There’s been a fervor of renewed interest in the VMS mystery animal on folio 80v (including a post about the catoblepas on Nick Pelling’s blog), so I looked at the folio again (and glanced back through my blogs) to see if there was anything that could be said about the critter that hasn’t already been thoroughly investigated.
Looking at the Details
The mystery animal usually goes by the working name of “pangolin” or “armadillo” since it appears to have scales and to be in a curled-up position.
The scales are not certain, however, since the bumps are pointing in the wrong direction, and they don’t really look like the plates of an armadillo. They might be scales (they do appear to overlap), or maybe it’s a VMS version of bumpy fur or wool.
The Wispy Tail
The tail is quite ambiguous. Are those untidy hair strands or is it a forked tail? In other VMS drawings, fish tails are quite detailed:
If the “pangolin” has a fish tail, why is it so tentative—why is it strandy instead of loopy? Is it intentionally vague? Or did the different context inspire the illustrator in another direction? Or is it a different kind of tail altogether, like a hairy tail? Maybe it’s vague because it’s an animal the illustrator has never seen.
The Feet
The mystery animal’s feet look like cat’s paws without the claws showing. They look nothing like the feet of a pangolin or armadillo. But the VMS illustrator wasn’t exactly a rock star in the matter of drawing feet, as can be seen by the drawing on the right. These are the hooves of Taurus in the zodiac-figures section. Unlike most medieval drawings of hooves, they have soft edges.
This peculiarity is even more apparent in the feet of the dragon-like critter on the right. Instead of the fearsome eagle-like claws often seen on mythical animals, they are distinctly round, like those of the the mystery animal on f80v. Also, like the 80v animal, this critter has a long nose, long ears, a somewhat ambiguous tail (is it a medieval flower-tail? if so, why does it look like an extra paw?). It has some scaly stuff on its back (are they wings or a turtle shell?). Even though it somewhat resembles medieval dragon drawings, it’s hard to pin down the details.
The Head
The head of 80v, depending on how you interpret it, has a pointy upturned snout, possibly a round eye, and possibly a pointy horn or ear.
If it’s a horn, then it might be a reference to Jason and the golden fleece, something I’ve blogged about previously. Or maybe it refers to Aries.
If it’s an ear, then it seems to be one that’s long and pointy.
Other Possibilities
I try to look at the animal in as many different ways as possible (fur? hair? scales? leaves?).
Catoblepas?
Here is Pliny’s description of the catoblepas from Pelling’s site:
“…the source of the Nile… In its neighbourhood there is an animal called the Catoblepas, in other respects of moderate size and inactive with the rest of its limbs, only with a very heavy head which it carries with difficulty — it is always hanging down to the ground; otherwise it is deadly to the human race, as all who see its eyes expire immediately.”
When I read it, I thought to myself, that sounds like a warthog. The warthog roots along the ground with its head down, is somewhat hairy with a long mane that blows up when it runs. It has a very heavy head and is a very aggressive animal, dangerous to humans. In other descriptions, a mane like a horse is mentioned:
The rhinocerous also has a very large head and forages with its head down, but it doesn’t have a mane, and most of the descriptions of catoblepas fit better with warthogs.
The range of many African animals has greatly diminished. There used to be lions as far north as the Caucasus and giraffes in northern Africa, so it’s possible the warthog ranged farther north in medieval times than it does now. It is closely related to the wild boar and it’s possible their range originally overlapped. They are very similar in form, but the wild boar does not have the long distinctive mane of the warthog. This Roman mosaic shows a mane and also buffalo-like shoulders:
Here is another from the Bardo Museum with the mane and forelock standing up:
Warthogs are not especially known for smelly breath (it’s dangerous to get close to a warthog so it’s hard to get a whiff), but they do root around in poo, which might give them a reputation for smelly breath.
So I think there’s a fair possibility that catoblepas was inspired by the warthog. I noticed that Pliny does not mention scales, a feature that appears to have been added in later descriptions.
Other animals, like the wildebeest are also possible. In basic form it is similar to the warthog, with heavy shoulders and a mane, but it is much larger and has the snout of an ox. In proportion to its body, however, the head is not as big as a warthog’s.
Both warthogs and wildebeests are very aggressive animals…
I wonder if an animal as aggressive and smelly as the catoblepas would be portrayed as the mellow-looking creature in the VMS. Are there other possibilities a little more in keeping with nymphs and cloudbands and more pleasant topics?
The Amiable Aardvark
On the voynich.ninja forum, I’ve suggested the critter on 80v looks like an aardvark (they often curl up like a cat when they are sleeping). The problem is that aardvarks don’t have scales and the critter on 80v might. They do sometimes have fur up to about 4″ long, depending on the climate and variety (seven species of aardvark have been merged into one, so they no longer consider them separate species, but the length and color of their coats can vary widely):
The nose of the ardvaark is a good match for the VMS critter. It turns up at the end, like a pig’s snout, and is used to hoover up ants and termites:
When foraging, aardvarks always keep their noses to the ground and hunt by smell. For a long time it was thought that aardvarks and pangolins were related, perhaps because of their long tongues, and similar overall form and diet:
Could the VMS creature be a cross between an aardvark and a pangolin, cobbled together from a confused verbal report that describes ant-eating animals? There are many strange African animals in medieval bestiaries drawn from poorly understood verbal descriptions.
Part of the aardvark’s distribution is Ethiopia, a pilgrimage site sometimes included on medieval maps with a little line of European castle icons. The aardvark is a more amiable creature than the warthog—it is sometimes kept as a pet.
Back to the Beaver
In a 2016 blog, I suggested the critter might be a beaver, the animal most often depicted in herbal manuscripts and bestiaries as the unwilling donor of castorum, a substance in testicles that was thought to have medicinal value. Beavers were often drawn with scales, long ears, and long snouts, as in this example from the previous blog:
It was the curled-up position and scales that made me wonder if it might be the castorum beaver, since it is usually drawn with its nose in its groin, biting off its testicles. A cloudband might also be relevant since the beaver is making a choice between death or life without progeny.
Reptilian Possibilities
I wanted to include these enigmatic drawings because they show how far medieval drawings can diverge from nature. This furry doglike creature with chicken legs is from the Northumberland bestiary (c. mid-13th century):
And this c. 1315 creature has long ears, a wavy mane, fluffy tail and doesn’t look reptilian at all (BL Royal 2 B VII):
It may be hard to believe, but both of them are crocodiles. However, a crocodile is not really designed to tuck its head under its body.
The Folio as a Whole
What else is going on on the folio? Critter 80v is sandwiched between hovering nymphs holding a spindle and a ring. And, oddly, the critter is lightly dabbed with streaks of green, a color associated more with reptiles than mammals.
In the green pool at the base of the folio is a nymph that started out with no breasts and has an unusually shaped pair of “eyeball” breasts quite different from the other nymphs (they look like they were added by a different hand).
There’s a lot going on on the right-hand side, too much to cover in this blog. K. Gheuens has suggested an interesting possibility—a connection with constellations. That’s a provocative idea and a topic in itself, so I’ll leave it to the reader to consider his interpretation while I get back to the critter…
What about the scalloped shape under the critter?
Is that a cloudband? Do the vertical lines represent rain?
Is it water, do the scallops represent waves?
There is certainly the hint of a cloudband in the middle-right rotum on the VMS “map” folio. But similar shapes also appear to resemble fabric.
On folio 79v, which is stylistically similar to 80v, the scalloped shape looks like an umbrella or tent-top with a finial. I don’t think we can assume every wavy shape is a cloudband.
If it’s fabric, maybe critter 80v is curled up on a cushion—a squarish cushion with a scalloped trim. Is this some nobleperson’s pet taking a nap?
The idea of a pet aardvark or catoblepas doesn’t quite fit the context of hovering nymphs with attributes. The nymph above the critter sits in something resembling a double cloudband, at an elevated position on the folio, all of which makes her seem somewhat important. The one below holds out a ring… which brings me back to the idea of Agnus Dei (the lamb of God) that I suggested in a previous blog.
Agnus Dei
The lamb of God is associated with ascension and redemption, based on biblical passages. Much of the time, Agnus Dei is represented like this, standing in a prominent position, with a cross-staff and banner, often nimbed:
Here is another from British Library Additional 17333, with the lamb standing on an altar:
The lamb is often surrounded by a wreath or a rainbow, or decorative elements that one sees in church alcoves.
In almost all instances, the lamb is on some kind of pedestal or cloudband, or perched on the top of a crucifix. Frequently it is positioned midpoint on the page or fresco, between earthly matters and God:
In a 6th century mosaic in the Basilica of Santi Cosma e Damiano, the lamb is standing on a base with water flowing out below its feet. Pagan influences are still present in this very early depiction:
Toward the Middle Ages, it became popular to add a scroll or book with seven seals dangling from the base:
Another popular medieval theme was setting the lamb on a cushion, cloudband, or book with seven seals dangling from the edge, as in this early 14th-century example in the Martini church in Braunschweig, Germany:
This 19th-century interpretation retains the traditional cross-staff, book, and seven seals, and places the book with the seals on a cloud-cushion:
Could the lines under the VMS “cushion” be rain? Or does it represent movement (ascension?), or possibly an abstract reference to the seven seals?
In this c. 1260 drawing, the lamb stands on a cloudlike line above the heads of watchers, facing an empty cushion, a place for it in heaven ringed by a double-layered cloudband:
The Sacrificial Lamb
This version has blood pouring from the chest of the lamb, a detail that might be relevant to the VMS…
The lamb was used for sacrifices and one of those sacrifices occurred after a woman had given birth. There are many hints at ob/gyn themes in the VMS and perhaps this is another one. Below the 80v animal we see a ring, often representing marriage, then we have the lamb, used as a sacrifice following childbirth, above it a woman with a spindle—spinning was an activity that many women took up when the children were grown and their nest was empty. Is there a life-story narrative here?
Notice also, in the St. Antonius example, that the texture of the fur has been drawn as scales.
Notice also that a turned head is very typical for lamb-of-God imagery.
The lamb doesn’t always look like a lamb. Depending on the skill of the illustrator, sometimes it looks like a kangaroo with its head down:
Sometimes the lamb looks vaguely like the VMS drawing of Aries, drawn within a circle, with a leg held high:
This example has a couple of things in common with the VMS: the drawing is not professional level and the “pedestal” is hard to identify. Is it water or a cloudband? Given its early date, it’s probably water:
This example is interesting because it combines Agnus Dei on a fabric platform with imagery that is similar to VMS 86v, and also represents an early example of a sun and moon with faces:
Here is one possible interpretation of 86v that I posted in a previous blog:
Could the 80v animal be somehow connected to the imagery on this folio, as well?
Is it possible that the object and wavy lines under the animal represent water, clouds, and cloth all at the same time, and thus encompass all the popular ways of representing it?
Could the nymph holding the ring under the animal represent a marriage scene, as in some of the English apocalypse manuscripts from the 13th century?
As an aside, I thought I’d share this little gem I stumbled across in an early medieval manuscript. The scribe has turned a flaw in a piece of parchment into a “holy” lamb.
Summary
I have tried hard to find an explanation for the animal on 80v that fits as many aspects of the folio as possible. I suggested the idea of Agnus Dei in a previous blog, but the blog was already too long to add all the pictures, so consider this a continuation.
I rather like the idea of an aardvark on a nobleman’s pillow, or the infamous life-or-death castorum beaver, but the folio does not look like a bestiary—the relationship of the images to one another has a more narrative feel. I wanted to explain the relationship of the lamb to the other figures and to the various props in the margins and, hopefully, to some of the other VMS folios.
