Monthly Archives: August 2019

Synecclesia

14 August 2019

The transition from Judaism is marked in Christian history by the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. These events are illustrated in ways that were surprisingly similar in distant lands such as Ethiopia, Armenia, and northern Germany. But there were also traditions specific to certain areas, so, I’ve been wondering if parallels exist in the VMS.

Ecclesia

Let’s look at Ecclesia. She personifies the church and shows up in medieval art a couple of centuries before she was paired with the second figure in this drama.

This is how to recognize her…

In these four interpretations Ecclesia carries a wine chalice (which holds the blood of Christ) or a monstrance, which in turn supports the “host”, a round bread-like object symbolizing the body of Christ. Note the cross and two lines on either side lightly inscribed on the host in the image on the right. Sometimes the name of Jesus is abbreviated around the image of a cross, sometimes a drawing of the Christ child is attached to the host (usually in Eucharist drawings).

In the two images on the left, Ecclesia holds a cross-staff. Sometimes she is nimbed, but often the halo is reserved for Mary and St. John and helps distinguish them from Ecclesia and her counterpart. Ecclesia is virtually always wearing a crown:

Ecclesia with her attributes — Ecclesia representing the Christian church, with common attributes such as the cross-staff, wine chalice or monstrance, and host.

In this VMS image, a nymph holds out a stick with a cross shape. It might be a tool (like a sighting stick) or a cross, or a cross-staff. We can’t tell if she’s wearing a crown. I’m beginning to think the nebuly-like parasol represents religious authority:

Voynich Nymph holding out a cross under a nebuly-like canopy.

Maybe there are other elements on the folio to help identify her, but we’ll come back to that after we meet her partner…

Synagoga

Typically, Ecclesia is paired with another figure known as Synagoga. In a specific illustrative branch of the crucifixion, Ecclesia and Synagoga are paired on either side of Jesus on the cross.

Synagoga is always placed on the right and wears a blindfold (a Christian political symbol of her inability to see the message of the Messiah). She is frequently shown with a tablet in one hand, a broken staff, and sometimes a crown falling from her head. In contrast to Ecclesia, her posture is slouched and defeated:

Iconographic images of Synagoga with blindfold, broken staff, and fallen crown.

Early depictions of the two women were not openly hostile but the intended message of the Christian religion being superior to pre-Christian beliefs was made iconographically clear.

In the next example, Ecclesia is shown in a variety of poses in the top panel. She stands tall and proud, carrying the torch that doubles as Christ’s blood in a wine goblet. On the left is a chalice with the crossed host, and a cross-staff.

In the panel below Ecclesia, Synagoga wears her customary blindfold (a reference to the veil of Moses). She looks tired and beleaguered and has lost her crown.

The odd “thing” in her hand on the far left might be hard to recognize unless you knew the story, but it is the head of a goat or ram, representing ancient rites of sacrifice. In her other hand is something resembling a bell (this is usually a tablet, but this odd detail might be important later). In this case, it is an overturned torch-chalice, like the one in the upper panel, except now it is hanging empty:

Illumination of a parable in the Speculum Humanae Salvationis of c. 1360 (Darmstadt). Below this panel, King Balthasar motions up at the women to make a point to Daniel, who stands nearby.

Postscript 17 March 2020: Here is essentially the same image (which I personally find distasteful now that I know what it means) from a c. 1420s Rheinland manuscript (Cod. pal. germ. 432):

Ecclesia and Synagoga with burning and spent troches, Cod Pal Germ 432.

This scene of the crucifixion shows the two women in context. Ecclesia catches Christ’s blood in her chalice while Synagoga, on the right, is losing her crown:

German Psalter with a pelican at the top feeding its babies with its own blood, workers nailing Christ to the cross, and Ecclesia and Synagoga flanking him on the left and right. The nimbed figures are Mary and Saint John.

In an earlier crucifixion from Hildesheim, Germany, Synagoga is identified with a conical hat, while Ecclesia, on the left, wears a crown:

Hildesheim manuscript image of the crucifixion, c. 1170. — Detail of the crucifixion, with Ecclesia and Synagoga in a cone-hat flanking Christ. Above are the sun and moon with faces. Hildesheim, c. 1170 [Courtesy of Getty Open Content Program]

An Armenian manuscript from the 14th century shows Ecclesia with crown and chalice, while Synagoga has had her crown lifted off by an angel. You can view this version on Getty Images.

Sculptural Media

The theme of Ecclesia and Synagoga appears in medieval in church architecture, as in this blindfolded Synagoga with tablet in one hand and a broken staff in the other:

Synagoga, Cathedral of Bamberg [Johannes Otto Först, public domain]

Are Ecclesia and Synagoga in the VMS?

Compared to many medieval manuscripts, the VMS is conspicuously nonviolent. There are smiling animals, clawless felines, and a notable lack of weapons. Yet one of the few images that has been interpreted as violent (at least by some) might, in fact, be our iconic pair.

In this drawing on f82r, the nymph on the left looks like she is poking the other one in the eye. But I’m not sure. Maybe she’s pointing at the eye or brushing away a tear. She is wearing a crown or some kind of fancy head-dress. Could she be Ecclesia indicating blindness?

I always thought the nymph on the right was carrying a pair of pincers, or a badly drawn compass. But what if this is Synagoga’s tablet, or an overturned empty torch or chalice as in the Darmstadt manuscript above? If it is an empty torch or tablet, it is artfully hidden in plain sight by not having a dark line across the bottom to distinguish it from the water:

I’m really not sure whether the nymph on the left is pointing or poking out an eye—blinding or indicating blindness in the other nymph. The only somewhat aggressive version of Ecclesia and Synagoga I’ve found so far is this one, by Pisano.

On the left, an angel escorts Ecclesia with her chalice toward the cross. On the right, another angel escorts the aging Synagoga away from the action:

It’s not exactly on the same level of aggression as poking out an eye. Assuming for a moment that the nymph on the right might be Synagoga, can we confirm it by examining the other elements?

Is the “thing” in her hand an empty torch? Or is it a tablet?

If it’s a tablet, it’s a direct reference to Moses in the Old Testament. When Moses was a baby, he was set adrift in a basket so he would not be killed by the king. Could the nymph’s “skirt” be a basket? Is this why her hand looks like it’s inside the rim instead of outside? Is she standing in the river where Moses was found?

Has the illustrator combined Moses and Synagoga, male and female references to the Jewish faith, into one nymph? Is this why several of the VMS nymphs are sexually ambiguous (because they represent more than one thing)?

We know that Ecclesia is usually depicted on the left wearing a crown, Synagoga on the right without a crown (or in the process of losing it) and the nymphs happen to follow the same pattern.

Context

What about the other elements on the page?

I like K. Gheuen’s suggestion that the figures across the top of this folio might represent a story from Ovid. Most medieval scholars were familiar with classical history and myths, including Herodatus, Virgil, Ovid, Hesiod, and others, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be Philomela’s story. The part that Gheuens quoted about the king seizing her hair and using it to tie her hands behind her back is especially convincing:

I couldn’t find a better explanation for the series, not even in Bible stories. It’s true that Eve was often drawn with long hair, and the spindle became her avatar when she was expelled from the garden, but I couldn’t find a good explanation for the other figures in relation to Eve.

Would the creator of the VMS have transitioned from Ovid at the top of the folio to Biblical references in the middle? I’m a bit uncomfortable with that idea, but given that the story changes from thread and spindles at the top to water and matched pairs of nymphs in the middle, maybe it’s possible.

