I am in the process of correcting, refining and expanding it. Right now, the focus is on f80v and f82r. This post details how the images on these folios tell Ovid’s story of Callisto. And the second layer of f80r relates to the constellations, as explained in this post.
The layering of Callisto’s story and constellations on f80r is logical: the myth of Callisto is a catasterism, it explains the origin of constellations. But what is the second layer of f82r?
f80v = Callisto 2 + constellations
f82r = Callisto 1 + ???
The second layer of f82r is the subject of this post. I found out about it rather by coincidence, while exchanging emails with Cary Rapaport. Cary not only makes awesome Voynich-themed artworks (if you haven’t seen her work yet, check it out), she also has a great eye for the subtleties of Voynich imagery. In fact, it was Cary who pointed out the text which made the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
Stella Maris
While discussing the images on f82r, it became clear after a while that there are significant connections to the Virgin Mary. Before going into the details of these connections though, I first want to point out that there may be a good reason why Callisto was linked to the Virgin.
First, there are some thematic links. Ovid does not call Callisto by name, instead he calls her virgo, “the virgin girl”. Both Mary and Callisto carry the child of a god, although their circumstances are opposite: Callisto is raped by Jupiter and her life is ruined, while Mary is blessed, chosen to be the mother of Christ. Finally, both Mary and Callisto end up together with their sons in the heavens.
But there is more: Mary is Callisto, because both are the Pole star. For Callisto, this connection is clear, but why Mary? Well, at least since the 7th century (Isidore of Sevilla), Mary’s epithet as Stella Maris, star of the sea, had become widespread. Just like seafarers use Polaris (or one of the Ursae) to know their course, so too we poor sinners must look at the Virgin for guidance among the waves of earthly temptations.
In short, Mary = Stella Maris = Callisto.
I am not certain if it was the Stella Maris connection that motivated the layering on f82r, or just the parallels between both virgins’ stories, or both. Fact is that the only star in Q13, and the only blue star in the VM, is located on this folio, above the sleeping/dead figure.
We will get back to this in a minute, but first…
The Crucifixion
Few scenes have been more commonly depicted in European art than the Crucifixion, the event central to Christian faith. Medieval images of the Crucifixion are varied in their details, but tend to have a number of aspects in common. For example, Christ’s mother is always present among the onlookers. Indeed, as one of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, the Crucifixion became an important element in the devotion of the Virgin.
There is a cross-shape on f82r, and on its left is a figure with a blue hood.
If we just shuffle the elements a bit, it should become clearer:
Since the Bible states that the sun went dark at the time of the Crucifixion, the scene was traditionally accompanied by a Sun and Moon. This eclipse-like situation may be represented in the arms of the cross.
Cary pointed out that a similar layout was customary in certain types of metal crosses called encolpion (British Museum, Catawiki, google encolpion). Personifications of Sun and Moon were included in the surrounding circles.
Equally illuminating is the Cross of Lothair, made in ca. 1000 CE Germany and still in use today. On the reverse, there is an engraving reminiscent of the Byzantine examples above. The Sun and Moon are personified in the circles to the sides. And above, the Hand of God reaches down from the clouds.
Finally, the blue symbol right of the Voynich cross can be seen as a reference to the Five Holy Wounds, a motif related to the Crucifixion that was extremely popular in the Middle ages.
The Dormition
When I explained my early thoughts about this folio to JK Petersen, he pointed out that there is a tradition of depicting Mary on her death bed. This is called the Dormition of the Mother of God, and is especially connected to the Byzantine sphere. Mary’s appearance in the scene is generally the same:
Without going into the theological technicalities, the Orthodox church holds that Mary died blissfully as if she was resting. Catholic dogma, on the other hand, does not specify whether Mary died before her body ascended to heaven. That is why Dormition scenes are mostly found in the Eastern sphere, although Italian artists like Fra Angelico and Niccolò di Pietro Gerini painted it as well.
Since in the VM, the probable connection to the Callisto layer is the Virgin Mary becoming the Pole star after her death, this might be the reason why they put the blue star right above the Dormition. (In the Callisto layer, this is Callisto resting in the grass, so they compromised with a green cover). The Stella Maris is present in regular Dormition art as well, on Mary’s clothing.