The idea of Agnus Dei seems more cohesive than the other possibilities and the fact that the animal appears to have scales is apparently not a problem, since the St. Antonious lamb does, as well.
Many medieval drawings are ambiguous, it may turn out to be something completely different, but at least this idea relates to some of the other elements in the VMS.
In a previous blog, I noted some of the ways that “mounds” on the VMS rosettes folio might be interpreted. It was barely an introduction, so this is a continuation, with “mounds” discussed in the context of medieval mappae mundi.
The blog format is too constrained to cover all the mappae mundi, so I’ve selected these as the main examples:
Sawley (England, c. 1110), Corpus Christi College
Ebstorf (Germany? 13th c), original destroyed, facsimile in Ebstorf cloister
Hereford (England, late 13th c), Hereford Cathedral
Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève 782 (late 13th c)
Walsperger (Constance, 1448)
Others are identified as they appear.
Basic Format
Western mappa mundae usually place Jerusalem at or near the center, emphasizing its historical and spiritual importance, as in this passage in Ezekial:
Thus saith the Lord God, This is Jerusalem, I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries, that are round about her.
Ezekial 5:5
In the example maps, each depiction of Jerusalem is different, as follows:
Ebstorf: Rectangular aerial view of walls, quite detailed, showing towers, bricks/stones, and battlements, with an image of Christ in the center. The palette is bright and varied.
Hereford: Circular aerial view, with crenelations and 4 plus 4 structures facing the center, in varying shades of brown ink.
S-G 782: A frontal image of a building with towers, crenelations, a saddleback portal, and two crosses, embellished with turquoise. The Sawley mappa is similar except that Jerusalem is slightly off-center from the Cyclades, and it has a dome instead of a saddleback portal entrance.
Walsperger: A more naturalistic view of a walled city with two tall round, layered towers. The palette is green, red, and a pale brownish amber—similar to the VMS except there’s no blue.
Each one is different because the architecture is stylized or entirely fictional. Jerusalem is identified chiefly by the label and its position on the map.
General Shape
Mappae perimeters are usually shaped like a race-track, almond, or circle, ringed by a body of water. This shape may reflect the idea of the map as a “mirror” of the world (the mirror thus reflecting an image given by God). Note that medieval lawbooks, and the scrying glass of John Dee, were also referenced as “mirrors”. They were seen as a vehicle to channel messages from a higher power.
The Sawley map (c. 1110) is oriented with east at the top and the Cyclades in the center (with Jerusalem nearby). Angels preside in each corner. Mountain ranges are lines of small bumps. Specific mountains, like Mount Atlas (bottom-right), are taller mounds:
On some maps, the surrounding waters are embellished with fish, boats, monsters, named or unnamed islands, or people.
Sometimes, God or Jesus is shown at the top or incorporated into the content as head, hands, and feet at the outer edges:
The organization of the towns and landmarks is based partly on biblical events after the flood:
These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations among their people: and out of these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.
Genesis 10
All ethnic groups were said to be descended from Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and the earth was basically “assigned” to their descendants.
By the Middle Ages, mapmakers had a greater awareness of the extents of human populations, the arctic, antarctic, and the east, so they added them to the biblical interpretation while still retaining the basic ideas. Some of these maps were stylized into a T-in-O shape (or a four-part shape similar to a T-in-O).
Thus, we have Asia being roughly half the world, with the rest divided between Europe and Africa (and sometimes the Antipodes are shown as a small section by Africa).
East is Up
In the older mappae mundi, east is usually oriented toward the top. By the 15th century, some maps had south at the top. South was the direction taken by most Europeans for pilgrimmages to Jerusalem, Ethopia, and to reach many of the African and Indian trade routes, so it may have been natural to think of this direction as “up”.
By the end of the 15th century, magnetic compasses were more common and our concept of “up” changed from south to north.
We cannot be sure that the T-in-O on the VMS “map” folio is meant as an orientation symbol (or that the VMS rosettes are strictly geographical) but if it were, it would roughly correspond to compass points as follows:
This would put east at the top in relation to the binding, as would be common for the early 15th century.
More Examples
The 11th century Saint-Sever mappa mundi is race-track-shaped, with east at the top. The Mediterranean divides north and south, and the river systems and Black Sea generally separate Europe from Asia. It’s not quite a T-in-O, but it’s easy to see how the idea of T-in-O evolved.
Note how the Saint-Sever mountain ranges are drawn as lines of triangular bumps, and the tall mountain in the upper-left quadrant looks like a pile of scaly bumps, as in the Sawley map shown earlier. To the right is the Red Sea:
The Royal Higden map (Royal MS 14 C IX, c. 1350), is the same race-track shape, but the drawing surface is rotated 90°, so that Asia is a larger proportion of the total. Jerusalem is a little above center and Noah’s arc to the left:
Mountains are drawn as circles with a bit of green paint in the middle. This top-view theme of mountains as circles is also quite common. Sometimes the rivers flow from their centers, sometimes from the edges.
Often the tower of Babel is included as a tall, narrow, tiered structure, but it is not always large or prominent on the map. The Higden map has an especially fancy drawing of Babylon and Babel:
We often hear about “the seven hills of Rome” but this idea is not usually reflected in medieval mappae mundi. Rome is a fancy building, and the alps are nearby, but the seven hills are not explicitly drawn:
More literal expressions of the seven hills are sometimes found in illuminated manuscripts. These lofty tors reminded me of some of the escarpments in the VMS “map”, but they do not have pathways connecting them:
Mons atlas (a mountain created when Atlas was turned to stone by Perseus) is frequently included on mappae mundi. On the Higden map, it is prominently featured at the bottom with a textured mound rather than a simple circle. This region, next to Morocco, is now known as the Atlas range (note also the highly stylized islands off the coast of Africa):
Mappae mundi are often crowned with images of Paradise, or of Paradise lost (Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden).
Adam and Eve and the serpent are featured prominently at the top of the map in the Beatus of Liébana map (right), and the NAL 2290 Beatus (early 13c).
The NAL 2290 map is round, with a lively procession of castles and critters in the outer ring of water:
Once again, the mountains are drawn as piles of textured bumps.
The Garden of Eden
In the Middle Ages, Eden or “Paradise” was not always represented by Adam and Eve. Sometimes it was a fancy dwelling with four rivers emanating from its edges, including the Tigris and the Euphrates. It was generally believed that Paradise, the cradle of humanity, was near Mesopotamia, in Armenia.
On the Sawley map (right), Paradise is sketched very simply at the top, somewhat organically enclosed by a “moat” connected to the great waters that ring the perimeter. There are two central circles with lines that probably represent the four rivers in a more abstract way than the Walsperger map.
Other frequent landmarks include Paris, Rome, Galicia, Bethlehem, the mouth of the Nile River (and other important rivers), the sea of Galilee, Black sea, Caspian sea, and the Red Sea (which is often painted red), along with various mountain ranges.
Thus, the maps were not strictly geographical, they combined history, landmarks, the origins and spread of humanity, and sometimes animals common to a particular region. Fictitious races of distorted humans are sometimes included, as well, with imagery that later showed up in manuscripts describing the travels of “John de Mandeville”.
Hints of Itinerary Maps
In Liber Floridus (c. 1113), the map is essentially a T-in-O configuration, but it is arranged a little differently from single-page mappae mundi, with water surrounding an entire quadrant. South is somewhat at the top, but only for parts of the map. Eastern Europe, Italy, Germany, France, and Galicia jostle each other around the edge, and Scandinavia is smaller than Saxony. Rome is emphasized in the upper-right. The orientations shifts slightly depending on where you are on the map:
The emphasis on Rome is two-fold. Not only was it the seat of power for much of Christendom, but it was the destination for many clerics to plead their requests or grievances directly to the pope—in other words, they needed to know how to get there.
River Systems
You’ve probably noticed that river deltas are prominently featured in most of these maps. Paradise, Egypt, Europe, the Black Sea, the Rhine, everywhere you look, there are fanlike fingers representing river systems. This is not surprising since water sustains us, feeds our crops, and provides important transportation routes. The way rivers are represented is much the same in maps from Europe and the Arabic world:
On the VMS foldout, Rotum7 has always struck me as similar to an alluvial fan, so much so I have difficulty thinking of alternative explanations. There are mounds in the center, possibly representing mountains as a source of the water. River basins throughout the world have the same basic fan shape.
But… the streaming shapes in Rotum7 are adjacent to the pathway with the Ghibelline merlons. How are we to interpret that?
If this rotum is a river delta, and the merlons represent northern Italy, it’s tempting to interpret it as the Po or Arno river basin. If east is up, then rivers that drain toward the west seem more likely, but I would still caution against taking the T-in-O too literally. If this were a strip map, the orientation could change en route:
I have rotated Rotum7 clockwise so the “labels” are easier to see. Most of the tokens start with o-Ascender, as do those in the “star charts” and “zodiac” sections. For comparison, here is a closeup of Arabic labels at each river mouth, sharing space with coastline symbols:
There might be other explanations for Rotum7. Maybe it’s not a drawing of river systems. It could be argued that the image is inverse, with the streams unpainted and the parts in between being something other than water. Perhaps this is smoke or vapor emanating from a thermal crater, rather than a river basin. Thermal baths or steam vents are found in thousands of locations throughout the world including places where there were swallowtail merlons.
Details, Details…
Petrus Vesconti of Genoa produced a number of maps in Venice in the 1320s. His circular mappa mundi has a more practical feel to it than many of the medieval mappa mundi. Vesconti included the rhumb lines common to seafaring charts and the mountains are more naturalistic:
The Paris and Upsala maps of Jerusalem include mounds with more stylized textures than those of Vesconti. Each of the three mounds in the Upsala map has a different pattern, but all mean the same thing… mountains.
The Matthew Paris map of Jerusalem clearly shows some of the common features: mountains, city walls, major landmarks, and the mouths of springs:
In Liber Floridus, the alps are drawn as a pile of scaly bumps with scepter-like embellishments:
Clearly the use of small heaps of textured bumps to represent mountains is common to medieval maps in several styles. The main difference between the heaps in the VMS and those in other maps are the “spewy” things coming out of them. Are there any medieval maps that are similar?
Mountains with Extra Protruberances
The Beatus of Liebana map exists in a number of versions and was drawn with a variety of textured mounds, as in the Las Huelgas Apocalypse from Spain c. 1220 (Morgan Library):
But it doesn’t have any tufts or spewy things. Neither does this late-medieval copy of an early medieval Arabic map from the Book of Curiosities (Bodley Arab.c.90):
However, other copies of the Beatus map were drawn with feathery “tufts” along the edges, such as the 10th century Escalada Beatus of Valcavado, thought to be from Tábara, Spain:
In the clearly derivative Beatus below, we see the same features: a mountain in Albania with tufts, (mons aquilo, possibly Mt. Korab?), smaller mountains to the right with feathery tree-like tufts on the earlier Beatus, and individual grainlike tufts on the later one.
To the right and down is a mountain that has both tufts and a poof at the summit. It is labelled mons libanus, the old name for a high peak northwest of Damascus, near the coast:
The area around Damascus was volcanically active until the Holocene period and there is an extensive lava field southeast of Damascus, so perhaps the poof refers to volcanic craters.