So, moving down to the center of the page, we have the eye-poking nymph and a long river linking two nymphs on the right who look like they might be the same pair of nymphs repeated (this would not be unusual in medieval drawings)—the main difference is that the nymph on the far right has no attributes:

The nymphs on the bottom also look like the nymphs on the middle-left repeated, except that they are now shown separately, in elevated loges, rather than standing together in a river. The nymph on the left is holding another of the mystery items (or possibly three mystery items) but it doesn’t look like a host or chalice.

Can these two figures be found elsewhere in the VMS?

If we move to an earlier section of the quire, there is a nymph on 70r with the same kind of headdress as the nymph on 82r, and her counterpart is also like the nymph on the right on 82r—she’s slightly heavier, has no crown-like head-dress like the nymph on the left. In the earlier image, their arms cross.

If this is Ecclesia and Synagoga, might this symbolize the beginning of the transition from Judaism to Christianity?

More Instances of Possibly the Same Nymph

The nymph with the fancy headdress shows up again on 79v and this version really caught my attention because she’s on a wide elevated loge holding a ring, and she’s lying down. She’s not wrapped in a shroud, so I don’t think she’s dead. Is this a marriage bed?

If this nymph is Ecclesia, then the picture fits, because Ecclesia was expressly described in medieval literature as the bride of God.

Above her is the nymph holding out the cross (possibly a cross-staff?). The cross-staff was one of Ecclesia’s attributes, but the celestial parasol is hiding the top of her head, so it’s hard to know if it’s the same nymph.

The nymph on the lower rung is drawn more like the one that might be Synagoga and doesn’t have a head-dress. The position on the lower rung would fit with how she was treated iconographically in Christian literature—slouched, defeated, or in a lower panel as in the Darmstadt illustration.

Is there a larger story being told across a series of folios? The story of a transition from the Old Testament to the New, from the old religions to Christianity, with Ecclesia, the bride of God becoming the dominant nymph and expressing anger that Synagoga doesn’t want to “see” the Christian point of view?

What happens on the rest of the folio? Can it help us confirm or deny any of this?

Below the nymph with the ring and the one without a crown is the famous wide-mouthed fish in a pond full of strange critters:

Voynich Manuscript big-mouthed fish and strange pond critters

I’ve always been reluctant to interpret this as the story of Jonah. For one thing, it just seems too easy. For another, some of the critters don’t look like sea monsters (except for the giant fish). The Creation cycle often includes a variety of animals, but not a giant fish (and this image doesn’t fit creation stories as well as some of the other drawings of the VMS).

If it’s two narratives rolled into one (if the imagery on the left is a different place or time from that on the right), it would be even harder to guess what it represents. I’m not sure what to make of it, but let’s see if it might be Jonah…

If the nymph in the fish’s mouth is Synagoga (note how the uncrowned nymph in each of these panels has shorter, colored hair and a slightly bigger belly and hips to distinguish her from the one with the longer hair and fancy head-dress), then perhaps the Jonah story is appropriate.

When a storm boils up at sea, Jonah’s companions question him, suspiciously trying to determine who is responsible for unleashing God’s wrath on the tossing boat, but Jonah answers quite simply as a God-fearing man, “I am a Hebrew”. What could encapsulate the identity of Synagoga more succinctly than, “I am a Hebrew”?

Classical Stories Mixed with Bible Passages?

It seemed strange to me that the VMS might mix classical history (e.g., Herodatus, Ovid, etc.) with Bible stories… until I came across Speculum Humane Salvationis, which freely combines them.

In the Speculum Humane Salvationis, which was popular in the 15th century, the story of Adam and Eve, the Deluge, and Anna and the Annuciation are immediately followed by the less-familiar prophetic vision of Astyages, the last king of Media. Astyages dreamed of a vine growing from the belly of his daughter Mandane, a vine that would spawn a boy (Cyrus) to challenge his grandfather for the empire. In a Persian version, Cyrus was suckled by a dog, similar to the infants Romulus and Remus.

Our information about Astyages comes almost entirely from Herodatus. The Bible includes only this one brief reference from the Book of Daniel:

And king Astyages was gathered to his fathers, and Cyrus the Persian received his kingdom.

Connections?

The idea of a vine growing out of Mandane’s belly to symbolize her son’s growth and eventual possession of the empire is echoed in the story of Jesse, in Isaiah 11. Jesse is shown lying down, at the base of the folio, with a vine growing from his “root” (it usually grows from his chest or belly).

This symbol of biblical genealogy came to be known as the Jesse tree.

Jesse tree from Amiens manuscript — A Jesse Tree next to a picture of Madonna and Child, from the Amiens region, c. late 15th century [BNF L’Arsenal MS 662]

I’ve always wondered if the clothed figures around the bull in the VMS zodiac-figures section are related to genealogy. Could it be a VMS version of a Jesse tree?

VMS folio 71v with concentric circles of clothed figures in loges

Jesse trees came in many different formats, some almost menorah-shaped (a reference to the tree of life). Often the figures are shown only from the waist up. But the main difference between a Jesse tree and the VMS drawing above is not the absence of a tree, but the absence of Jesse himself, who is usually shown as a man with a beard under the figures, dreaming.

So perhaps this is not a Jesse Tree, but there might be one somewhere in the VMS, just as Jacob’s ladder might be included (e.g., the image of nymphs one on top of the other within a green “waterfall”).

I have much more information on this line of thought, but it’s far too much for one blog. I will have to split it into two sections.

Summary

I am beginning to believe that some of the VMS nymphs appear more than once in several places, acting out a story that stretches across multiple sections or folios. There is a certain consistency to the way some of the pairs have been drawn.

I am not entirely sure that the pair described in this blog is Ecclesia and Synagoga, but I think it’s possible and I will discuss this more in Part 2. I also think it’s possible that more than one person might be represented by a single nymph, but this is harder to ascertain, so I will tackle that after some of the easier questions have been solved.

J.K. Petersen

Into the Cavern

6 Replies

12 August 2019

This is yet another idea I had for the VMS “map”. It may not be the best one, I’m still partial to a couple I’ve posted before, but Christian themes are getting attention at the moment, so I decided to add it because it is based on a different interpretation for the flame-like shapes inside the VMS mountain.
Most of the time I think of the wavy lines inside the VMS “crater” as flames or water but it has also occurred to me that they might be teeth or celestial waves. For example, in this nativity scene, rather than a halo, there are wavy rays in a rough mandorla shape emanating from the Christ child:

Nativity scene with Christ child. — Wavy emanations instead of a halo [Arsenal MS 1175 c. 1510]

If the wavy lines in the shape that looks like a mountain on the VMS “map” are celestial rays, rather than fire or water, then there’s another location that might fit the “map”…

So let’s assume for the duration of this blog that the toothlike curves indicate some special status.

The lines in the VMS crater don’t aim outward, they aim toward the center, so perhaps the mountain itself is a sacred place (or a hollow within it). In this nativity relief carving, the archway rays point inward, so the direction of the rays is context dependent.

Many mountains were considered sacred in Pagan times and the transition from Paganism to Christianity occurred gradually, so there are Christian shrines built into hillsides, and numerous nativity scenes drawn within the framework of a mountain:

Pietro Cavallini nativity mosaic — Christian nativity scene framed within a grotto-like mountain setting.
Mosaic by Pietro Cavallini, Rome, 1296 [Courtesy of Wikioo.org]

The Cavallini mosiac is modeled in the same general form as an even earlier work, also from Italy, that includes the mountain frame plus a baptismal bath (these elements were also copied into Greek and Russian works of the 15th century):

Nativity mosaic with mountain framework (possibly a hold-over from Pagan beliefs) and baptismal bath, Capella Palatina, Palermo, c. 1150 [Courtesy of The Yorck Project, Wikimedia]

The Sacred Grotto

In this image, there is a windy road leading to a crater-like mountain. At the top of another hill are Mary and child resting in a garden-like setting with many plants, birds, and a deer (in another version of this painting, Patinier paints the garden like a small farm):

Flight from Egypt painting by Joachim Patinier — Flight to Egypt by Joachim Patinier, c. 1510 [Jean Louis Mazieres, CC 2.0, Wikipedia]

To the left and right are water, little roads and bridges (the city in the distance might be Marseille). Near the taller mountain are a couple of smaller ones, with traces of castles at the top.