By now, you may have noticed that we keep stumbling into the Byzantine sphere of influence, with the encolpion crosses and now the Dormition. But we’re not done yet.
Annunciation?
So what about the figures in the green pool below? Do they also relate to the Virgin Mary?
I would still be lost here if it hadn’t been for Cary’s input. I explained how, in my experience, unnatural arm positions generally mean that the nymph is, in at least one layer of meaning, not quite human, probably an animal. Case in point, the figure on the right in the image below:
But Cary had another idea: what if the arms are meant to remind us of the tall wings of an archangel? In that case, we might be looking at the VM version of the Annunciation, when Gabriel tells the Virgin that she will carry the Son of God.
Variations existed in the depiction of the Annunciation, but the scene was mostly standardized. In the majority of the cases, the archangel approaches Mary from the left – in the VM this would be from the right. Mary was reading a book when the angel appeared, in the VM she would be spinning. One similarity is that our supposed angel has rays coming in over its head, which is also a staple in Annunciation imagery.
Overall though, out supposed Annunciation would have been out of line with mainstream Latin Annunciation imagery. I was about to abandon this path, when Cary came with the solution: the Protoevangelium of James.
Two Annunciations
The Protoevangelium of James (Gospel of James) is an apocryphal text written in the 2nd century CE. It is an infancy gospel, a genre that describes the early lives of Biblical figures, in this case the Virgin Mary. As Prof. Tom O’Loughlin explains in this video, this text contains matters of faith for Greek (Eastern) Christians and Latin Christians alike, despite the “warning label” apocryphal.
Events from the Protoevangelium of James (PJ) which are not in the Bible, are still important in the Eastern as well as the Catholic church. The Presentation of Mary in the Temple is still celebrated on the 21st of November. Just to say, simply because it was not officially part of the Bible, does not mean that it was an obscure or marginal text. The PJ helped shape tradition and was almost treated as if it was part of Scripture from the 8th century on. It left many traces in art, especially in the Byzantine sphere.
The PJ builds upon the canonical Gospels, and provides a background story for the Virgin Mary, a figure we hear relatively little about in the texts of the Bible. What happened to her before the Gospels? It tells of her conception, dedication in the temple in Jerusalem at the age of three, betrothal to Joseph, and links to the events described in the canonical Gospels, like the Annunciation. Therefore, it became an important source for the cult of the Virgin Mary.
So how does the Annunciation in the PJ help us with our nymphs? Well, to understand this, we must look at the whole top row of the green pool, and know that the Annunciation in the PJ happens in two stages.
The first time Mary is visited by an angel is known as the Annunciation at the Spring. This happens when Mary is drawing water from a well. She hears the angel’s voice, but does not yet see him.
In the text of the PJ, this is described as follows:
And she took the pitcher, and went out to fill it with water. And, behold, a voice saying: Hail, thou who hast received grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women! And she looked round, on the right hand and on the left, to see whence this voice came.
In images like the ones above, we see a surprised Mary looking around towards the direction of the sound, but the angel is in a different realm (sky) so she only hears his words. In the VM, this appears to be indicated by the words placed at her ear. She hears, but does not see. The angel, again with wing-arms, is hidden behind a cloudy veil.
Cary explained how the VM images suddenly make a lot of sense in the light of the dual Annunciations from the Protoevangelium of James: “shortly after Mary returns from gathering the water, she is spinning thread when the same angel appears to her again and gives her the rest of the message.” This is how the story continues in the text:
And she went away, trembling, to her house, and put down the pitcher; and taking the purple [yarn], she sat down on her seat, and drew it out. And, behold, an angel of the Lord stood before her, saying: Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found grace before the Lord of all, and thou shalt conceive, according to His word.
This is why in the Byzantine world, the image of Mary spinning is associated with the Annunciation. For many examples, see here.
Now that we know the dual Annunciation, we can easily read the top of the green pool, going in the direction most figures are facing:
Bottom of the green pool
So what about the rest of the green pool? Well, we aren’t quite certain, but here are some thoughts. Let us first consider the complete page; how does the narrative of Mary’s life flow?