The VMS also has some tufty looking protrusions on Rotum7 along the edges of the scaly bumps and at the tops of the “mounds”? Might these represent trees in a very abstract way as in the Beatus maps? Might some of the longer ones represent vents as discussed in the previous blog?
Venetian Mappae Mundi
The Giovanni Leardo map of c. 1452/53 is oriented with east and the “earthly paradise” at the top. A calendar fills the outer edge.
The mountains are colored green and pink to help distinguish them from overlapping features, but don’t vary much in texture:
The buildings have a cookie-cutter quality, similar to the mountains, with the more important ones marked with taller or more numerous towers. Jerusalem and Babylon are given special prominence and the Red Sea is bright red:
The Carta Marina, published in Venice a century after the Leardo map (1539), is a very detailed map of Scandinavia and Iceland. Volcanoes are shown as mounds but it’s interesting that fires are raging at the base rather than spewing from the tops as is common on many maps. There is also an interesting twist on rivers, which emerge from pipe-like structures that resemble reservoirs rather than natural springs—a pipelike theme somewhat reminiscent of the VMS:
Two centuries after the VMS, not much had changed in terms of representing mountains. In this 1650 map of Ephraim’s inheritance by Thomas Fuller, we see textured bumps, with higher bumps for taller or more important peaks:
As in the VMS, sometimes the peaks are topped with fortresses:
Most buildings in medieval maps were fictional. They rarely resembled actual structures.
For a unique synthesis of map and myth, take an hour to peruse the drawings of Opicinus de Canistris, who created a series of maps around the 1340s (Vat.Lat.6435). A supporter of the Guelphs (who, in turn, supported the pope in Rome), the biblical elements are very apparent, but his integration of figure and form have a deft puzzle-like quality that is unlike other maps created in the middle ages and which vaguely reminds me of some of the pond-and-river images in the VMS:
Cultural Differences
Arabic maps often share similarities in the ways mountains or rivers are drawn, the 12th century world map by Al-Idrisi is essentially the same as western maps, but there are also some notable differences in maps created by specific map-makers. For example, this 13th-century Zakariya Ibn Muhammad world map, labeled in Arabic, uses scaly textures to represent lakes, rivers, and oceans, and mountains are not included:
Borders
I wanted to make a quick note about borders before summing up. The edges of most mappae mundi are unremarkable, sometimes ringed only by a roughly drawn circle or double line. But some have more elaborate borders.
Here is a circular world map (Kitāb al-masālik wa-al-mamālik), in which the outer ring of water is contained within a lace-like pattern of donuts and loops that resembles tatting:
The Walsperger map has a flame-like border of triangular ticks:
… somewhat similar to the ticks in the VMS:
It’s not exactly the same—the VMS triangles emerge from a scaly base and the flaglike ticks are disengaged from the triangles—but it caught my attention because the Walsperger map includes other relevant details, like placeholders for zodiac symbols and text written within the perimeters of circles.
Highly schematized mandala-like maps with elaborate edges are also found in Indian maps in the 18th and 19th-centuries:
The Emerging Renaissance
The c. 1450 “Fra Mauro” mappa mundi illustrates an increasing trend toward realism as the Renaissance took hold in Europe. Paradise has been conspicuously removed from the top, within the map, as was traditional, and placed outside the perimeter, in a corner. It is contained within a circular enclosure, has a daunting pointy fence, and craggy terrain outside the perimeter (does that sound like the VMS?).
As with its predecessors, there are four rivers running from the edge:
Here is another version with the same basic features:
If it is a Map, Where Does the VMS Fit?
If we assume for the moment that the rosettes foldout is a map, could it be interpreted as a mappa mundi? The perimeter is not round or oval and each rotum is quite large and distinct, larger than one would expect for a world map, but it might be a good exercise to see if it works.
Perhaps, like so many medieval maps, the central rosette is Jerusalem:
This is believable, as Jerusalem is frequently drawn as a circular enclosure with numerous towers. Sometimes stars are included. The enclosure is often a wall of stones or bricks.
Following this line of thought, and depending on the orientation, the bottom-left rosette with rivers or vapors running out of it, or the more symbolic one in the top-middle might be interpreted as Paradise.
Years ago, I thought the Tower in the Hole might be Pisa or, if the map represents Naples, one of the structures coming out of the ancient tunnels that still exist underneath the city. But another possibility is the tower of Babylon, which is almost always included in mappae mundi.
If east is at the top, as per the small T-in-O, then the rotum middle-right could be an aerial view of the lighthouse of Alexandria (see the previous blog for a detailed look at Rotum6):
What about the Swallowtails?
But then it gets complicated… if east is at the top, that would place the Ghibelline merlons in the west (at the bottom) relative to Jerusalem, suggesting that the map as a whole represents the Mediterranean region, rather than the whole world. This, in itself isn’t a problem, but then how does one account for all the other rota?
That Nagging Feeling That it Doesn’t Add Up
The problem is, it doesn’t feel right. On a subjective level, it’s like trying to push square pegs into round holes. Some parts of the VMS “map” can be compared to mappae mundi, such as the way the textured details are drawn. In other ways, it feels more like a strip map (from the beginning, I’ve felt it was more suggestive of a journey than of a world map).
It feels even less like a portolan. In general, portolans were more practical than mappae mundi, and more geographically literal than either mappae mundi or strip maps. They were more likely to include detailed coastlines, navigational lines (wind-rose or “rhumb” lines), and a variety of mariners’ symbols.
Here’s an early and fairly simple version of a portolan with reference lines and numerous harbor markings along the coast of Alexandria:
The children of seafaring merchants were expected to learn math and to know it well, including fractions, distance computation, percentages, area computations, “meet-in-the-middle” problems, differences in speed related to the number of sails, and much more (for examples and a fun read, see Dotson’s Merchant Culture in Fourteenth Century Venice).
With this emphasis on analytical skills, one can expect portlans to be more detailed and accurate than charts based on biblical stories that are intended for general education.
Only a few of the elements of early portolan maps are found in the VMS and they are not synthesized in the same way but, before rejecting them entirely, I think it’s worth illustrating at least one of the later-medieval portolans because they started adapting ideas from mappae mundi.
Evolution of Portolans
By the 15th century, portolans were more detailed and colorful, and included some of the elements more common to mappae mundi: scales and textured mounds for mountains, river deltas colored blue, and more elaborate architectural drawings for cities (both real and mythical). But they continued to include practical elements such as rhumb lines and numerous port symbols, as in this chart by Spanish cartographer Gabriel de Vallsecha:
Ironically, at the same time that portolans were becoming more expressive, mappa mundae were becoming more naturalistic and accurate than traditional T-in-O maps.
Evolution in World Maps
The 15th-century world map of Pirrus de Noha is clearly more geographical than Biblical. The coastlines, mountain ranges and river systems are recognizable without labels. North is at the top, and the eastern portion stretches past the Caucasus, a region only vaguely charted on earlier maps:
In the Pirrus map, the focus is on land masses, so the harbor markers and rhumb lines common to portolans are not present, but the VMS “map” shows no signs of being geographical like the Pirrus map—I included it mainly for contrast to the VMS, and to show some details of mountains and river systems, which are similar to most maps of the time:
Thus, semi-geographical maps, and the 1439 portolan below, represent mountains as rows of triangles or scales, with taller heaps for individual peaks:
It should be clear by now that the VMS is arranged differently from most medieval maps. It’s not overtly similar to mappae mundi or portolans, but there are other kinds of maps that were used regularly in the Middle Ages that might qualify.
Is the VMS like itinerary maps?
Itinerary maps are lists of major landmarks and destinations along the way. Sometimes distance is noted in units of time rather than units of measure. Some itineraries are so detailed, they are like short books, with descriptions of places to sleep or to visit within a local community, others are brief lists of town names in the order in which they were to be visited.
Many are not illustrated, so I took a small section of the 16th-century itinerary of Bartolomeo Fontana (U Penn Codex 451) and mapped the destinations as an example:
This is a fairly short trip compared to some of them, and yet it is eight destinations. If the VMS is an itinerary map and IF it is drawn in two planes, then the number of destinations is very small.
Before we look at strip maps, I’d like to mention a map that doesn’t fit the common categories. It includes elements of both geography and itinerary maps, but leans toward geographical.
A Spartan Format
When I first found this c. 1425 map, the folio was zoomed out and I saw only a grid with some red dots. The preceding folios were star charts, so I assumed the red dots were stars, as well. When I zoomed in, I realized it was a semi-geographical map listing locations from Germany to the Levant and Greece in the southeast, and to Spain in the southwest.
I’ve transliterated and translated some of the better-known locations to make it easier to read. It’s interesting to note the changes in some of the names. For example, Herbipolis is today’s Würzburg. It also provides some insight into the towns that were significant to whoever created the map.
The top of the page is roughly west rather than north and it’s not strictly geographical, even though it’s placed on a grid. These “wandering” compass points are common to itinerary maps and strip maps since the orientation of the folio can be inferred from the names. To give a general idea of the orientation, I added a compass.
Oddly, Nuremberg is shown west of Cologne and, even more surprising, Rome is off the bottom of this clip, southeast of Florence. Most of the other towns are more-or-less in the right orientation to one another:
Below Sicily and Rome, there is a gap. At the bottom is a muddled collection of points vaguely describing Greece, Egypt, the Levant, and “Babilonia Nova” (New Babylon). If you’re wondering where New Babylon is, it’s near the mouth of the Nile (old Babylon was southwest of Baghdad; on medieval mappa mundi, it was usually close to Jerusalem at the center).
On the left are some faint marks that look like roads or coastlines, perhaps the first attempt to create a more conventional map. Whether the final map that we see was considered finished (or “good enough”) we’ll probably never know, but it demonstrates that not all maps followed traditional styles.
Itinerary Maps that Focus on Visuals
Illustrated maps are usually more interesting than written instructions, and there was a significant one passed down to us by Giraldus de Barri (Giraldus Cambrensis), a cleric of Welsh-Norman ancestry. He created or commissioned a map c. 1200 that is sandwiched between his two books on Ireland.
The map seems strange at first. The land masses are blobby, and the top is approximately southeast. Hibernia (Ireland) is at the bottom, but appears too far north of England. Germany and France have been collapsed to a fraction of their size, and the proximity of Iceland to Scandinavia is more sociopolitical than longitudinal.
Right away one can sense similarities to the itinerary map above in terms of geographical compromises. In fact, the orientation of the map shifts as one follows the various routes from Ireland to Rome:
Strip Maps
A strip map falls somewhere between a geographical map and a written itinerary, but is even more schematic than the example posted above. One could call it a Point-A-to-Point-B-to-Point-C map.
A journey from north to south might be expressed in the shape of a snake or a circle so that it fits conveniently on a page. Sometimes the routes are even drawn as strips, like this map describing the road from Hereford to Leicester:
The most charming and interesting strip maps are probably those of Matthew Paris (mid-13th c). They include some of the mythic and geographical quirks of mappa mundi, some of the instructional features of itinerary maps, with added storytelling elements about the journey and what might be seen along the way.
They are, in some ways, the medieval version of a pop-up book. Here, a little flap opens up to show Rome:
A building is topped by a stork, another visited by a turtle. Note how the page is organized into vertical panels like the Leicester map:
Assuming it’s a Map, Where Does the VMS Fit?
To me, the VMS feels much more like a strip map than a portolan or mappa mundi… but only part of it (the outer corners).
The possible nautical symbol in the upper-right corner isn’t enough to confirm it as a portolan. The stars in the upper-right, the T-in-O shape, and the symbol that resembles a sextant (bottom left), might exist for instructional purposes (imagine a father with child at his side pointing out the identity and purpose of individual features).