Here is another version of the Sainte-Baume mountain by the same artist. Note the windy road, and the celestial spirit hovering over the edifice. This may represent ascension, or Mary elevated daily by angels:

Detail of painting of Sainte-Baume by Joachim Patinier illustrating the sacred grotto.

In other words, in thematic content, the paintings of Sainte-Baume have many features in common with the VMS “map”. Here is a snippet of the portion that resembles a mountain connected to a windy path:

Patinier has chosen to show the village as domes, towers, and connections to nearby hillocks with small bridges. Could this be the same location represented by the VMS central rotum?

This particular series of paintings is based on a location in Provençe, the sacred grotto of Ste. Baume, which is still active as a pilgrimage site. Could the garden-like rotum on the bottom-right be the resting place of Mary on her journey?

Ghibelline merlons, as are found on the lower part of the VMS “map” were generally associated with Lombardy/Northern Italy, but they apparently also extended a short way into Provençe in the Middle Ages. I don’t know, however, if there were any in Marseille, which had its roots as a Greek colony.

Mary’s Journey

Stories vary, but one of the stories is that Mary of Magdalene fled persecution in a small boat and landed on the shores of Marseille. From there she traveled to the mountain of Ste. Baume where she took refuge in the grotto and made it her home.

Please note, there is considerable confusion over the different Marys in the Bible. Some say Mary Magdalene was the mother of Jesus. Others say Mary the Virgin, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Egypt were all different people, and still others clearly describe “Mary the Magdalene of Egypt” as one person, but separate from Mary the mother of Jesus (I have seen “Mary the Magdalene of Egypt” written as though Mary Magdalene and Mary of Egypt were the same person in 15th-century manuscripts).
Plus, Mary Magdalene of the Gospels and Mary, the sister of Martha (who is said to have fled with Martha), may have been different people but were also sometimes considered the same.
Some of these divergent viewpoints are based on copying errors, but there were also differing opinions on how to interpret biblical passages, and different accounts by supposed historians. So keep in mind that sometimes the same person is illustrated standing next to herself, comic-book style, to indicate two different periods in her life, and other times they are two different Marys.

For the purpose of this blog, I will be referring to Mary of Magdalene who is said to have washed Jesus’s feet with her tears and a jar of ointment, the Mary who witnessed the resurrection and subsequently fled (with her supposed sister Martha), not the Mary who was Jesus’s mother (or the numerous other Marys in the Bible). I also mention Mary of Egypt who is often confused with Mary Magdalene. Be aware that the Mary who washed Jesus’s feet may not have been Mary Magdalene, even though many people in medieval times believed she was.

Now back to the sacred grotto…

Here is a postcard commemorating Ste. Baume, with Mary at the top, with three of her attributes, a skull, crucifix, and a chalice. She is flanked by two angels on puffs of clouds, with the Ste. Baume mountain and grotto buildings below. It gives us a hint of how the pilgrimage site may have looked in the 19th century:

Sometimes Mary’s chalice is quite ornate (as in carvings in the region of Champeaux), similar to some of the domed containers in the VMS small-plants section. In other images, it is quite simple. If you go to this link, you will see a great variety of containers held in Mary’s hand.

Hairy Mary in the wilderness with her three loaves.

Her hairstyles vary, as well, depending on when the image was created (and by whom), but I thought readers might like to see this version of the hair and chalice (there are numerous nymphs with braids in the VMS), and this image on the right, with Mary in the wilderness completely enveloped by her hair. Both Mary Magdalene and Mary of Egypt are said to have wandered in the wilderness, and both are often shown with very long hair.

In fact, there are even more Marys. In this image, we have three Marys and their husbands: 1) Mary (wife of Joseph) , 2) Mary (wife or daughter of Clopas), and 3) Mary Salome (mother of John, the Evangelist):

Three Marys with their husbands. — Mary, Mary, and Mary (different ones this time) with their respective husbands [courtesy of British Library Royal MS 2 B VII, c. 1310s]

But, confusingly, there is a fourth Mary in this illumination… Mary the Virgin is pictured separately above Mary and Joseph (almost as though they are different people), with the dove (Holy Spirit?) between her and a man with a halo (one who is drawn differently from Joseph):

Virgin Mary and the dove and nimbed male

It’s easy to say, “Oh well, it’s just another point in time, when Mary became pregnant with Jesus” before she and Joseph started doing the hootchy kootchy, but you can’t just assume these things, you have to read the text and study the imagery in context with the other Mary stories.

In other words, there were numerous Marys, and some perceived them as different people, others as the same. Even if they agreed that it was Mary the Magdalene who fled to Provençe and she was different from Mary of Egypt, there were still different narratives about where Mary Magdalene actually went and what happened to her once she got there.

How This Relates to the VMS

Unfortunately, if there is Christian imagery under the surface of the Voynich Manuscript, and if any of it relates to Mary, the profusion of stories about her whereabouts and her physical characteristics (as seen through medieval eyes) will make it harder to match up VMS imagery with any specific account. Plus, there are several VMS nymphs with very long hair.

In this image, Mary Magdalene is shown with a chalice and Mary of Egypt with very long hair:

Mary Magdalene, Mary of Egypt enveloped in hair, St. Margaret, and Martyr [The Queen Mary Psalter, courtesy of British Library, Royal MS 2 B VII]

It’s possible that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Egypt are confused because both were described as sinful women who were cleansed of their sins.

Here Mary (this should be Mary of Egypt) has long hair and a hair coat:

Zosimas giving hairy Mary of Egypt his cloak. A year later, he is said to have later found her dead in the wilderness [courtesy of British Library Yates Thompson MS 3].

The hair-suit is an iconic way of indicating someone who is living wild, separate from civilization. Not every illustrator covered Mary in hair. Some of the Greek manuscripts show Mary naked.

In this illustration, the idea of the hair suit relating to wilderness is made stronger by surrounding Mary with monkeys:

Hairy Mary of Egypt with monkeys [Courtesy of BL Royal MS 10 E IV]

Relating Mary to the VMS “Map” Folio

Keeping in mind that there are many Marys and sometimes their stories overlap, let’s focus on the boat story of Mary Magdalene, the Mary who is most often credited with witnessing the resurrection, and fleeing with her siblings to a distant shore.

The following image combines many elements of the flight of Mary. She traveled by boat to Marseilles, where she continued on foot through forests and farms and moved into the mountain of Ste. Baume. In this instance, she’s not wearing a wilderness style “hair suit”. Instead, she is covered in her own long hair during her daily ride with angels:

Sforza Hours, Mary Magdalen and her flight to St. Baume. — Mary Magdalen with long hair, lifted by angel. Below is the boat in which she fled, and the Ste. Baume mountain grotto in which she lived before wandering in the wilderness. [courtesy of the British Library, Add MS 34294]

Here is a less elaborate drawing from the early 14th century. Mary (of Egypt) is holding the three loaves of bread she took into the wilderness, and nearby is a boat:

Mary in the Wilderness with three loaves of bread. Boat nearby. — Mary with three loaves approaching her get-away boat [BL Royal MS 10 E IV]

The story continues with Mary’s hair growing very long to convey her lengthy stay in the wilderness. The three loaves are nearby to make it clear that this is Mary (if you didn’t know the story behind it, you might mistake them for stones or tablets):

Mary with long hair in the wilderness, three loaves serve as attributes.