It appears that this layer of Mary’s life mirrors the story of Callisto on f80v, where we start at the bottom of the page and see Callisto “ascend” to the highest of the heavens. Here, too, it appears like we start at the bottom and move up towards Mary’s later life and ehr ultimate ascension as the blue star. If this is the case, then the bottom must be scenes from before the Annunciation, from Mary’s infancy. And Mary’s infancy is exactly what the Protoevangelium of James narrates.
- When she is three years old, Mary is sent to live at the temple among the other girls. It is already known that she is holy, and she is received with respect. The small child enters willingly, and during her stay she is fed by an angel.
- When she becomes twelve, Mary must leave the temple “lest perchance she defile the sanctuary of the Lord” (priests are terrified of menstrual blood). Therefore, she is betrothed to Joseph, an elderly man who will function more like a guardian than a husband.
- The priests want to make a veil for the temple, and all “undefiled virgins” are called upon. They find seven suitable virgins, and each is assigned a color of yarn by lot. Mary gets the most expensive one, (royal) purple. She starts spinning her purple yarn.
- Then follows the dual Annunciation at the well and while spinning, as described above.
There are reasons to believe that the scenes at the bottom indeed focus on Mary’s infancy among the children at the temple. For starters, most of these nymphs are really small, like children. There appear to be three scenes: a “child” facing a large figure with long yellow hair and some kind of crown. A child facing a tall figure with blue hair and a different kind of crown, holding a “ring”. A child facing two other children.
There are scenes from the Protoevangelium of James depicted in the mosaics of the San Marco Basilica in Venice. We know the Annunciation at the Spring, but right next to that is a different scene. It is also from the PJ tadition, but the exact meaning is not entirely certain.
Mary receives something from a priest. This is thought to represent the purple yarn, although it may be influenced by a later scene. What matters for us though, is the appearance of the high priest compared to Mary. Something similar can be seen in other mosaics, like the Presentation at the Temple from the Chora monastery (14th century).
In the Venice example, the priest is depicted wearing something on his forehead. This “golden plate” is mentioned in the text, it functions as some kind of magical amulet that absorbs the sins of those who bring offerings.
So there are indications that these are scenes between the child Mary and the priests of the temple. And indeed, three scenes precede the Annunciation at the Spring: the Presentation at the Temple, the betrothal to Joseph and the distribution of the yarn among the virgin girls. But we will leave it at those indications for now.
To top it all off
By now you must think that I wanted to ignore those double arches at the top of the page:
I never quite understood why they put double arches there, until now. I need merely quote from The Iconography of the Annunciation in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries by David M. Robb (bold is mine): “in earlier attestations of [the Annunciation] with an architectural background, it is not uncommon to find the angel and the Virgin each occupying a separate bay in a double arcade. Reminiscences of this arrangement […] are almost never absent from Italian representations of the Annunciation, even as late as the end of the fifteenth century, and are often found as a traditional element in examples which are much more realistic in other respects.”
Below are the Annunciation by Fra Angelico and the Martelli Annunciation (c. 1440). But there are hundreds of other examples.
This image from MS Sloane 1977 (14th century France) illustrates how much the m-like double arches had become associated with the Virgin, creating a familiar “sacral space” even when the event depicted did not take place in a temple:
Byzantine?
In this post, I have been mixing influences from the Latin and the Greek worlds. But this is not a problem, and indeed it should not raise objections with seasoned Voynich researchers. I agree with the general sentiment that the Voynich manuscript was made in a Latin setting (modern day Italy or southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France…) but there have also been indications of Byzantine influences pointed out by various researchers. Off the top of my head, I think of Diane O’Donovan’s work, VViews’ posts on the Byzantine “Marginal Psalters”, Rene Zandbergen’s opinion on the 9th century Greek manuscript Vat. gr. 1291, my own work on the layout in plant manuscripts, both large and small.
In other words, while the VM appears to have been made in Latin Europe, it looks like at least in part it might process Greek material in some way. Cary and I think that the influence of the Protoevangelium of James was primarily textual, which might explain why this folio also includes visual elements associated with Latin imagery, like the rays of light entering above the arch angel, the spatial separation between mary and Gabriel, and the double arches.