I’ve tried resolving the features to the bay of Baia and Nisida, the home of many craters, steam vents, and baths of the Pozzuoli complex, and it works quite well, but there’s still the question of the Ghibelline merlons.
A Less Literal Interpretation
In the previous blog, I suggested the map could be interpreted as a synthesis of two planes, an earthly plane and a spiritual/celestial plane, with medieval notions of the elements incorporated into the four corners of the earthly plane:
The pathways connecting the corner rota, and the geographical details along the paths, remind me of strip maps. The other portions remind me of medieval abstractions of the celestial sphere. If this is the correct interpretation, then the likelihood of a strip map diminishes, due to the paucity of “stops”
Patterns Among Rota
The central rotum has always looked to me like a spiritual center, which could be a temple or church (Jerusalem, Rome, a pagan temple, or basically any local spiritual hub), or a representation of “Sol”, Apollo or God. It could even represent heaven, or a return to Paradise, as the ultimate destination on the road of life.
If the “pipes” emanating from Rotum1 are like chimney pipes, channeling heat from a fire, and if Rotum1 represents an earthly location in tandem with the element fire, then maybe the “pipes” around the central rotum also represent heat/light/fire, as is common in medieval cosmological drawings.
The four middle rota, connected to the center, seem more abstract than the corner rota, with radiating lines that were often used to represent celestial objects or events in didactic medieval illustrations of the cosmos. This form of abstraction continued into the Renaissance, but was increasingly accompanied by naturalistic drawings:
Here’s an 18th-century interpretation of the idea of an earthly plane below and a celestial plane above:
Note how the heavens are drawn within the frame of a hanging tapestry, as though enclosed within walls, with stone-like cloud textures around the edge (not dissimilar to the more abstract rota in the VMS).
The earthly plane is drawn like a late-medieval-style map (modern maps are more symbolic)—quite literal and terrain-oriented. The center of the celestial realm above emanates rays.
Even though this engraving came later than the VMS and is a different drawing style, the basic themes are surprisingly similar. Heaven and earth, two different planes, and even though the earthly sphere shows naturalistic terrain and may represent a real location, the intent is not to illustrate a physical journey, but to provide a mental map of where the world fits.
Summary
I want to believe that the VMS “map” represents real places, that it is a strip map representing a journey. I invested years searching for matching locations (and found a few that might be relevant that I haven’t even had time to blog about yet), but the more I study medieval culture, the more I suspect I might be wrong… the corner rosettes map so easily to the four elements, it’s possible that is all they are intended to be, without any particular dependence on real locations.
Even if the drawings are real locations, they don’t necessarily have to be geographically related—the idea that they connect on the lower level (under the mid-folio rota) through pathways is speculation, in which case it isn’t really a map in the geographical sense, it might be more of a teaching map to explain medieval cosmology, with a few well-known or generic locations delightfully illustrated in the corners.
If I find out otherwise, I’ll post about it. I have mountains of information about possible geographical interpretations burning a hole in my hard drive and it would be a shame for them to go to waste. If the VMS turns out to be information deliberately obscured, maybe there’s still hope of decoding the text and understanding the “map” on its own terms.
I have several ideas for how the middle-right rotum on the VMS “map” could be interpreted, so this is just one possibility. I’ve mentioned it a few times on blogs and on the Voynich.ninja forum, but I thought it might be better to post some visuals.
Rotum 6 is ringed by a textured pattern of small circles painted blue. On the left is a different pattern of lines connecting it to the center rotum.
Within the outer blue texture is a double-infurled scalloped pattern resembling a cloudband. In the center is a small circle with a dot (the dot is the compass point) surrounded by another circle of small scaly shapes. From the inner circle emanate two roughly triangular spreading shapes (or perhaps they are pointing to the inner circle). The open portion between the scalloped band and the inner section is dotted with blue paint:
The first time I saw this, I thought it looked like water and rocks, similar to some of the other rota, but the infurled cloudband-shape makes me wonder whether the intention is mythical or real.
Does the double-infurled band indicate another realm or another time period? Could the band be “air”, as in some medieval depictions of the elements? Or could it be sea foam drawn with an infurled band simply because it was a popular theme at the time and they look somewhat the same?
I can’t cover all the possibilities in one blog, so let’s start with one of the more literal interpretations. For the sake of exploration, let’s assume this is something real with water and rocks. One idea I had is an aerial view of a lighthouse.
Medieval Lighthouses
Most medieval lighthouses have been rebuilt. The few that remain in their original form have been fitted with modern beacons and sound systems to replace the fire beacons and manual horns that were used in the Middle Ages. Sometimes they have been made taller. Nevertheless, we can get a sense of how they might have looked from these images:
Ancient lighthouses may have been more squarish or perhaps a combination of squared and round shapes. Many of the medieval lighthouses were round or somewhat round (octagonal) and when they were built on artificial jetties, those were sometimes round, as well.
What about the “Beams”?
Looking at the central circle in Rotum6, it looks like something is streaming out of it or pointing toward it at the top and bottom. Also, if you look closely, you will see small tickmarks on the lower left. The infurled, scalloped shape that resembles a cloudband might indicate another realm, or it could be foam where waves lap up against rocks:
Were light and sound represented with streamers and little tickmarks in the Middle Ages? I wasn’t sure, so I checked, and found that they were:
This doesn’t prove that the VMS lines mean light and sound, but it does show that it’s possible.
I wasn’t sure whether to include this image, as I’m not certain represents sound, but the way it’s coming out of textured bands at the top of the panel reminded me of the bird on VMS folio 86v that I blogged about here. The orientation is different, but the lofty position and the narrative impression are similar:
This image from Giovaninno Di Grassi, with rays coming out of the cloudband, also reminded me of the tor with the birds on VMS f86v:
So, let’s take a look at the evolution of this style of infurled band
The Infurled, Scalloped Band
This infurled cloudlike shape was often used as a divider between the earthly and spiritual/heavenly realms. The scalloped edges were a later medieval style that evolved from simpler wavy shapes. Here is one of my favorite early-medieval cloudlike dividers with simpler bands (Tiberius C-VI):
These are some of the innovations that came later that are similar to the VMS band:
The earliest of these examples, the 13th-century Louis Blanche band, wasn’t infurled, but it did have scalloped edges.
The scalloped infurled bands were quite common by the 15th century—I have far more examples than I can post. One influence may have been an Anglo-Norman tapestry of the New Jerusalem, woven in the late 14th century. Unlike the contents of books, tapestries were often on display, as signs of wealth, where more people could see them:
Another influence might be the design exemplar created by Giovannino di Grassi. You may have noticed that the illustration of the raptors on the tor above includes infurled shapes with scalloped edges. Di Grassi drew the image in his model book in the late 14th century, to provide examples for other illustrators.
Variations
The Rotum6 band is a single row, but sometimes there are multiple rows of bands, with rays and sound-horns coming out of them. This occurs in both Latin and Hebrew texts:
In contrast to infurled bands, here is one comprised of spiral shapes from eastern Europe (probably Bohemia) that is more similar to Asian cloud clusters than the scalloped bands shown above (Velislavova Bible, c. mid-1400s):
The Lauber workshop, not surprisingly, created quickie versions of the western style of scallop:
This form of scallop was later repeated in a printed version of De Sphaera.
This super-quickie version, without the scalloped edges, appears in NYPL ma 104 (c. 1445). The drawing style of the figures is not too different from the VMS, but more care and attention was given to VMS decorative elements and textures:
The motif remained even after printed books displaced hand-drawn illuminations. A mappa mundi created by Hanns Rüst, published in Augsburg c. 1480, includes infurled bands, and a small inverted-T-O in the bottom-right corner:
On the same page, in the lower-left is a similar image, except it is arranged in bands rather than as a tripartate scheme, and thus the infurled shape is repeated as a representation of “air” within this schema, above horizontal bands of water, earth, and fire:
Thus, it can be seen that the infurled band was most popular in the late 14th century and the 15th century, consistent with the radiocarbon dating, and everything I’ve discovered so far about the paleographic characteristics of the manuscript.
But what does it mean in the VMS? Is it decorative or symbolic? If it’s symbolic, is it representative of another realm, or perhaps the element air? Or is it stylized sea foam around the base of a lighthouse?
Maybe the Answer is Simpler
Maybe Rotum6 is not a lighthouse, even though a lighthouse would fit well with the other water and rock/mountain imagery on the VMS “map”. Maybe it’s something more simple or more abstract.
Coming back to examples from Cotton Tiberius C VI, it can be seen that biblical stores often include beams of light, horns, and other iconography that represent the light of God, the majesty or power of God, or the voice of God (or one of his emissaries), emanating from a heavenly-realm band:
Infurled bands can also be found in stories of creation, as in this Anglo-Normal Bible (BL Additional 47682, 1330s):
Notice that the centers are rather abstract. You wouldn’t know what they represent without context (which may also be true of the four mid-side rota in the VMS “map”).
There is a more intricate version of the band in Egerton 1894 (c. 1360s), with God creating the animals (note also the rainbow):
Sometimes the story of creation gets all bundled up with Eden, animals, elements, winds, angels, the sound/word of God, and an extra scalloped band for good measure:
So this infurled style of band is frequently used to represent a division between realms (usually heaven and earth), but it can also represent “air”.
Could there be two different “planes” of meaning on the VMS “map” folio?
The VMS “Map” Seen as Layers
Perhaps the central rosette is a spiritual center (a church or temple, or Jerusalem, Eden, or Rome), and the four radiating “mouths” are the winds, connecting it to four rota on the middle-sides. There’s a certain consistency of theme among these. Each one has lines radiating from the center toward the edges (in Rotum6 there are only two rather than multiple spokes). Each one is explicitly connected to the central, larger rotum:
The four rota in the corners are drawn and connected in a different way from those on the sides—they are also more literal and detailed in a geographical sense. They are not directly connected to the center, like the side rota. Instead, they have “pathways” that connect around the edges of the folio.
Maybe these paths don’t go through the four side-middle groups as it appears at first glance… maybe they connect directly to the other corners on another plane. We might be looking at a spiritual plane and an earthly plane:
Even though the corners do not connect directly to the center (just as earth does not directly connect to heaven), they do in a sense “point” to the center using protruberances such as pipes and mounds. Each corner rotum has a certain amount of terrain or context extending into the space outside the edges (suns, symbols, textures).
There are two pathways extending from the sides of the corner rota, but each is a slightly different design. And each rotum has a different inner design (oval, spiral, terrain-like, garden-like).
One way to look at this is that the outer corners may represent the earthly plane, and thus embody (from the top-right going clockwise), the elements of water, air, earth, and fire, and still (at the same time) represent real locations, but before this idea is discussed in depth, I have some information on mapping traditions I’d like to post first.
Sorry for the abrupt interruption, but this was originally a small portion of a very long blog that goes into detail on whether the VMS “map” is traditional, metaphorical, or literal. It was much too long for one post, so I split it in two. I will post the rest of it as soon as I can figure out how to break up the remaining portion into two, as well, as it is also much too long.
In a recent blog, I described a few interpretations of Rotum 1 (top-left) on the VMS “map” folio. One possibility is an aerial view of a volcano. But Rotum 1 isn’t the only shape that might be interpreted as a volcano. There are other mountain-like structures on the same folio, if one views them from the side instead of the top.