Mary is shown beneath a tree, among the birds and boars (this garden-and-animals theme occurs in numerous Mary illustrations):

Mary among the animals in the wilderness.

After several decades, Mary is so engulfed in hair, she is almost unrecognizable:

Mary engulfed in hair after 30 years in the wilderness

Mary’s time is almost up, she meets a passing saint and she dies in the wilderness one or three years later. In some accounts, she receives last communion back at her cave and in still others, she receives last communion at the river Jordan:

The following example, from the Life of Mary, focuses on Zosimus giving Mary of Egypt a cloak, as she looks out through the crags of her grotto. Even though the cloak is usually associated with Mary of Egypt, the fresco is in the Magdalene Chapel in Assisi:

Zosimus gives Mary a cloak, San Francesco, Assisi — Magdalene Chapel, San Francesco, Assisi, c. 1320s. The image is no doubt the result of confusion between Mary Magdalene and Mary of Egypt. [Giotto di Bondone, Wikipedia]

When I was pondering the figure at the top of folio 76v, I wondered whether this long-haired lady with the plant might represent Mary in her holy grotto (the shape of the arch-like texture is somewhat like an altar). Mary is shown with a halo and a stalk of grain in a Lombardic manuscript by the Master of Monza. Mary of Egypt was usually shown with three loaves, but sometimes with a sheaf of grain.

The VMS nymph is a bit thin and disheveled compared to many of the other nymphs. Could this be wilderness Mary?

According to one version, Mary asked Zosimus (also called Maximin) to meet her on the banks of the Jordan River so that he could grant her Holy Communion. In the lower part of this folio, a long-haired nymph appears to be stepping into water and swimming. Could this be the River Jordan?

I’m not sure what to make of the second nymph, the one holding a red-striped and dotted “thing”. The “thing” looks vaguely like a loaded spindle (very vaguely), but could it be a cross between a spindle and a rolled-up cloak (with thread being the unifying idea)? I’m not confident about the ID of the strange red object, and the nymph holding it doesn’t have long hair, so I’m not sure how it ties in with the drawings around it (assuming there is a connection), so I’ll ruminate a while longer.

The figure in the top right of the folio is ambiguous, possibly male, and may relate to what is happening on the facing folio (unbound) rather than what is on this folio, but if it is male, maybe it’s Zosimus. His crypt is said to have sheltered the tomb of Mary Magdalene in Provençe (which again is a bit of a stretch since Mary of Egypt was born quite some time after Mary Magdalene).

Links Between the Iconography of Mary and the Passion of Christ

I have something of particular interest for those who have been following recent developments in Voynich research…
At the Victoria and Albert Museum, there is an embroidery of Mary Magdalene surrounded by her attributes (ointment chalice, crucifix, skull, buildings in the distance) and yet the border includes implements from the Arma Christi. The two kinds of imagery are not usually combined, and when they are, Jesus is usually the focal figure. In this one, Mary dominates the frame and Jesus is not present.

The embroidery is not medieval—it is from the 17th century and I can only post a thumbnail, but you can click here for the Victoria & Albert Museum to see it full-sized. Note that there are 16 coins (it doesn’t have to be 30 as long as the meaning is clear). There is no helical rope around the flagellation pole, but it immediately made me wonder, is there an earlier image of Mary Magdalene together with Arma Christi implements that inspired this one? Could this combination of themes be relevant to the VMS?

Are there Arma Christi narratives encoded in the plants as discussed in the previous blog, with the story of Mary Magdalen included elsewhere?

Another Look at the VMS “Map” Folio

So coming back to the “map” folio, is it possible to relate some of the features to Mary’s journey?

Ste. Baume is a very hilly area, with a rippled geology that would be difficult to tread on foot, so the paths are mostly to the side of the many peaks and valleys shown in this aerial photo. These corrugated hills are reminiscent of the VMS escarpments. When traveling on foot, one would see their regular rise and fall and possibly some of the bands of color:

The corrugated hills of Sainte-Baume in shades of dark and light materials.
[Aerial photo courtesy of Adrian Tync, Wikimedia].

Voynich Manuscript escarpments — There are textured escarpments along the pathway on the VMS “map” folio that connect to a feature that looks like a mountain. Could they be the corrugated hills of Ste. Baume?

The inner grotto, where Mary lived before venturing into the wilderness, has a modern shrine, which was probably much simpler in the Middle Ages:

Shrine to Mary in the grotto of Sainte-Baume. — Shrine to Mary in the grotto of Sainte-Baume [courtesy of M. Disdero, Wikipedia]

Provençe is also home to bathing pools and waterfalls, a theme that occurs in numerous VMS folios:

Provençe is known for some of its round towers (in contrast to the more common square ones). The VMS tower-in-the-hole is also round, which might have have been inspired by architecture in Lombardy, Pisa, or Provençe.

Going back to my early idea about Jerusalem, the Mary Magdalene church, built on the Mount of Olives, looks somewhat like the onion-dome towers in the VMS central rotum, but it was built in the 19th century and the previous building was a single tower with a less rounded dome:

Church of Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem [public domain]

The Mount of Olives in the early 18th century, engraving by Calmet [public domain]

I’m inclined to believe that the “towers” in the central VMS rotum are a combination of containers (possibly spice containers) and architectural towers, rather than a drawing of an actual building. They might represent towers in the metaphorical sense, or even a specific building in a vague kind of way, but I doubt if it’s meant to be taken literally—towers don’t usually have feet.

Summary

So is it possible the VMS “map” represents Mary’s journey or landmarks to the pilgrimage site?

This is pretty speculative, but I still think the VMS “map” might be drawn on two levels—a corporeal level and a spiritual level. I’ve ghosted out the spiritual level for this example.

Now assuming the four corners are more literal than the others, perhaps the bottom right (which I thought years ago might be the garden of Gethsemane) is the farm-like landscape shown in Mary’s journeys. The top-right, with the “big water” might be the port of Marseille, where Mary’s battered boat came ashore. The top-left seems like a reasonable guess for the mountain grotto where she lived for a time, and the bottom-left might be the various arms of the Durance river:

This is what Marseille looked like in the 16th century. Note the rows of windmills—the patterns in the 2nd and 8th rota on the VMS “map” have always reminded me of fountains, water wheels, and windmills:

Colorized map of Marseille, 1575 — Detail of colorized version of 1575 map of Marseille published in Cologne. Note the castles on the various hilltops, and the gardens and farms nearby. There is also a square bastion on one of the islands, and a semicircular breakwater.

Marseille (Massilia) in the 15th century. — Marseille (Massilia) from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493, with numerous portals for the Marseille canals. The image is not necessarily accurate but gives a feeling for the time.

On modern roads, it is about an hour’s drive from Marseille to Sainte-Baume. In medieval times, it was probably three weeks journey by foot.

There are numerous possibilities for the VMS map… Jerusalem, a predecessor to Villa d’Este, Naples/Baia/Salerno, Tuscany, Venice, Rhodes, and numerous others, but I thought I would add a biblical journey so there’s at least one mythical map on the list.

J.K. Petersen

Back to the Drawing Board

6 Replies

8 August 2019

Back in July 2016 I posted a short blog about some of my early ideas for the VMS “map”. My favorites in the early years were Jerusalem (this was actually my first idea); Villa d’Este; the Naples/Sicily volcanic area; the natural-spa areas in northern Italy/Germany/Czech; and one I haven’t disclosed yet because I want to write it up properly with pictures and I haven’t had time to do a proper job.
There are others, but these are the ones I particularly liked and spent considerable time investigating.