Similarly, it has often been pointed out (among others by JK Petersen) that the VM glyphs, while mostly Latin-inspired, also seem to draw from Greek conventions. A few glyph shapes are Greek, but especially the stacking of specific letters is something we know from Greek conventions.
It becomes increasingly clear to me that we will not be able to understand the VM images by looking only at the Latin world or only at the Greek. It combines both in some way. Might this be part of the key to its uniqueness?
PS: it appears that today, August 15th, we celebrate the Assumption and Dormition of Mary, so this post is appropriately timed 🙂
The Voynich Temple 
Koen, you have an undeniable talent for interpreting images, even if the results are sometimes disconcerting.
During your research, have you come across any clue of the existence of images of Mary in the fashion of the Greek gods, without panties?
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😀
No, certainly not. Therefore I don’t think they “are” Mary. They are like actors, or better “spirits” or “concepts” who *play* the stories of Mary.
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Once again, you have created an interesting narrative that encompasses numerous elements on the same folio. I think one of the best parallels is the tradition that shows Mary spinning as part of the Annunciation, and I’m not aware of anyone else who has come up with a credible explanation for the smaller nymphs at the bottom. It certainly strengthens your interpretation.
As a matter of interest, I’ve been curious about Greek influence for a quite a while (as you know from my numerous comments about the VMS glyphs and parallels for some of the individual drawings). I mention it in relation to your research because I discovered along the way that there were significant Greek colonies in Florence, Venice, and Marseille (Marsalla). (There are also others that follow a south-to-north corridor in eastern Europe and some of the western Mediterranean Islands, but Florence, Venice, and Marseille seemed particularly provocative in terms of their blending of Latin and Greek traditions). Any one of these might have resulted in a multicultural approach to manuscript creation.
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I should have mentioned that it was also called Massalia (I’ve seen it spelled several ways in manuscripts).
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It’s remarkable how so much about this layer landed on the Greek side, including independent comments from you and Cary. But what this Byzantine connection means and what caused it and to what extent it is present, those are still difficult questions.
But there is more.. I just had to draw the line somewhere. For example, the layout where two scenes involving the same characters are simply placed next to each other is also typically Byzantine (or under its influence). See the header image for an example from the San Marco.
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Is it a text that criticizes the Christian religion, treating it as plagiarism of Plato and Greek mythology, as Celsus did? This would explain the unknown alphabet to criticize, but not too openly.
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That’s an interesting hypothesis, one I hadn’t considered yet. So far my main hypothesis remains that the VM was an intellectual exercise, possibly made as a project at some university. The purpose of the exercise would have been to condense imagery, link layers of meaning in such a way that makes them easier to remember.
My second-place hypothesis is that it was made by a devout person who wanted to travel to an area where Christian imagery or all religious imagery was forbidden.
This is only a vague idea though. I must admit that in the context of the current folio, your suggestion makes sense. I will put it on the third place 😉
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What is this area where religious imagery will be forbidden and images of naked nymphs are allowed?
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Yes. “Intellectual exercise” is my main hypothesis for a reason. I shall move up your suggestion to second place 😉
Seriously though, theoretically it is possible that depicting living things is forbidden, but depicting nude “concepts” is fine. But I don’t actually know if this combination existed anywhere during the 15th century. Overall I thing the VM’s use of nudity is an underestimated problem.
Let me put it this way, we have two options; either it is as you suggest, that the imagery (and text?) is actually critical of Christianity. OR they were okay drawing these nude figures because they didn’t see them as people, but rather concepts that needed a uniform body. I currently lean towards the second option: the nymphs don’t represent people, they are just constructs with a human-like body.
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If it were criticism of Christianity from a Pagan perspective, then the nymphs would be appropriate. Nymphs and sexuality were gradually wrestled out of art and spiritual beliefs as Christianity (and the association between sexuality and sin) became more widespread. I see many medieval manuscripts with genitals, sexual acts, or nudity obscured or scraped out. Mary breastfeeding Jesus was gradually removed, as well. Water was also a mainstay of Pagan beliefs.