The “map” folio has a wealth of textural structures, too many to describe in a dozen blogs. So this blog will focus on the patterned triangular shapes attached to the sides of the circular rota.
Rotum 3 (top-right) and Rotum 9 (bottom-right) are somewhat different, but the mountain shapes have some commonalities. Both of them are textured, with circles and blue paint in the pattern, both appear to have holes at the top, and both point toward the center of the folio.
Sometimes bumps are intended to describe rough terrain, rocks, or mountainous regions, as this example from Losbuch (15th c):
But the VMS structures are on the outsides of the circles, are more triangular, and appear to have openings at the ends with something coming out of them:
For years I have thought of these as “spewy things”. But if they were, I wasn’t sure whether to interpret them as horizontal outflows (e.g., exit spouts or natural springs), or as vertical steam vents, geysers, volcanoes, or something else.
It even occurred to me that some of them might be steaming compost piles, which might fit one possible interpretation of Rotum 9 as an irrigated garden:
Details of the Emanations
It’s interesting that the protrusions have different patterns, and different “somethings” spewing from the openings. Here’s a close-up of whatever is emanating from the tops:
The one on the left is somewhat watery and free-form, the other somewhat circular, like the splash from dropping a rock in a pond.
The patterns on both bumps are made of circles and lines, but the one on the left is somewhat scaly and lumpy. The one on the right, more linear and smooth on the edges, with alternating small and large dots. Both have alternating sections colored in blue.
Are the textural differences decorative or meaningful? Are there clues on the page to help us work it out?
There are four shorter spewy things between the central rotum and those on each side. They have a simpler scale pattern, but does that mean they are different structures?
I have enlarged and rotated the insets so it’s easier to compare them:
They all connect to the outer rota in essentially the same way. At four points, there emerges a pile of scaly textures with something spewing out. They are not as large as those on Rota 3 and 9 and they are more similar to one another. But the emanations from each has a different pattern. From the top going clockwise, there are
alternating circles and lines, with a touch of blue paint between the rows of circles,
alternating bands, some with very light lines with a touch of pale amber, the others with short lines in the perpendicular direction, parallel tick marks in groups of three,
blank bands alternating with wider bands filled with chevron-style vee shapes, no paint, and
alternating bands of angled tick marks, each band angled in the other direction, somewhat chevron-like if seen from farther back, no paint.
Triangle, chevron, and scale patterns are common to many cultures and go back a long way. They are found in manuscript art, jewelry, and architectural embellishments:
This example from the Beehive tomb in Praesos is more than 2,000 years old:
An Uncertain Context
To me, the central rotum suggests an inverted dome, the kind that is embellished with stars, so I wondered if this rosette might have spiritual significance. The double-scalloped band near the perimeter seems to reinforce this possibility, but since the identity of the central structures is not yet certain, it’s hard to know whether the spewy things are imaginary or real.
I’m also not quite sure how to interpret the pipes. I’ve always wanted to associate them with aqueducts, chimneys, or steam vents, but it’s tempting to think of them as sighting tubes (I’m a gadget freak, so I’m always imagining scientific instruments).
Sighting tubes were in regular use in the Middle Ages, but it would be unusual for there to be so many of them. They’re not all drawn the same, some have smooth sides, with dots around the ends, and come in different lengths; others are the same length, and have a pattern of dots along the length of the tube. Unlike the vent-like structures, they do not spew or connect the rota, and they don’t quite look like chimney pipes. These will have to wait for a separate blog.
I spent quite a bit of time in the early days trying to reconcile the “rosettes” folio with Jerusalem, but every time I tried, the topological features didn’t quite fit. I wasn’t able to reconcile them with mythical New Jerusalem either.
I wondered if it might be a mnemonic map of myths.
Myths, Mountains, and Spewy Things
The interesting structures below are in the Psychro cave in eastern Crete. It has been a sacred cave since ancient times and is associated with the birthplace of Zeus. Some of the textures on the nymph pages remind me of grottoes and caves.
The myth of baby Zeus might fit some of the features…
To save him from being eaten by his father, Zeus was hidden away in a cave and raised by his nursemaid Rhea, goddess of mountain tops and forests.
The cave had bees emanating from it that supplied baby Zeus with honey. Sometimes fire was said to emanate from the cave. Could some of the structures with openings be cave entrances? Might some of the spewings be sacred bees or flames?
The interior of this cave has several textural patterns:
Stalagmites don’t spew, but stalactites drip moisture and chemical residues, and are often associated with watery discharges. Could the VMS textures be inspired by cave formations?
The tops of mountains were often seen as sacred places, and sometimes modified to create temples. This is a Minoan artifact with VMS-like scaly structures representing a mountain:
What if the textured bumps are geological rather than ornamental or mythical…
Natural Structures that Spew
There are volcanic structures that spew gases and mud, and the patterns on the sides can be quite varied. Geologically active areas exist in many regions, including Romania, Yellowstone park, Azerbaijan, China, Sicily, Naples, and some of the spa regions in central and eastern Europe. Even Antarctica has towering gas vents sheathed with ice.
Here are some mud volcanoes. Note the varied textures:
Some mud volcanoes splash, as powerful gas blurps out the mud. Others ooze and slowly drip down the sides. The texture changes as the material dries, and is partly molded by local weather conditions. Could the lumps on Rotum 3 and 9 represent different kinds of mud volcanoes, or two different stages in their formation?
Mud vents would fit well with the bathy themes in the VMS. In Naples and the Aeolian Islands near Sicily, people bathe in mud pools. Cleopatra is said to have enjoyed the mud baths in southeastern Turkey:
Could They be Vapor Without the Mud?
Fumaroles, which emit clouds of gases, vary considerably in shape and texture, as in these Google Image examples:
A fun fact about fumaroles is that they sometimes blow smoke rings.
I thought the circular formation above the bump on Rotum 9 might be a stylized splash, as in the mudbath image posted earlier, or a loud sound, but perhaps it’s the birth of a smoke ring.
I can’t post this Rights-Managed image, but here is a link, so you can see an example:
There are many fumaroles in Iceland, Yellowstone and Lassen parks, El Tatio, Dominica, Naples, and Sicily. These photos illustrate how varied they can be:
Relationships to Other Folios
I like to look at things in context and the VMS is more than a map-like foldout. There are textures in the bathy and cosmological sections similar to those on the rosettes folio.
Could there be a relationship between the structures in the VMS “map” and other textural folios like 86v, or do the bumpy textures on 86v represent something completely different?
Is 86v a Different Kind of Information?
There are textural groups in each of the four corners of 86v, and emanations as well. But it is much simpler, overall, than the rosettes folio, and there are humans and birds on the left and right sides.
The structures at the top might be weather-related or celestial (assuming this folio has a “top” and a “bottom”). Those at the bottom resemble stylized mountains or island tors. They are quite dynamically slanted toward the center, slightly off-kilter. One of the humans appears to be hiding. The VMS rosettes folio has an explanatory, practical feel to it. This one has a more narrative feel.
If it is narrative, can we guess what it is?
I have a lot of ideas about this, but I’ll choose three as examples…
Here’s one possible interpretation, according to an ancient myth:
But there are other possibilities, like this one:
Or perhaps something like this:
The last one is based on the book of Revelation. It describes the cataclysm that occurs when the Sixth Seal is opened.
Apocalyptic scenes of the Sixth Seal, like the one below from Getty Ludwig III 1 (c. 1255), traditionally show the sun and the moon and sometimes a cloud-like division between heaven and earth. The heavenly bodies drop stars like figs (note the star shapes and snowball shapes). The people hide in the mountains (often there are two mountains resembling giant termite mounds, one or both with a tree):
This more traditional image is stylistically different from the VMS, but ignoring the style, the enigmatic 86v has some of the same narrative flavor as other medieval illustrations.
As a side note, the theme of sun and moon within a defining cloudlike band is very ancient, as in this pre-Hellenic Minoan artifact illustrating rites in a sacred grove (notice also the many textures):
The same sun/moon/cloud-band motif can be seen in the 12th century Eadwine Psalter (which I’ve discussed on the Voynich.ninja forum):
The Eadwine Psalter has some elements similar to 86v, including emanations from the heavens, and trees, birds, and hilltops:
Note how each wall has a different pattern, even though they are essentially the same kinds of walls. Is this what is happening in the VMS, or are the textures meant to convey differences?
In the VMS, I get the feeling that the varying textures in the big bumps on the “map” folio and those on 86v represent different (or somewhat different) things. The patterns in the emanations from the smaller bumps however (the ones in the insets), might be purely decorative.
Summary
One blog can’t even begin to introduce the subject of the VMS textures—this only scratches the surface. The important thing to remember is there are many ways to interpret the same drawing, and it’s not enough to look at one folio, others should be considered as well..
Postscript 6 March 2019: I mentioned termite mounds in my article, but forgot to include the picture and search link.
Termite mounds are quite sophisticated and diverse in size and texture and some of them resemble the ventlike shapes in the VMS. Some even have regular patterns of holes around the sides. They don’t “spew” from their tops, but if the VMS mounds are meant to be horizontal rather than vertical, then the entrance and exit of insects, like termites, ants or wasps, might be represented by a variety of textures pouring out from a hole.
I’ve frequently mentioned that the VMS illustrator had difficulty visualizing three dimensions. This weakness is especially apparent in the joints of humans and animals. Joints are attached to the torso with interlocking sockets and a specific pattern of controlling muscles, and the VMS illustrator didn’t “get” this (or wasn’t able to picture it in his or her mind) and thus relied on formulas (or imperfect copies of exemplars) instead.
When I first looked at the VMS “zodiac” figures, I noticed that the hind limbs of VMS critters were distinctly quirky. I searched for examples of this anatomical eccentricity for years and they were harder to find than I expected. Even illustrators with weak drawing skills usually understood that the hind limbs of these animals angle backward, and yet the VMS illustrator did not (click to see larger):
When I did find a creature with similarly odd hind limbs, it was in a Lauber manuscript that I blogged about in January 2016. It wasn’t just the hind limbs that were anatomically peculiar, the drawing was similar to the VMS in other ways, including subject matter and palette—and both were pond critters. Even the face of the vaguely defined critter was somewhat similar in form and expression to the VMS.
I will post the example again with arrows added so I don’t have to repeat the commentary from the previous blog:
Obviously the illustrator on the right is more skilled, but the subject matter, general idea, and even some of the execution is similar.
Now let’s look at human joints where there is a similar VMS anomaly.
Note in these samples how the shoulder joint is almost missing. There is a line connecting the neck to the upper arm that never really defines the shoulder correctly. As a result, the neck looks unusually thick and the arm has a vague snake-like appearance. In one case, the arm is coming out of the nymph’s cheek!
The illustrator adapted a formula and rarely varied from it.
Are the Faces Also Unusual?
If we momentarily ignore the arm coming out of the neck, the VMS faces are not especially unusual. Below left are six examples from approximately the same angle. Note that they have similarly rounded bumps for the cheek, vague chins, and almost absent jawlines on the side facing the viewer.
Many of the faces on the right, from other manuscripts, follow the same basic formula. The L-shaped nose is also quite common, as are the ruddy cheeks. The main difference is that the eyes and lips are defined a little better than those in the VMS:
So the misplaced shoulder is rather unusual, but the general form of the faces is not.
What about the details?
There are many places in the VMS where breasts and other parts appear to have been added later, sometimes in a darker ink, maybe by a different hand, maybe not. It’s difficult to know if another hand added them since the breasts vary from one drawing to the next, not just from one group to the next. Maybe they were added by the same person sometime later. The only place they seem significantly different is where they are drawn like big round eyeballs.