1) Jerusalem

I spent countless hours studying old paintings, engravings, postcards, and aerial photographs of Jerusalem. My reasons were simple:

The top-left rotum in the VMS “map” is oval (olive-shaped) and looks like a mountain (I thought it might be the Mount of Olives),
the center rotum has lots of towers (the traditional position and way to depict Jerusalem),
there was a tradition of building tombs into the hills next to paths, which means that some of these old tombs look like towers in holes (you have to look at very old images to see this because all the paths have been widened since medieval times and they look less like they are in holes), and
pilgrimages to Jerusalem were customary and thus a journal-style “map” with landmarks would be appropriate to the time.

After studying Jerusalem so extensively that I could walk around it in my head, I was beginning to think I might be wrong or at least that I should not get too invested in one idea, and that I should take some time to investigate other ideas.

One of the next items on my list was Villa d’Este, which is an astonishing piece of medieval/renaissance hydraulic engineering, partly inspired by old Roman ruins and earlier water gardens that were not quite so elaborate. The engineering was so advanced that sensors would detect the presence of visitors and turn on the sprinklers to give them an unexpected shower.

2) Villa d’Este

Even though I was worried that the construction of Villa d’Este was too late to have inspired the VMS (even back in 2008 I pegged the VMS in my mind as 14th or 15th century, mainly for palaeological reasons), I thought if I learned everything I could about it, maybe I could discover an earlier water garden with the same properties that might be connected to the VMS. Here is what intrigued me about Villa d’Este:

It is overtly Pagan, filled with pools, fountains, and statues of nymphs, echoing the profusion of nymphs and water in the VMS. Remarkably, it was built by a Christian cardinal who showed no remorse whatsoever when his colleagues criticized him for his choice of Pagan themes.
There is a spiral staircase in the main structure (and a spiral on the VMS “map”).
It has many topological features in common with the “map” folio and VMS pool folios, including waterfalls, fountains, natural pools used for swimming, a winding path leading to the estate with an ancient round Pagan temple, and many other features that seem to match the VMS drawings.
There is an extensive herb/kitchen garden and surrounding gardens, which might have been documented at some point in time.

In other words, some connection with the Villa d’Este or its predecessors could explain numerous features on the VMS “map” and also the many pool drawings and nymphs in other parts of the manuscript, and possibly even the plant folios. You can almost chart a path around the estate lands and match them up with the landmarks on the VMS “map” folio.

I also spent time investigating the d’Este family tree to see if water gardens existed in the earlier generations of the family.

I became so familiar with Villa d’Este from photos, postcards, paintings, Google Earth and aerial photos, that I could walk around this in my head, as well, and I was reluctant to let go of the idea except that I had another one that seemed equally intriguing…

3) Naples/Baia/Sicily/Salerno Volcanic Region

This is one of my favorites. I’ve blogged about it several times. After becoming so familiar with Villa d’Este that I felt I had been there, I dove into a more in-depth study of the Naples/Salerno/Baia region. It caught my attention for the following reasons:

Vesuvius has an eye-shaped crater (similar to the “mountain” top-left on the VMS map). The wavy lines in the eye-shape might be flames, thus indicating a volcano, or they might be water filling in a dormant crater, or they could represent the famous Sulphurata/Solfatara, Campi Flegrei, all of which are present in the Naples region.
Medieval medical students from areas like Paris and Heidelberg frequently spent part of their university career in Naples or Salerno studying plant medicine and astrology, and might document the journey as a map.
The baths of Pozzuoli were located here (until they were destroyed by an eruption in 1538) and might account for the bathing nymphs in other parts of the VMS.

I have been to Naples. Unfortunately, it was an ill-fated trip. On the day I arrived, the museum staff went on strike and judging by events later in the day, it was not likely to end that day or any day soon.

There are numerous other commonalities with Naples that I’ve already covered and I won’t repeat here because the direction of this blog is related to more recent events. But before getting to that, there is one more location that I studied before moving on to other subjects…

4) Rome

I thought the way the VMS rota were organized, in separate circles connected by pathways, might be inspired by the hills of Rome. Rome is sometimes in the center of mappae mundi, rather than Jerusalem, and we have the saying, “All roads lead to Rome”, so I thought it might be possible to relate the VMS map to this area.

After some effort, I couldn’t get the topological features to fit as well as they did to Villa d’Este or Naples/Baia, but it seemed worthy of consideration. I tried the same with Paris, Venice, Genoa, the Flanders coast, and the Po estuary, with mixed results. They didn’t fit as well as Naples.

5) Natural Spas

In Greece, Italy, Croatia, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, and numerous other places, there are natural spas with thermal pools, waterfalls, green pools, blue pools, grottoes and numerous features in common with the VMS.

I was overwhelmed.

I discovered there might be hundreds or thousands of areas that could match the VMS map if it documented a natural-spa area. This was bewildering, and very difficult to investigate because the topology of natural spas in the Middle Ages is not well documented. Plus, many of them have been over-built with modern spas and the original geology altered.

I gave up. The task was too difficult, so I confined my studies to a few of the ones that were popular retreats for medieval nobility, one of those being Tuscany (described in a previous blog due to the marble escarpments that look similar to features in the VMS “map”). I haven’t had time to write up the others.

I’m not going to describe #6 yet because it deserves a blog of its own and I don’t want to disclose the location until I can do a good job of it.

On to the point of this blog…

Recently, I’ve had to re-evaluate my assumptions about the VMS. The process of re-organizing my thoughts started more than three years ago, but it took a long time for the mounting evidence to convince me I might be wrong about the “non-Christian” nature of the VMS…

The Impetus of the Mystery Critter

In March 2016, I was inspired by comments by René Zandbergen and K. Gheuens to consider that the critter on f79v might be a golden fleece. The curved posture was the key feature provoking my interest. The blog is here.

Then in April 2016, when I was writing about Theriac, I thought, what other possibilities are there?

Perhaps the head-down posture and “scales” of the mystery critter might be a reference to the castoreum beaver, an animal that shows up regularly in medieval herbal manuscripts and which is often drawn very badly (it usually looks more like a dog, a deer, or a platypus than a beaver, and is frequently drawn with a scaly tail). Here is a link to that blog.

In other words, I was trying to think of as many explanations as possible and then hoped to find other elements on the folio confirming one of the guesses.

So what did we have? Armadillo, Pangolin, Sheep, Fleece, Beaver, etc., and somewhere along the line I also suggested an aardvark (no one seemed to like that idea but I’ll keep it on the list because they confused pangolins and aardvarks in the Middle Ages due to their similar habits and habitats).

Then I went through medieval imagery for each animal, one-by-one, trying to figure out how each one was traditionally drawn and why, and collected as many examples as I could find.

By 2018, I had more than 2,000 medieval images of sheep. That might seem like a good starting point, but the ones that related best to the VMS were the ones I had been reluctant to collect.

Baaaaaaaa…d

The irony (which will become clear further down) is that I didn’t collect most of the Christian-themed sheep I came across, even though they were in the majority, because I didn’t think the VMS was a Christian-themed manuscript. About 70% of my samples were from secular or zodiac sources (some of which are only incidental embellishments in Christian manuscripts and were not directly illustrating Bible stories).

Then came the eye-opener, which hit me sometime in late 2018, and which I blogged about in April 2019 (the “zoomer” post I lost and had to repost) and another in June 2019… the imagery surrounding the mystery critter (cloudband “cushion”, lines, etc.). Like it or not, the critter’s milieu was more similar to Christian imagery than the others.

This took me by surprise. I thought, “Could I have been wrong all this time? A dozen years of studying this manuscript and I’ve been discounting the possibility of Christian content.”

Of course then I kicked myself because I TRY to search with as few assumptions as possible.

So where is this leading?