But…
I don’t know if someone critical of Christianity would go to such lengths to include a coded layer of Christianity in such a long manuscript. That seems like a stretch in terms of what people usually do, but who knows… it’s the VMS. One of the ideas I’ve had on the back burner for quite a while is that it might be a Messianic or converted Jew, but then how does one explain the large number of naked nymphs? There were prohibitions in both Christian and Jewish beliefs against this kind of imagery.
However, the idea that they are actors, spirits, or anima seems reasonable to me. Medieval margins are full of actors (some of them real actors, mummers, and other forms of entertainers), as well as angels, spirits, and other beings that inhabit a different plane that are explaining or directing events that unfold on the page. Even if the nudity is more prevalent than in other manuscripts, the general idea of “spirits” in the margins or main text was not unusual. Personifications are more common that real people in many manuscripts.
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The idea that sexuality was successfully repressed and repelled by the Church, between the late Classical Period and the Middle Ages, is a modern myth, or better a hoax or even a fraud. It served a narrative, but it is just false. Only after the Counter-Reformation there was a more severe control on customs, when a race to be the purest Christian started (a race that actually culminated well after the Counter-Reformation itself). The VM is actually less licentious than other survived popular medieval works, and, on this blog, a while ago I already had a discussion about what survived and what not.
Note: in Greek νύμφη (nymph) means “bride” and, as such, it is used for Mary, for example the refrain of Αγνή Παρθένε (“Holy Virgin”, a well known Orthodox chant) says Χαῖρε Νύμφη Ἀνύμφευτε (rejoice “unbrided” bride).
That said I am not totally convinced by this, because I still fail to see the bigger picture.
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A severe handicap I suffer in this research is that I know very little about Greek language and medieval Greek culture (i.e. Byzantine).
In the current series of post, I just want to identify the building blocks, without thinking too much about purpose or intention. If I start from a determined bigger picture, I can only suffer from increased confirmation bias. So I remain open to whatever I find out.
Thus far I (re)did 2 out of 11 pages of Q13a. So it’s probably normal that we don’t get the bigger picture yet.
If I’m really forced to give an explanation for the whole quire, I would stick with “intellectual exercise in synthesis with mnemonic purpose”.
It reminds me of the joke among archaeologists: “Can’t explain what’s going on? Then it’s ritual!” Can’t explain what’s going on? Probably mnemonic. But there is more still to unearth.
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I am not an expert about medieval Greeks (so I take the chance to point out that αγνή means chaste, while holy is obviously αγία ), I only began to read about them when I started studying the legacy of classical culture, since the late Empire and the fall of Rome.
However I got the impression that their culture was not as licentious as that of their Western counterpart. So while I think that naked women would not be out of place in the Western medieval tradition, I think there is actually less room for those figures in the Eastern (European) medieval tradition.
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Thank you for your continued work on this. As for the nudity, my reading supports Stefano’s position that it would be more “accepted” by a European tradition than a Byzantine one – although the idea of “representational” nudity is found in both. The combination of the nudity and overwhelmingly female images (along with traditional European “science” – seemingly a very “male” domain at the time) remains difficult to reconcile. A theory of a woman (or group of women) authorship is appealing, but for the full scope of the image content it strikes me as unlikely – although not impossible, of course. There are always exceptions. In any case, thanks again!
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I think in general it would be hard to see the VM as a Byzantine product, and this is not what I wish to argue. As I wrote in the conclusion, “while the VM appears to have been made in Latin Europe, it looks like at least in part it might process Greek material in some way”. Vague enough, but it does explain how I currently think about both spheres of influence. I fully agree that the VM does not look like anything that would be produced in the Byzantine tradition.
The degree of nudity of the nymphs, and indeed the near-obligation for any VM human figure to be a nude female, is a difficult question that deserves to be discussed separately. For the purpose of this series of posts, I’ll just repeat that part of the explanation probably lies in the fact that they were seen as abstract entities rather than physical people.
Now f80v and f82r are finished, we will move on to a different folio from Q13a – this will probably take a while.