Note the faces on the left in the following examples. The majority of VMS faces are drawn this way, with a bumpy line defining the outer contour, similar to those in the previous chart. But there are a few that are drawn like the ones on the right, with a distinctive shape that defines a melon-shaped forehead and connects it in a continuous curve to the nose. Like the nose on one of the Aries figures, this looks suspiciously like a different hand, more confident and slightly more skilled, even if it’s an odd way to draw a face:
The added lines on the right have an almost cartoon-like quality. So far, I haven’t found faces in other manuscripts drawn this way.
I thought the over-inking and melon-shaped foreheads might have been done at a later time (perhaps much later), but the more I looked at the faces with this peculiar forehead, the more I realized that other figures with this difference looked like original drawings rather than ones that were inked in later. Here are some examples. Note the hollow-looking eyes:
There’s another variation in the VMS faces that caught my attention. Even though most of the facial features are essentially the same, a few of the VMS nymphs have an extra little point in their chins, a variation that is less common than the rounded or almost-absent chin:
This is the feature that seems most distinctive, next to the melon-foreheads. The weirdly attached shoulder is also unusual enough that it could be spotted in another manuscript.
Summary
I have more information on VMS bodies, but this is enough for now. There are certain facial formulae in the VMS that are distinctive, particularly the melon-forehead and chin with a tiny point, combined with the vaguely defined closer side, L-shaped nose, and ruddy cheeks.
This was not an artist drawing from a variety of angles who was thinking about light and composition. The VMS illustrator learned a simple “outline” approach with little consideration for the underlying muscles or joints. The resultant drawings are clumsy, but have the advantage of speed—many figures could be drawn in a short time.
The upper-left rotum in the VMS “map” is often called a “volcano”—a handy term that most people intuitively comprehend even if we don’t know what the drawing represents.
Volcanic eruptions have long been memorialized in drawings and chronicles, including a Pseudo-Dionysius description from the 6th century:
Such was the violent and harsh disaster, which was sent from heaven, that fire alight and consumed those who had escaped from the terrible vehemence of the cataclysm of the earthquake and the collapse: the sparks flew and set fire to everything on which they settled. The earth itself from below, from within the soil, surged, seethed and burned everything which was there. Thus the foundations as well, together with all the storeys above them, were lifted up, heaved up and down and burst apart, collapsed, fell and burned with fire… In the end no house or church or building of any kind remained, not even the garden fences, which had not been torn asunder or damaged, or had not disintegrated and fallen. The rest burned, crumbled away and became like an extended putrefaction.
It’s possible volcanic eruptions were depicted in ancient cave paintings, but this particular cataclysm was not especially common in medieval art, which makes it difficult to identify illustrative traditions.
This clip is from a 1580 Portolan map (BSB Cod.icon.137) and might look like a volcano at first glance…
but it actually represents the source of the Nile River:
which I thought was interesting because there is speculation about whether the wavy shapes inside the VMS “volcano” might represent flames, water, or something else.
This clip from 1587 is drawn in a similar way (except that the poof is red instead of blue) and represents a volcano in Sicily (in fact volcanic eruptions changed the coastline so dramatically, it’s hard to know what it looked like in the Middle Ages):
In one version of De Balneis by Petrus de Ebulo (BNF Latin 8161), bathers enjoy the healing waters at the base of a volcano:
(Note the scalloped pattern around the rim of the archway.)
In another version of De Balneis (Angelica) the volcanic activity is more explicit:
In yet another version of De Balneis (Edinburgh), the fumes are rising on the far right, and radiating as heat (and possibly also as fumes) toward the bathers:
There is a more detailed history of the baths here (which were eventually destroyed by volcanic eruptions):
By 1585, depictions of volcanic eruptions were more naturalistic, as in Ortelius’s map of Mt. Hekla erupting in Iceland:
One of the significant thermal sources at Pozzuoli was known as The Solfatar, which was commemorated in a fresco in Rome in the early 1600s:
Baratta and Perrey (1680) recorded volcanic activity in Naples in the following engraving, at the site of the former Pozzuoli baths and the island of Nisida.
In the past, I have suggested Nisida as a possible source for the top-right VMS rotum. I have numerous ideas for this rotum, but the island of Nisida is on my Top-5 list because it matches several of the topological features of the VMS “map”.
Nisida is shaped like a horseshoe, with a “bowl” of seawater facing deeper water, and may have been connected to the mainland by a stone jetty as it is today. Sea levels were lower in the early Middle Ages and apparently rose again a couple of centuries before the eruption of Monte Nuovo in 1538.
Here is a 1776 view of the Nisida crater, which formed a small harbor:
Note in the Baratta/Perrey engraving that there might be a lighthouse on one or more of the outcroppings. Could Rotum6 be an aerial view of a lighthouse with light streaming out from a central column and sea foam lapping against the rocks at the base?:
A 19th-century engraving shows a partly-submerged castle in shallow water near Nisida (perhaps connected to the island by a jetty?). There are also grottoes in the area (the VMS has a number of grotto-like images):
Below is a contemporary view of Nisida from the mainland, showing the white-stone jetty. Note the vantage point for the photo is quite high (there are escarpments in the VMS drawing between Rotum 2 and 3 that might correspond to cliffs).
It is a volcanically active area with many hilly craters and thermal vents. The horseshoe part of Nisida juts out to sea and is battered by rougher water when it’s stormy. There are castle ruins and traces of an old wall in the aerial photos.
Could the “channels” between the rota be jetties? Erosion and several changes in sea levels have probably increased the size of the hole in the center, but I don’t know how much this has changed since the 15th century.
Other Possibilities
I have much more information on a possible connection to Naples, but what if it’s not a volcano? With the VMS, there are always other possibilities…
As I’ve written previously, the “volcano” in the VMS could be interpreted in many ways—as a volcano, or the biblical Mount of Olives, a coliseum flooded for water sports (which apparently were quite popular), a famous hill (e.g., the hills of Rome), a hell mouth (I think I heard the hellmouth idea from Ellie Velinska), the New Jerusalem (or some other metaphorical location or description of elemental order), the real Jerusalem, the Baths of Pozzuoli (Campi Flegrei or the sulphur craters), and a few others.
Usually a hellmouth was drawn as a dragon, whale, or crocodile with a toothy, gaping maw, as in this example from the Winchester Psalter (c. 1150):
but not always. Here is a schematic representation from the Huntington Library (Germany, c. 1487) that is reminiscent of the eye-shaped rotum in the VMS map (there are even round protrusions on the top-right of the doorway):
Original Ideas
K. Gheuens offered a provocative parallel to the eye-specked fringe of a mollusc. This is one of my favorites, since there are VMS plants suggestive of sea life, including roots that resemble crab, jellyfish, and octopus. Even if none of the imagery turns out to be sea life, the organic shapes give the feeling the illustrator might have lived near the coast for some part of his or her life.
Speaking of sea creatures, this drawing in Bodley 602 has a scallop-like critter that resembles some of the “umbrellas” and other textural motifs in the VMS:
If Rotum 1 really is a volcano, then I think locations like Naples and Sicily deserve serious consideration. If not, then there are many possibilities, maybe even some that haven’t yet been suggested.
I planned to post this image of Vesuvius in this blog, but I couldn’t find my link. Then I remembered I had posted it on the Voynich.ninja forum in September 2018, along with some images of volcanoes in Sicily, and other structures (like coliseums) that are large and eye-shaped. It is a re-creation published in Popular Science Monthly in 1906 of what Vesuvius may have looked like in the Middle Ages before the significant eruption of 1631:
Vesuvius was the first volcano I looked at (because the crater is eye-shaped), but I soon realized there are many craters around Napoli that might qualify as a VMS “volcano”, and there are other regions with volcanoes that somewhat match the topology in the VMS rota.
It occurred to me when I first noticed the “pipes” on the rosette foldout, that they might be Medieval or Roman aqueducts, or perhaps “soffioni” (hot steam jets) that occur naturally (or might have been installed) in some of these thermally active areas.
Steam vents sometimes had spiritual significance. Lewis R. Freeman reported in Popular Mechanics that the Romans erected an oracle (and later a spa) at the steam vents of Larderello, near Volterra, Tuscany (look up Priest Consulting Oracle in the Museo Guarnacci Volterra to see a frieze). Could the temple-like dome in the central rotum be an oracle or later spiritual center? Even after Europe was Christianized, many of the Pagan oracle locations were retained as religious sites.
The Romans also built a coliseum in Volterra and, right next to it, a bath complex. Volterra was under Florentine rule in the 15th century and now is a major geothermal engineering center.
After collecting more than 500 zodiac series and analyzing their patterns, it becomes apparent that the VMS zodiac figures are consistent with thematic traditions from central Europe ranging from the late 12th century to the early 15th century.
Discovering this goes far beyond comparing images. Traditions and thematic families allow leeway for personal expression. For example, colors or the direction in which an animal is facing were not always slavishly copied by illustrators and do not appear to negate a thematic relationship to other zodiacs. Considerable study was necessary to determine which details are significant and what can be expected to vary within a reasonable range without straying outside the pattern.
The VMS only includes 10 of the 12 figures that are traditionally found in figurative representations of “zodiacs”, symbols of constellations that occur along the ecliptic, so Aquarius (water bearer) and Capricorn (the goat) were excluded from searches.
The Difference Between Classical Zodiacs and A Subset of Medieval Zodiacs
Classical drawings of zodiac figures depict Cancer as a crab and Libra as a figure holding the scales or sitting on top of the scales. Most of the Roman carvings, and the Beit Alpha mosaics, follow this model, as do 11th- and 12-century friezes in Spain and France. Here are some early examples that illustrate how the VMS departs from classical tradition by using a crayfish instead of a crab and a scale with no figure:
Occasionally, when space was constrained, the Libra scales were drawn without a figure, but those in manuscripts were usually held by a male figure, or by a scorpion. Similarly, Virgo was usually male. Virgo and/or Libra were sometimes drawn with wings. As time went on, a female was gradually substituted for the male and wings were less often included.
Patterns that Relate to the VMS
I have already posted some “combination searches” in previous blogs. This one attempts to zero in on which relationships to other manuscripts are the most crucial.
Using a sample of 520 medieval zodiac series, only 25% were found to depict Cancer as a crayfish/lobster together with Libra scales without a figure. This break with tradition may have originated in church portal sculpture, but appears to have entered manuscripts sometime around the 12th century:
This puts the VMS in the thematic minority. If we filter the zodiacs further, to exclude Sagittarius with four legs, it reduces the number to 6%.
What is particularly interesting is that this added filter does not change the approximate date range of early examples that break with tradition in the same ways as the VMS and, as an added bonus, the following 12th-century examples also include Leo with his tail wound between his legs. When a pattern like this occurs naturally, without explicit filtering, it is usually not a coincidence:
Some of the zodiacs from this time period match the first three filters, but continue to use the traditional 4-legged centaur to represent Sagittarius. Those with a centaur have proportionately fewer Leos with the tail between the legs. Even though the two sets are regionally similar (primarily Germany and, to some extent France), this may be the beginning of two separate branches.
This series from southern Germany is incomplete (Libra is missing) but it shows that even zodiacs that are drawn quite differently can follow the same thematic patterns:
Note that by the 14th century, leg-tail Leo was paired with centaur-Sagittarius more often than in earlier manuscripts. Traditions don’t always diverge, sometimes they go the other way, as well.