It’s leading to interpretation. But first, let’s get short-sightedness out of the way first…

Many images get posted on the Voynich.ninja forum. Much of it is not new to me. I have more than a 300,000 plant images catalogued and accessible at the touch of a finger (I was interested in plants before I learned about the VMS). I also have more than 20,000 medieval plant images, many of which I can now recognize and identify on sight. I have related these to images of real plants so I can automatically display them side-by-side sorted by date and illustrative tradition. Here, for example, is a very small portion of the information I have for Agrimonia:

Medieval botanical timeline and traditions

I have more than 550 complete zodiac series (almost 7,000 images) and thousands upon thousands of medieval and ancient animal images (dragons, sheep, bulls, snakes, fish, etc.), thousands of pictures of medieval maps, merlons, towers, castles, and escarpments. I’m not even going to try to count them but I had to buy another several-terabytes drive to accommodate the overflow.

Despite this penchant for collecting, I am fairly selective and realize now that I zoomed past a lot of Christian imagery because I didn’t think it was relevant.

The Sea Change

So what changed my mind?

It wasn’t any one thing, it was a pattern that was emerging…

For example, I took a good hard look at The Desert of Religion (Add ms 37049), the Carthusian manuscript described in a previous blog.

I mentioned Add ms 37049‘s humble drawing style (similar to the VMS) on the forum in February 2018, but I didn’t read it until a few months later. That’s when I realized the picture of Jerusalem had been extracted from the preceding mappa mundi rather than being included or repeated as a separate drawing. That is not common.

And that was an “Aha!” moment.

I thought to myself, “Is this the way the VMS is created? Have they taken things that usually go together and split them into separate chunks? Is this why the VMS is so hard to understand?”

Looking for Confirmation… Could it Be True?

As soon as that thought crossed my mind I went to the cosmological section and looked for a Creation theme and this section (of which I enclose a portion) seems like a possible candidate. Many people try to identify this as individual stars or constellations, but I think it might be more metaphysical than physical:

But I wasn’t sure I could precisely pin it down without more study, so early in 2019, I tried another folio. I re-evaluated f86v and realized, after a few days, that the drawing wasn’t so strange after all….

The VMS is drawn very differently from traditional manuscripts, but the themes of things falling out of the sky, birds, double tors (possibly representing the pillars of the sky), earthquakes, people hiding, and the world erupting into chaotic movement were common in biblical stories and apocalypse manuscripts, and I was able to find them in classical literature also, so I posted this blog in March 2019 with a sampling of possible interpretations, including one from the Book of Revelation.

I didn’t want to get locked into one idea, which is why I posted four ideas, but the one from Revelation matched quite well. That’s when I really started wondering if I had been wrong about the VMS. Maybe there was Christian imagery, after all. Maybe. (I was still reluctant to believe it.)

But whether I believed it or not, I have to admit, it changed the way I collected imagery from that point on, and it goosed me into trying harder to determine if the mystery critter might be a lamb rather than a pangolin or beaver.

The Best is Yet to Come…

So coming up to the present, things suddenly started happening fast.

K. Gheuens pointed out that helical twining could be found in medieval Arma Christi images (the same kind of twining as in the VMS Oak and Ivy plant).

Here is an example of an Arma Christi illumination with helical twining on the pole that was used to bind Jesus:

Arma Christi example image with various implements used to humiliate Christ

And this detail from a Russian Arma Christi illustrates that the number of coins doesn’t have to be 30 (there are 28 in this drawing):

I was thinking out loud on the forum when I wondered whether the major holy days might be encoded right into the VMS plants:

“Could a subset of the plants in the VMS (I’m thinking specifically the big plants and mostly the fanciful ones) represent a visual calendar? A way of expressing something about the most important holy days that was maybe tied in with what they believed about plants?”

And then, in the process of discussing this, and the mystery critter (is it the lamb of God?), mandorlas, sacred hearts, celestial flyers (“zoomers”), and poles in the Arma Christi in medieval manuscripts, K. Gheuens did some research on mandorlas and posted this blog, which I think is a must-read for every Voynich researcher.

https://herculeaf.wordpress.com/2019/08/04/blood-roots-and-lance-leaves/comment-page-1/#comment-2782

Because I had also been researching mandorlas, I knew almost instantly that Gheuen’s blog was going to be about the imagery on f17r (note the almond-shaped vagina-like red splotches in the root of the plant), but Gheuens went so far beyond, you could almost call it a bombshell in terms of our thinking about the VMS.

Read the blog and pay special attention to the analogies between some of the more stylized plants (ones that are hard to identify) and the various implements of the Arma Christi. This isn’t just about one plant drawing, it’s about a group of plant drawings. If he’s right, it will be the first time someone has convincingly discerned the meaning and inspiration behind a group of the less naturalistic plants.

As an aside, suns and moons with faces are generally associated with alchemical manuscripts from the later 15th and 16th centuries, and are rare in early medieval manuscripts, but they show up in Arma Christi images, as well.

We’re Not Finished Yet

Now we get to the part about interpretation. It’s one thing to say, hey, I found a picture of a tree-like thing and things twining around it in helical fashion (and this happens very frequently in Voynich research when images are posted without any follow-up to confirm or deny whether the idea has legs). It’s quite another to say, hey, here is a pattern of several illustrations that might have a cohesive explanation.

This is why I am taking Gheuen’s idea seriously. Because there might be a strong enough pattern to help us figure out if he’s right. Plus, the Arma Christi caught my attention because it has talismanic implications, as well, which might tie in with the strange writing in the VMS.

So, in that vein, I’d like to add a few more images that might relate to this in a way I never expected…

Back to the Future

Remember how I said at the beginning of this blog that I mostly gave up on the idea of Jerusalem being the object of the VMS map and moved on to other ideas? I couldn’t quite make it work—at least not as a strip-map or as traditional cartography. Maybe I need to look at it again, but in a slightly different way…

Maybe it’s not quite a map of Jerusalem, maybe it’s Jerusalem in the narrative sense. Take for example this picture, which no doubt has been mentioned in the VMS literature at some point for having a plant with twining, but what especially provoked me to drag it out of my files was the story behind it…

This painting illustrates the Betrayal of Christ (a theme related to the Passion of Christ which is, in turn, related to the Arma Christi) and includes Jerusalem, possibly Babylon (it was frequently included in mappae mundi in the Middle Ages), the Mount of Olives AND a tree with helical twining (the point is that they are all together in one painting):

Painting The Passion of Christ from The Met — The Betrayal of Christ, Bartolomeo di Tommaso, c. 1440s [Gwynne Andrews Fund, The Met]

The painting is part of an altar triptych that illustrates Christ being betrayed and arrested, and the mourning of the death of Christ.

“Maps” like this landscape of hills and castles don’t have to be geographically accurate. Their role is to tell a story. Could the VMS “map” (or parts of it) be a didactic version of one of these stories? Is that why it’s hard to pin down?

A Critical Look at the “Oak and Ivy”

It’s probable that the helical vines on the tree in the triptych painting above are metaphorically related to Arma Christi imagery, which would place the tree iconographically halfway between the Arma Christi “pole with ropes” version and the VMS Oak and Ivy—almost a visual bridge, so-to-speak.

But I now have second thoughts about the VMS tree. Maybe we should examine it again…

The following plant, from a Hebrew manuscript (lower-right), has a hauntingly similar twining pattern to the VMS Oak and Ivy. The main difference is that the VMS main stalk has branches going through rather than around (whether this is deliberate, creative, or a correction for a mistake is not clear). The leaves, however, are quite different, so it’s not a complete match:

Maybe the VMS Oak and Ivy is not meant to be two plants, as in herbal manuscripts such as Masson 116 or Sloane 4016. Maybe it’s one plant that has been pruned and twined in topiary style like the one on the right (note how the stalks are attached at the base, which sometimes happens with ivy (it insinuates itself into the bark) but which might mean it’s all one plant with three stalks).