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Koen,
I greatly appreciate your posts, and the way your natural abilities so often manage to transcend those difficulties you speak about – chiefly your lack of formal background in many of the areas to which your study of this manuscript appears to direct you.
I one way and another, it’s a difficulty facing almost everyone who tries to work on this manuscript.
I don’t find it in the least impossible, nor implausible, that the content in Beinecke MS 408 had been known and copied in ‘Byzantium’.. which normally means any territory once part of that empire. It’s one reason I spent so much time explaining the political, economic and social entanglements between the Black Sea and western Europe from about 1290 to the mid fourteenth century. Even in the narrower sense – that is, considering just Constantinople – it is not at all impossible and (again) is why I devoted so time time and space explaining Voyniheros the particular cities which had enclaves there, where those enclaves were located, and thus the importance of the Genoese settlement on Galata (Pera), that region which (as you might recall, perhaps) I also considered as it was during the early centuries AD, and again for its links with the Latin-dominated sphere – the latter series of studies published in connection with the Voynich calendar diagrams.
However, the difficulties I have with your present post are two: first, that I find no evidence of Christian thought, cultural attitudes or iconongraphy anywhere in the manuscript – though this does not preclude the matter’s having been copied by medieval Christians from other and/or older pre-Christian work.
My second cause for hesitation is that I doubt that what you list as your main hypothesis accurately reflects customs, or habits of mind, at the relevant time within the cultural group you hypothesise (assume?) responsible for first enunciation of the material. You say,
“So far my main hypothesis remains that the VM was an intellectual exercise, possibly made as a project at some university. The purpose of the exercise would have been to condense imagery, link layers of meaning in such a way that makes them easier to remember”.
,
Readings on the history of education are not as many as one would wish, and regional studies are fewer still. Many make very dull reading. But I do think it might help if you read more on the organisation and administration of medieval universities, and read particular case studies to show how a particular subject was taught at a particular university within a specific decade.
I’m not saying this to carp, because it’s precisely that sort of thing which would attract criticism from specialists if you ever wanted to publish for a good press. The best sort of press would not consult people linked to this one manuscript to evaluate your views, but to independent specialists in the history of Europe, of education, of religion and so on.
PS – since I have no way to ask Marco Ponzi this question, I wonder if I could prevail on your kindness to ask it for me. Why does he use the term “globus cruciger” and what is the earliest source in which he has found that term applied to the motif in question?
If he wishes to have it, you are welcome to give Marco my email address to save your having to act like the son whose two siblings are playing that silly game’n0-spreaks’. 🙂
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Diane
Yeah, I mean “Byzantine” in the broadest possible sense.
I few years ago I would have agreed with your objections, but I’ve been gradually changing my mind. I don’t think we can analyze the VM as the product of a single sphere of influence. I think it must be seen as a synthesis between Latin, Greek and Classical influences / sources.
Initially I was convinced the VM imagery was a pure, honest, no-nonsense cultural expression, but it cannot be. It does not look like an unadulterated expression of any known culture.
We, who focus on the imagery, might forget that we are dealing with a large cryptic text as well. This text uses mostly Latin characters, with some influences from Greek and some stranger features.
The glyph set and the way it is applied has all appearances of being constructed, artificial, wrought. Why would the images be any different? The text is absolutely unique, why would we expect the images to play by different rules? Someone who is capable of making a text like this, is capable of “encrypting” imagery as well.
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Koen,
This may be of service to your readers. It’s a section of the results from the Polonsky project.
https://www.bl.uk/medieval-english-french-manuscripts/articles/the-classical-past
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Koen – I’ve just tried to post a reply to your previous. It hasn’t appeared so just in case… here it is again. Delete if superfluous.
—
Koen – apropos your reply above.. I would debate that constant assertion that the ‘Voynichese’ script is “based on Latin script”, not least because Latin script itself derives from the same roots as the Greek, and more importantly because the hand itself does not move the way Latin writers formed their letters at the time. The ‘nearest fit’ for those whose initial premises are Latin origin has ever been the humanist script, but this was itself an effort to create a more Greek looking hand and occurs in relatively few, and exclusively literary works… most written after the VMS was made. It goes along with the simpler layout etc. so characteristic of Greek mss of Bracciolini’s time.