When did Cancer as a crayfish emerge?
Some might say Cotton MS Galba A XVIII (9th c) is the first crayfish, but it’s very oddly drawn, with two heads, and it was very rare for English manuscripts to include a crayfish, most of them are crabs. It is possible that it’s not from England (historians aren’t sure). Many manuscripts in English collections are thought to be from Normandy.
Badly drawn crabs sometimes look like crayfish, but one of the earliest unambiguous crayfish is in Vatican Reg.lat.123 from St. Maria Rivipulli/Ripoll monastery, Catalonia, Spain (mid-11th century).
Crayfish were historically abundant in this area and are still featured on many menus, so perhaps that’s why they substituted a crayfish for a crab. However, as can be seen from the image above, the rest of the zodiac series is completely traditional, and the scales are carried by a winged figure. Other than the crayfish, it doesn’t resemble the VMS.
Taking Cancer and Libra Together
One of the earliest examples that includes both crayfish-Cancer and no-figure Libra is the Stammheim Missal, originating in Hildesheim, Germany, c. 1170s. I have mentioned this before because it has other commonalities with the VMS (including two-legged Sagittarius, and Leo with the tail through the legs). It doesn’t match on all counts, but it’s one of the earliest manuscripts that hints at the transition to VMS-like zodiacs,. Note that the figures are contained within roundels:
There is a Psalter fragment in the British Library (Landsowne 381) created around the same time as the Stammheim Missal that has similar Cancer, Libra, and leg-tail Leo, but the twins are dressed in Roman garb and are not touching, and Sagittarius is a four-legged centaur.
What about Gemini?
I’ve mentioned the Claricia Psalter numerous times because it has much in common with the VMS. In addition to crayfish Cancer and no-figure Libra, it has a leg-tail lion, one of the first overtly affectionate male-female Geminis, a human Sagittarius, and a non-scorpion Scorpius. It originated in Augsburg, Germany, in the 12th or 13th century. In terms of the basic “template”, it differs very little from the VMS and is clearly modeled on the same themes as the Augsburg Psalter. I’ll repost the images:
Note how the goat and the ram are painted different colors, the turtle/tarasque is from a different angle, and the bull and goat are facing the other way, and yet the overall thematic similarities are striking.
Augsburg is in southern Germany, not far from where Hildegard von Bingen created these zodiac figures:
[Image source: Hedidelberg digital library, Cod. Sal. X 16]
Hildegard von Bingen’s zodiac series (c. 1200) features crayfish-Cancer, no-figure Libra, and non-scorpion Scorpius, but Sagittarius is a traditional centaur, and Leo’s tail does not thread through the legs, which makes it more similar to the Oettingen Psalter (BVB Cod.I.2.4.19) and the Bambergher Psalter than the VMS.
You may have noticed that the Soissons Cathedral windows are quite similar to the VMS and even include trees in the background, but some of the glass has been replaced and it’s difficult to know if the new glass mimicked designs from the 12th century or updated them. If the designs are faithful to the original, they follow a similar model to the VMS, including leg-tail Leo and two-legged Sagittarius, as discussed in my earlier posts on the evolution of zodiacs. It even looks like Aries might be nibbling from a bush or a basket.
The use of a crossbow rather than a longbow probably represents a sub-branch or may, in some cases, be a simple matter of illustrator choice (crossbow tournaments were popular at the time). The most important distinction for this sign appears to be the number of legs rather than the kind of bow. Whether Sagittarius is human or satyr also appears to be less important than the number of legs.
The Origins of the Traditions
I’ve created a map to show the origins of manuscripts that emerged with these filters. This is a work in progress and I have not yet double-checked the datapoints, but they are accurate enough to show that zodiacs, when filtered for Crayfish-Cancer, no-figure Libra, 2-leg Sagittarius, and leg-tail Leo, are conspicuously clustered within the Holy Roman Empire and very conspicuously absent from England, Scandinavia, Spain, southern Italy, southeast Europe and the Middle East (at least so far).
Summary
I’ve mentioned these zodiacs in previous articles and can’t present all the pictures because there are too many for one blog, but I did want to emphasize this: the data tells us that the VMS fits comfortably within existing traditions, particularly those in Germany and northeastern France and Flanders.
This doesn’t reveal where the creators of the VMS were from, but it does suggest that at least one of them was familiar with specific illustrative themes and probably copied the ideas (not necessarily the drawings) from one or more zodiac-series exemplars that originated between c.1170 to c.1430. Some of the English zodiacs are similar, but they differ from the VMS in favoring a centaur-Sagittarius, and Gemini as nude male twins.
If you filter even further to include affectionate Gemini and non-scorpion Scorpio, north-central Germany comes closer than England or France:
Examples from 13th-century Augsburg and Magdeburg/Hildesheim are particularly significant. In fact, these somewhat distant locations might indicate an important line of transmission between north and south.
Did medieval illustrators confuse Musa (which we now know as banana) with another plant labeled “muse”? Early drawings of “muse” fruits don’t look like bananas. They are small, with pointy ends. In fact, the taste of “muse” was likened to cucumber or melon, fruits that are much more watery than banana. Yet as time went on, the descriptions, drawings, and the name were changed to “Musa”, which we know as banana/plantain plants.
Bananas and other eastern or African semitropical and tropical plants were probably known to Europeans through word-of-mouth, just as they had heard of hyenas but apparently had not seen them. Medieval drawings of hyenas are quite fanciful, and sometimes understood only by their labels. Is this what happened to banana plants? Did they invent the drawings and call them “muse”, or are the early herbals depicting some other plant that became confused with banana plants as knowledge of the banana gradually spread through Europe?
Sugar cane was known in Europe from early times (although it was not imported into northern Europe until later), probably because it’s easier to ship than many kinds of plants, but bananas are not easy to ship. They bruise and ferment and thus were not as familiar to Europeans as sugar cane in the early Middle Ages.
Historical Background
There were a number of plants locally called “muse/musse/mus” in the Middle Ages—field plants like “mouse ear” that are similar to Hieracium, but they don’t look like the 14th-century drawings labeled “muse/musse” in manuscripts such as the Manfredus herbal, or in the various copies of Tacuinum Sanitatis.
So if “muse” is not the mouse-ear plant (which is often included in herbal manuscripts under other names, and usually drawn fairly accurately), and it’s not banana, then what is it?
Lining up the Illustrations
Maybe Egerton 747, the Manfredus du Monte herbal, and versions of Tacuinum Sanitatis can provide clues. There is a plant in the Manfredus manuscript that has an analog in both form and name that might easily be confused with banana.
First note how “muse/musse” is drawn. It’s not a good representation of a banana plant. It has a basal whorl of upright lanceolate leaves, similar in shape to Inula, and nut-like dangling fruits sometimes painted red, sometimes yellow (this color difference is significant, as will be illustrated later). Banana plants might look vaguely like this when they first start to sprout, but the stalks grow substantially before they bear fruit and the fruits do not hang on long stalks with skinny petioles above the leaves.
Sometimes the fruits of “muse” are drawn a little more capsule-shaped, with striations, but these too are quite different from banana. The image on the left is from the Manfredus herbal (late 14th century), those in the middle are from two different versions of Tacuinum Sanitatus:
In the text that accompanies earlier drawings of “muse”, the leaves have been compared to Inula (which does not resemble banana leaves), and the taste has been compared to melon and to citric fruits (which doesn’t match well with banana either).
So there are several problems with assuming that “muse” is Musa (banana):
The name is different.
The leaves are shaped and positioned differently.
The fruit stalks are much too tall and the fruits too discrete and the wrong shape for bananas.
The description of the taste doesn’t fit banana.
In later herbals, the descriptions start to sound more like banana (based on the assumption that “muse” was an alternate spelling for “musa”) and the name is changed to “musa”. Eventually drawings and descriptions of real banana plants are substituted.
Other Possibilities
Is there a plant that matches “muse” better than banana?
Yes. I don’t know if it’s the correct plant, but melegueta matches better to the drawing and description of “muse” than the banana.
And here’s the interesting part (and another reason it might be confused with banana). Banana became known as Musa paradisa. The melegueta plant is known as “pomum paradisi” (apple of paradise). Thus, if someone unfamiliar with melegueta saw the name “muse” in combination with “paradisi” they might assume it was a banana plant.
Here are some images of melegueta and cardamom. Melegueta is a west-African plant with lanceolate leaves. It has slightly dangling fruits on spindly stalks, and the ripening fruits are often red or yellow:
Comparison of “muse” plant with leaves and fruits of pomum paradisi, the melegueta plant. Image credits: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com, tropical.theferns.info, sciencedirect.com.
Medieval illustrators aren’t the only ones who appear to have confused “musa” (banana) with early depictions of a plant called “muse”—15th-century annotators and 17th- and 18th-century commentators made the same mistake. No one appears to have critically evaluated the way medieval descriptions and drawings changed over the course of two centuries from “muse” (pomum paradisi) to Musa paradisi (banana), nor have they investigated what exactly was meant by “muse” in the earlier herbals. It has long been assumed that the old herbals, even ones with good illustrations, specifically included erroneous descriptions and bad drawings of banana plants rather than reasonable drawings of a different plant.
The drawing and description of “muse” is similar in shape, proportion, name, and colors to melegueta and a few other Amomum species, but there’s more…
I found two additional pieces of evidence to support this tentative ID.
The first has to do with taste, which is described in one early medieval source as “citric” (I don’t think anyone would describe the taste of banana as citric). The Wikipedia entry for melegueta describes the taste as peppery “with hints of citrus”.
The second is a sequence of plants in Egerton 747 (c. late 13th century), a reference that bears many similarities to the Manfredus herbal (some say Manfredus is copied from Egerton 747, others say both are copied from a common source). In Egerton 747, is a series of shrubby trees, beginning with Nux muscata and ending with Nux vomica. Note that it includes Nux sciarca (melegueta):
In the Manfredus herbal, the mystery plant “muse” follows “muscata”. If “muse” is meant to represent melegueta, it’s more accurate than the picture of melegueta in Egerton 747, but what is even more significant is that it follows closely to muscata. Manfredus does not correspond 1-to-1 to Egerton plants, but the contents and sequence are very similar.
Melegueta (Aframomum grana-paradisi) is a medicinal plant in the ginger family with anti-inflammatory properties. It is native to coastal west Africa, and is related to cardamom. Its inclusion in Egerton 747 suggests that it was known in Europe at least since the late 13th century (possibly through Arab traders).
There are several Amomum plants that should be considered together with melegueta, including Amomum villosum, Amomum cardamom, and Amomum compactum (false cardamom).
Note that the Manfredus and Tacuinum drawings of “muse” resemble Amomum plants more closely when they are younger. Melegueta leaves tend to become more palm-like as the plant grows, although some of the other Amomum species remain more lanceolate, like the drawings above.
Summary
I’m not sure how a name like Nux melegueta or Amomum might become “muse”*, but it’s not surprising that “muse” (pomum paradisi) might be confused with “musa paradisi” (banana).
Name changes are not uncommon. “Earth apple” used to refer to Cyclamen, a common medicinal plant with a big lump of a root. After the conquest of America and import of New World plants into Europe, the potato came to be known as the “earth apple” (pomme de terre) and Cyclamen gradually lost the name.
But I don’t think this is a case of the name changing. I think it’s the result of confusion…
Aframomum and Musa (banana) plants were not well-known in the west and had similar names (pomum paradisi vs. musa paradisi).