I’ve seen plants where the stalks have been twisted and twined in remarkable patterns very similar to the above painting. Maybe the berries are not ivy berries, maybe they are olives, or something else related to a biblical story.

Now Everything Looks Different

I have to go back and look at everything again. I was almost certain the nymph middle-left on folio 77v represents the birth of Venus (or at least, that she is either Venus or a metaphor for birth), but maybe not.

And maybe the nymph at the top isn’t Cassiopeia after all (although I think Cassiopeia is a very good suggestion for the imperious seated nymph). Maybe the central position is the throne of the last judgment and the nymphs on either side are stand-ins for the angels Michael and Gabriel.

Things are shaking up right now, but maybe that’s a good thing. A new perspective. Let’s see where it leads

J.K. Petersen

Zoom, Zoom…

5 Replies

2 August 2019

I have a tongue-in-cheek name for the “flying loges” in the Voynich Manuscript…. I call them “zoomers”. They remind me of strap-on rocket-powered vehicles in vintage science-fiction magazines.
They’re vaguely like baptismal fonts or the smaller “holy water” fonts, or the style of pulpit that is elevated and sometimes attached to a wall.
They’re also like loges in medieval family tree drawings, or images of Christ or St. John being baptized. Some look like the undersides of medieval censers or fancy corbels or archway supports. They’re used in many ways in medieval art.
Here are some examples:

Balconies and bartizans (overhanging towers) were common on medieval architecture. Their lofty viewpoints and decorative elements make them particularly appealing to illustrators, so it’s not surprising that similar imagery turns up in illuminated manuscripts.

Even so, I’ve never seen any direct analogies to the VMS font-like or rocket-powered versions. As usual, the illustrator had a unique way of presenting nymphs that zoom or hover in the margins like imperious garita-drivers.

There is a lot of variety in the patterns on the containers, each one is different in basic shape. Connections between nymphs are frequent and these too tend to vary:

VMS nymphs in hovering loge-like containers

There’s a certain serious-faced exuberance in these drawings, as though the nymphs are absorbed in their tasks and taking them seriously. The illustrator seems to delight in individualizing the containers.

One source of imagery that seems somewhat similar is the fiery bartizans in some of the alchemical scrolls, like the Ripley scrolls:

George Ripley (c. 1415–1490), best known for inspiring the “Ripley Scrolls” was an alchemist who was probably most active between about 1440 and 1470. Unfortunately, most of the scrolls that are named after him were created in the late 15th century and the 16th century, too late to have inspired the VMS, and we can only guess at the original inspiration. There are many common themes, however, with chemical processes and distillation expressed in metaphysical terms and emblems.

Alchemy was not just about turning cheaper materials into gold (although this was attempted by many alchemists), it also included the refinement of the distillation arts. The above drawings, with flames ejecting from the base of the balconies, is labeled “Spiritus” and “Imbibing” and likely refers to alcoholic distillation rather than chemical interactions between mercury and sulphur.

The VMS drawings are so unconventional in their execution, it’s difficult to know if distillation is intended by some of the drawings.

Here’s a similar drawing with a completely different meaning, imparting a Christian rather than an alchemical/metaphysical message. Drawings with doves and flame-like red lines are used to represent Pentecost:

Emanations from an architectural support (under which is a dove) [BNF NAL 3226]

In this Armenian manuscript, Pentecost is represented with parasol-like red lines emanating from the dove (this reminds me of some of the parasol shapes in the VMS):

Pentecost, Walters 543 — Dove emanating blood-colored droplets arranged in a parasol shape above the figure. Pentecost illustration [Armenian, Walters 543]

The same manuscript includes a mandorla-style circular rainbow rather than a double-arched rainbow as was more common in central and northern Europe:

A Touch of Color

In addition to numerous zoomers, the VMS includes rainbows. For example, f82v has a double rainbow, a convention that usually refers to divinity and higher powers in medieval art. Something wavy seems to be attached to or pouring out of each of the ends.

On either side are nymphs in loges, with another closer to the rainbow with her legs in the pond. To the far right is a cloudlike shape that looks like it might be rising up out of the water or, alternately, raining something into the pool below. The nymph to the right is holding or fending off a pipelike object with something blue streaming into or out of the bottom.

The palette is quite restrained, mostly green, a bit of blue, and a touch of rouge on the nymphs:

In medieval art, the double rainbow is frequent in Bible illustrations in manuscripts and church alcoves as a metaphor for a celestial throne. Below is a common theme of judgement. Note the double rainbow and two celestial beings in cloudlike “loges” on either side of the main figure (usually God or Jesus), with the lower halves of their bodies not visible:

Judgment, with angels and a double rainbow [The Met 1998.179]

This well-populated illustration also has double rainbows with celestial beings on either side, but their bodies have not been placed in cloudlike containers. Instead, their legs have been covered to the ankles with only their feet showing, so chopping off the lower half of the bodies was not characteristic of every illustration:

Double rainbows as a throne in the Last Judgment, Clocher, Cologne, c. 1435 — The Last Judgment, Lochner, Cologne, c. 1435

In this example, which I have posted previously, there is a double rainbow and the lower halves of the figures in the upper archway are obscured by the terrain, as though they were standing in water or clouds:

Last Judgement, Getty Open Content Program

In this drawing, there is only one rainbow, but note the cloudbands on each end, and how the lower bodies of the figures in the upper portion are not shown, as in previous examples. There is a general trend, in these kinds of drawings, to identify celestial beings or “people of the stars” by obscuring their lower bodies:

I wanted to post this one for contrast. In France and Germany one sees a mixture of double rainbows and mandorlas (an almond- or sometimes race-track-shaped rainbow). In Italy, there are also sometimes double rainbows, but the mandorla appears to be more popular:

Oval rainbow in the
Last Judgment, Giotta, Padua, c. 1306 — Last Judgment, Giotta, Padua, c. 1306

This one from Liége is more similar to the VMS arrangement, a double rainbow with two figures with their lower bodies obscured by cloudband shapes, and note also that the ends of the rainbows also have cloudband shapes.

Cloudbands are not visually the same as VMS loges, but the idea might be the same, and clouds create water droplets, so maybe the VMS wavy lines coming from the ends of the rainbows are rain. Note also the “flower loge” in the left margin. It was acceptable for the lower bodies to be placed in a variety of container styles:

Double rainbows and cloudband loges in The Last Judgment, Liége W.12 — The Last Judgment, Liége W.12

This example from northwest Spain is earlier than the others (10th century) and does not explicitly include the rainbows, but the subject matter is similar, there are many curved shapes, and I was wondering if the hornlike structures in the upper corners might be parallels to the strange blobby thing on the right side of the VMS double-rainbow drawing:

Judgment and ascension in an illumination from northwest Spain (10th century)

Connecting the Dots

But is there a way to move beyond visual similarity and find relationships between themes in different parts of the manuscript?

Could there be a connection between these odd structures on the “bio” and pool pages and the VMS rosettes folio?

I’ve posted blogs suggesting that the VMS rosettes on the “map folio might be better understood if they are visualized as layers. One possibility is interpreting the corner rosettes as a map (and possibly also a representation of the elements), while the “upper” layer might be medieval cosmology.

Maybe the center rosette is the cosmic connection between the physical and spiritual worlds.

I can see other ways of dividing up the rosettes, as well, but let’s keep it simple and assume there might be something abstract or cosmological about parts of the rosettes folio, and that it might not all be “one thing”:

VMS "map" envisioned as two different planes

Now look at this folio from the http://rhythmsfitness.com/wp-content/plugins/ai-seo-fix/icwf.php Visconti Hours. Even though the style and viewpoint are different from the VMS “map” folio, there are thematic similarities.