I have always said – and thus agree with you – that the basis of most imagery in the MS points to the Greek and Greco-Roman environments of the early centuries BC (and some still earlier), and that the imagery shows, too, the affects from transmission both in time and over distance (i.e. cultural change). But it is for that same reason, among others, that I can’t agree the manuscript is a work reflecting the customs (in writing as in imagery) proper to first creation in a medieval university as ‘an intellectual exercise’. It might be left as just a difference of opinion about context for the present work (as copy of older sources), except that context is everything in such cases. A student in (say) an English university learned his stars in a very , and more limited environment than did (say) an Alexandrian merchant-mariner, or (say) the Franciscan friar travelling east who had a keen curiosity about foreign terms and practices. The last instance isn’t imaginary, by the way, though I suppose you might call that a sort of intellectual exercise.
In short, I think Voynich research is too often blinkered by maintaining the old assumptions – which were themselves based on a false, if reflexive assumption, that whoever inscribed our current volume had pulled the content from his own head – that the work had a single ‘author’. Though I’ve seen that idea gradually lessen its hold in the study, it is still widely seen as tacit assumption, along with assumptions of a Latin Christian and bookish environment. These things have never been shown to be true of the ms, and much in the ms seems to me to offer firm and stout denial of them… though denial largely dismissed.
In short, the way classical texts were taught differed from place to place, and not all knowledge, everywhere the stars were known, had anything to do with knowledge of Aratus, or even of Ptolemy.
Once more – sorry to run on. I do wish there were some local pub where long conversations might occur as after-dinner conversation, with amiable debate and a minimum of such ‘holding forth’.
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I see the problem currently like this. Imagine that, by some rare accident of nature, an elephant mated with a rhinoceros, and they have a baby. I know this is impossible, but for some reason it happened. The resulting creature roams the Savannah.
One day, it runs past a group of tourists, and a discussion ensues. One says: it was an elephant, it clearly had a trunk and large, grey creatures with trunks are elephants. But another says: it was not as large as an elephant, and it had a horned nose. It was a rhinoceros.
But it ran like an elephant!
But we are in rhinoceros territory!
And so on. This discussion is doomed, because the possibility of a rare hybrid is not, and can never be, on the table. One focuses on one part, and rightly picks out the elephant characteristics. The other has seen a different part and identified it as rhino-like.
What I’m saying is, the VM is like a rhinolephant, an unexpected hybrid. In my opinion, you really need both the Latin and the “other” component to explain it.
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You imagine that the people involved were willing to explore the world until the reached the area where the rhinoelephant existed.
If I were to try using your parable, I’d say it’s more like having a community of Luddites discover a bird of paradise as a stuffed specimen in someone’s basement, and so beginning a research project that began, ‘Assuming the creature has its present form as the work of some taxidermist local to this region, then logically he used the feathers of local birds (or, as the more adventurous might speculate, to the disapproval of te majority – those of migratory birds), so then (say these savants), our very first task is to name the taxidermist and study his family history, because this – plainly – will explain his quirky invention in this bird that (as everyone knows) could never have existed…. and we have the stitch-marks to prove that, just as we have the sawdust from its innards to prove we need look no further than our own town for its explanation.
🙂
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Heheh, this reminds me of the story of when the first platypus specimen was sent to Europe and they thought it had to be fake, composed of different animals.
I see what you mean, but there is one flaw in your example. The VM is not at all like a bird of paradise, which is natural in one area but not in the one where it was found. Let’s be honest, if the VM unambiguously belonged to one non-Latin culture, we would be able to identify it by now.
But even you need to resort to Latin sources to explain some of its parts, like referring to French cathedrals to explain the Zodiac emblems. And even you think that it was made in Europe. Made in Europe, contains European elements. If additionally we admit that it also shows rather different influences, we are by definition dealing with a hybrid product. What is the point of putting the Latin influences in an enclave, like an accident?
So I would rather think that our bird of paradise had a baby with a sparrow 🙂
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correction – ‘early centuries BC’ should read: “Hellenistic era to early centuries AD”
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