Note the container-like architectural “fancy towers”. They don’t really look like the towers in VMS Rotum5, they look like Jewish spice boxes, but the idea is similar to the “towers” in the center of the VMS “map”, as are the ray-like textures. Note also the naturalistic landscape with tors and castles at the top, similar to the castles and escarpments in the VMS:

Textures and towers in the Visconti Hours

Now let’s jump back to the VMS nymphs in zoomers… here is an illustration of the “celestial court” in the http://debashishbanerji.com/videos/consciousness/sri-aurobindos-hermeneutics-of-praxis-as-a-diagram-of-becoming-the-yantra-of-the-seven-quartets/ Visconti Hours. Click on it to see it full-sized. This one is worth a second look.

Note the ladies around the edges, suspended in loges and on platforms, each with a different attribute, and how they are connected by “pipes”. It’s a much more elaborate drawing than the VMS nymphs-in-loges, but many of the conceptual elements are the same:

Visconti Hours "Celestial Court" ladies with attributes

So even though the VMS drawings are quite individualized, there seem to be common themes.

But like the Ripley Scrolls, the Visconti Hours is a bit late to have informed the VMS, and is stylistically very different. And we have to keep in mind that towers, creation, and judgment are common to many manuscripts. Is there something with the same motifs in an earlier (and possibly cruder) version?

Seeking that Special Resonance

I’ve mentioned numerous times on the Voynich.ninja forum that manuscripts from some of the Carthusian monasteries have qualities more akin to the VMS. In particular, BL Add ms 37049 (The Desert of Religion) embodies a similar zeitgeist in terms of the drawing style and the way the drawings inhabit the margins with the text often wrapping in around them.

The text rambles across the pages. There are no prick marks to guide the scribe. The marginal drawings are charming and rather primitive. Some of the text is squeezed within curving bands. Large parts of it are in verse, which means there is greater repetition than in regular texts:

Carthusian Desert of Religion "Man's Lyfe"

However, The Desert of Religion (and other miscellany) is written on paper, which rang caution bells for me. Like the Visconti Hours, it might be too late to have influenced the VMS.

The estimated origin is between 1460 and 1500 at a monastery in northern England, but it has some interesting variations on traditional themes that might be worth mentioning.

Traditional Themes in The Desert of Religion

Now, a slight digression. This section is not specifically about T-in-O maps (which I’ve discussed in previous blogs), but about how they are usually represented…

Folio 2v of Add ms 37049 (The Desert of Religion) is a simplified mappa mundi in T-in-O form, with a VMS-like double-infurled cloudband to represent air (ayer):

East is at the top, but Jerusalem is not in the center. Instead, there’s a cluster of buildings in the upper-right labeled Syria. The most prominent building in the “Europea” section is Roma, and “Affrica” is dotted with European-looking houses and a cathedral.

Below the drawing, it explains how the earth was bequeathed to the three sons of Noah after the great flood (the basis of the T-in-O configuration as discussed in a previous blog).

So what happened to Jerusalem? It’s usually front-and-center in most T-in-O maps. Why is it different in this manuscript? Was it dissed? Actually the opposite is true. The creators gave it a full page on the next folio, and this is what caught my attention…

I sometimes wonder if the VMS was created this way—with traditional themes divided up in less traditional ways. Perhaps ideas that are usually represented on a single page have been spread across more folios. If so, common motifs may be harder to recognize.

The following section is illustrated in comic-panel style, and again we see the style of scalloped cloudband that was popular by this time, along with rows of stars:

Examples of double-infurled cloudband in MS Add 37049

Note how the main figure of these festivities has been drawn with unusually short legs and a large head (not unlike the VMS zodiac males), and the couple has two right hands clasping in the traditional marriage pose (similar to VMS Gemini):

Then we move to the story of the crucifixion and the ascension, where there is a rainbow separating the earth from the heavens, with a small cloudband at each end. The celestial figures at the top have their lower bodies obscured. The text is fitted into “ribbon” label at the top:

The VMS has several rainbows, but rather than cloudbands, there is something that appears to be fluid flowing into or out of each end:

This is also true of the double rainbow on the later page. Are these meteorological substitutions for cloudbands?

In the following illustration we see God’s emissary (the dove with halo) near a ribbon label, describing the forgiveness of misdeeds:

Which shows up again later, as a plummeting bird and rays:

The VMS has something that is thematically similar on f86v, a bird near the top of the folio flying out of (or nearby) a cloudlike scaly shape. The lines and dots could be anything: air, spiritual essence, water (possibly a deluge?), so it’s hard to tell if there is any narrative relationship, but I include it to call attention to the bird and its position within the emanations:

The Desert of Religion also makes generous used of scalloped nebuly lines, stars, and rays.

In this drawing, the illustrator borrowed the plant-platform motif common to genealogy diagrams. It’s not too much of a stretch to recast them as zoomers connected by flowing streams as occurs in the VMS:

Crucifixion illustrated with genealogy-style motif.

This manuscript has another commonality with the VMS… numerous candelabra-like drawings of plants (see K. Gheuen’s blog for a more complete discussion of interesting menorah-like plant drawings). We don’t know what they represent in the VMS, but here they serve as guideposts to a spiritual life and each plant is drawn differently, with many of them almost looking like real plants:

The leaves describe virtues, vices, and numerous other concepts related to the battle between good and evil within a soul striving to live a spiritual life.

In addition to rainbows and plants, there are numerous coffins and skeletons in shrouds. Judging by the smile on its face, this one likes being a corpse (or maybe likes the view):

The commentary next to most of these smiling skeletons relates to the temporary nature of the corporeal body, and how it wastes away (the implication being that one should nourish and protect the longer-lasting spirit).

In medieval manuscripts, blank eyes usually represent a corpse or sometimes “extras” (people who are added around the central figures to flesh out the crowd). The arms of this nymph are bound as though in a shroud:

I’m fairly sure the nymph in the above drawing is a corpse, but I’m less sure about the following nymph (maybe she’s dreaming), but the idea of “levels” in both compositions is intriguing.

Here we have the corpse at the bottom, and above it elements that obscure the lower part of the figure, one with a cloudband-like “parasol” above the nymph’s head (tent-like parasols were used to denote authority in medieval texts). Maybe a VMS parasol is a stand-in for a halo or a way to symbolize authority. On the right, the “zoomer” is a cloudband:

One small digression, before summing up… I’ve frequently said that the seven stars on VMS f68r don’t have to represent Pleiades, that there are other possibilities (it’s possible they are the Pleiades, but I don’t want to assume they are until there’s evidence). The Desert of Religion includes seven stars to represent the seven monks who started the Carthusian order in the 11th century:

Carthusian founders represented by seven stars.

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Summary

The VMS doesn’t feel overtly Christian to me. It never has. My first impression 12 years ago was Pagan or clinical-gynecological, and when I saw the text on 116v, I wondered if the fractured German might be Yiddish. I’m not sure it is (any foreigner who knew a few words in German but was struggling with grammar could have written it), and the note on 116v might not be contemporary with the main text, so I’m keeping all possibilities open for now.

Even though it’s full of loges and connections between them, it doesn’t feel like family tree imagery either (except maybe the clothed figures on f71v in the zodiac-figures section).

So is it Christian imagery artfully disguised?

I’m still on the fence about whether VMS illustrations are direct references to Christian themes. The way objects are put together has echoes of Christian imagery, as can be seen from the numerous examples posted in this and previous blogs, but the creator could still have been Pagan, Jewish, Moslem, or Agnostic living in a dominantly Christian society.

Everyone in western society was exposed to Christian illustrative traditions, especially those who could read, and people from all religions are generally interested in themes like life, death, and the afterlife, especially those living at a time when plague was always around the next corner. Maybe someone Christian or non-Christian borrowed what was relevant to their conception of the VMS and ignored the rest.

J.K. Petersen