The 13th- and 14th-century drawings and descriptions of “muse” match well to melegueta and a few of the other Amomum species, and less well to banana. By the middle of the 15th century, traditional descriptions were altered to better fit the banana and the name was changed to “musa” and, finally, by the 16th century, the name “musa” was paired with drawings of actual banana plants and the name “muse” seems to have disappeared.
Postscript, Nov. 10, 2018: One possible origin of the plant name “muse” that I forgot to include is hinted at in this quotation from classical Greek, which connects the Muses with a plant called “amomum” as follows:
“… Then he wove in Damagetus (a dark violet); Callimachus’ myrtle—sweet, but ever full of sour honey—; Euphorion’s rose campion; and the Muses’ amomum, who takes his name from the Dioscuri.”
It’s not enough information to identify the plant (Fée suggested Amomum racemosum, but there is no consensus of opinion) or to know if a connection between the muses and something called “amomum” still existed in the Middle Ages, but it might be worth filing for future study.
*Perhaps the answer is closer to the home of the plant itself. The Timneh tribes of Sierra Leone generally refer to the amoma/melegueta plants as “massa” (The Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions, Volume 16, J. & A. Churchill., 1857. See also detailed discussion in Elements of Materia Medica).
I’ve posted several blogs on hats and tunics and the VMS Gemini tunic is now being discussed in depth on the voynich.ninja forum, so it’s clearly a topic of interest. I’ve been researching the clothing of the zodiac figures for a number of years, so I have many examples from a large variety of sources (including mosaics and stained-glass windows), but I thought I would focus on fashion in two specific manuscripts.
I see the VMS zodiac tunics and robes as belonging together in terms of style.
Both male-Gemini and Sagittarius wear basic tunics with simple double-line neckbands, both are wearing hats, Gemini a simple rounded hat, Sagittarius a hat with a very long rounded tail (similar to a foxtail hat, but with fabric rather than fur). Sagittarius has the hint of a goatee. Note that Gemini is conspicuously short-statured even though there’s room to make the leg longer.
Both females (assuming the slightly androgenous Virgo is female) are wearing long robes with embellished sleeves and the hint of an undergarment peaking out from under the outer sleeve:
The clothing in Vatican Pal.lat.871 has been mentioned before, because it has many commonalities with the VMS figures.
Here are examples from folio 4r. The subject matter is quite different from zodiacs, it’s a nativity scene, but the roundel-with-text presentation, drawing themes, and clothing have VMS parallels in necklines, gathers, and the hard-to-find bootlaces:
It’s possible that the round-tailed style of hat doubled as a carrying pouch since tunics generally did not have pockets. Small items were strapped to belts, carried on the back, or slipped into hat bands or pouches. The VMS hat does not look like an animal tail. Note that many of the neckbands are similar to the VMS (a plain double-line band), even though a variety of necklines are represented:
There are also tunics with bumpy or scalloped edges like those in the VMS:
One can also find sleeves that are narrow at the wrist and wide at the elbow (left), which is less common than sleeves that are mostly even or much wider at the wrist:
The illustrator was definitely making distinctions in dress. Not all collars were a simple band, there were also high collar, capes, and cowls. Tunics were sometimes single-layer, sometimes double.
There are also many hat styles in addition to the “pouched” hat, including Phrygian hats, royal crowns, tonsured monks, berets, bowlers and, since this is a biblical text, pointed and flat hats to represent Jews and Philistines:
The drawings in Pal.lat.871 make it look like the “pouch” style of hat was common, but it is not easily found in medieval manuscripts. Usually, the tail was an animal tail or the ends were ragged, like a cock’s comb. Pouched hats with very long tails, like VMS Sagittarius, are especially hard to find, although I previously posted this one from Morgan M.453 (left) and one from a Swedish book of law that has a fairly long tail, with a conspicuous roll for the band:
Getting Back to Tunics
Many of the robes in Pal.lat.871 are long or have simple edges, but there are also tunics that are distinctly pleated (e.g., some of the warrior tunics, left) and some that are drawn with a bumpy, gathered, or scalloped edge, like the VMS:
So we can see numerous parallels to VMS clothing styles throughout the manuscript, not just in one or two places.
Finding the Origin of the Manuscript
I was curious about who drew the illustrations.
Pal.lat.871 is written in German, and I noticed it was a dialect. It is thought to be from central Germany, possibly north Hessen (near Frankfurt) or west Thuringia (about midway between Frankfurt and Prague). There is a woodcut version of the Pauper’s Bible created nearby in Bamberg, just north of Nuremberg (c. 1460s) with some of the same clothing styles.
I don’t know if it is specific to the illustrator, but there’s a political statement on folio 16r, a nimbed figure holding the battle banner of the Scandinavian tribes. This puzzling image is sandwiched between Sampson carrying tablets and Jonah in the mouth of the whale. It’s the only roundel on the folio without text.
In manuscript art, the white cross on a red field frequently represents the Lombards or Danes. The inverse of this flag, a red cross on a white field, often represented Helvetians, Templars, or participants in the Crusades. By the time this manuscript was created, Lombardian rule had long since diminished, and Lombardy itself had receded from Florence north to Pistoia, but it still dominated what is now northern Italy, and there were still pockets in Germany, Switzerland, and southern Italy.
But, I have also seen the white-on-red flag in drawings of 14th-century “Gaisler” (Geißler), Christian flagellants associated with the plague years.
Perhaps a sister manuscript can shed some additional light on origins.
A More Primitive Drawing Style
Vatican Pal.lat.1806 was created at approximately the same time as Pal.lat.871 and has very similar clothing themes. It is interesting because the illustrator’s skill level is a little less accomplished than Pal.lat.1806 and thus closer to that of the VMS. Here are some examples of tunics:
There are also sleeves that are narrow at the wrist and wide at the elbow, but they tend to be paired with fancier tunics. Here are some of the simpler ones
Also, if you keep looking, you can find the Sagittarius “pouched” hat. The hat (right) in Pal.lat.871 is not just a vague or generic drawing, it is drawn in a distinctively different way from the ragged-fabric chaperone on the left:
Pal.lat.871 and Pal.lat.1806 are thought to be from different towns, and are drawn by illustrators of different skill levels, yet the clothing themes are clearly related and, in turn, are similar to the VMS zodiac costumes.
Drawing Skill and Cultural Differences
What happens if the same subject matter is interpreted by someone from a different culture and significantly better artistic skills? Do the tunics change? That’s a subject for a separate blog, but I’ll include a few examples to introduce the topic. On the left, from Pal.lat.1806 and on the right, the same scene from BNF Latin 512:
Here some more specific tunic comparisons between Pal.Lat.871 and BNF Latin 512, both of which are from approximately the middle or third quarter of the 15th century:
As might be expected, there are more details in the drawing by the better artist, but paging through the manuscripts side-by-side, there also appear to be small cultural differences that are probably related to the difference in German and French origins. In terms of clothing style and drawing skill, the VMS is obviously more similar to Pal.lat.1806 than BNF Latin 512.
Summary
I have much more on this subject, and don’t have enough space to post about the female dress in the same blog. For the moment, there are enough examples to illustrate that the two German manuscripts Pal.lat.871 and Pal.lat.1806 (in addition to those mentioned in previous blogs), bear notable similarities to the costumes of the VMS zodiac characters.
Folio 77v of the Voynich Manuscript always struck me as anatomical. Mammaries and a uterus in the middle, tubes that might be blood vessels or the path between the ovaries and the uterus, something on the middle-right that resembles tubules or a curled intestine and, on the left, a penis with a nymph standing in the testicles, her hand by a “pipe” leading to the penis.
It seems strange, a nymph standing in testicles, but that’s what it looked like to me.
Then, while searching for something unrelated, I came across a detail in a manuscript from the 15th century that I never expected to see.
Illustrated Myths in MS Rawl. B. 214
Rawlinson B. 214 is less than 20 pages, and consists of two-tone compass-drawn charts sandwiched around colored illustrations.
The illustrations are painted in generous shades of brown blue, red, and green. There are Sibyls and gods, including Saturn, Jupiter, and other characters from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, such as Iuno (queen of the gods), Neptunus, and Pluto:
At Saturn’s feet, there is a character that may have particular significance to the VMS. But first, a quick summary of the other pages…
On the following leaf, we see Apollo with a harp and Corvus flying over a laurel tree:
Next to the laurel is a bevy of females, with muses Talia (comedy) and Urania (astronomy) standing out from the crowd. You might notice that Urania is drawn in an appealing way, similar to a few of the VMS nymphs who were drawn with an extra dose of charisma:
Under this is Phiton, a dragon with long ears and somewhat vague wings that reminds me, once again, of the critter in the VMS that is nibbling on a large plant. At first I wondered if this was an animal version of Phaeton (the charioteer), but it turns out it might be a python, and the marginalia mentions “Phiton serpens”. In medieval bestiaries, as illustrated in the previous blog, serpents were often depicted with legs and ears. There are numerous references to serpents in the Metamorphoses.
The following folio has another complex scene in which Venus takes center stage, standing in water, flanked on the left by three naked nymphs. The next page shows Diana with a bow, next to several unlabeled nymphs modestly dressed. Below this, is a rainbow framing Pallas (Minerva). In her hand is a head on a shield labeled “Caput gorgonum” (Gorgon’s head):
Following this is Iuno/Juno with her sight obscured by a cloudband (perhaps at the moment when Jupiter turns into a heifer). She is standing behind another rainbow, flanked by “pavones” (peacocks) whose tails memorialize the hundred eyes of Argus after he was decapitated by Mercury:
Below this, Sybil Bethia rides in a cart.
A Change of Style
And then the lushly colored illustrations revert to something that could easily be mistaken for a cosmology or geometry chart, but which is labeled with Grecian landmarks, including Mount Pindus, Mount Pelyon (Pelion), and Mount Ossa. These are north of the Greek Islands, as one travels toward Macedonia. It’s a map, in a style quite different from modern maps and more similar to early eastern maps than those of northern Europe.
After the map, is a drawing that looks vaguely cosmological, but reading the labels tells us it is about literature and philosophy, listing Virgil, Omer, and Ovid, along with muses and poets, somewhat in the manner of Lullian diagrams.
Back to the VMS
This line-up is quite interesting… nymphs, rainbows, a map in a slightly unconventional style, charts of elements and literature that might be hard to interpret if the labels were in a strange script, and an unusual biological reference that I wrongly assumed was unique to the VMS. When I saw the drawing of Venus in Rawl. B. 214, it instantly reminded me of the VMS drawing on folio 77v, which has always looked to me like a nymph standing in testicles above an ejaculating penis:
It seems unlikely that the Rawl. Venus-in-testes was copied from the Voynich Manuscript, it was created in the mid-1400s, but it could be the other way around, IF the VMS text and drawings were added a few decades after the parchment was processed. But, assuming the VMS drawings were added early in the 15th century, then an earlier textual or visual source might have inspired the explicit drawing.
And then I had an aha! moment…
A nymph standing in gonads. Of course! It’s the classical story of Venus born of the foam of her father’s severed genitals. It might seem a far-fetched way to interpret the VMS nymph if it weren’t for the Rawl. Venus being clearly labeled, clearly standing in a testical-boat, and clearly placed within the context of classical myth.
Can we go one step further? Might there also be an astrological interpretation, as suggested by K. Gheuen’s Konstellations? Maybe. Not only were the classical gods deeply associated with stars and planets, but classical poets were fond of creating alternate stories…
Accounts of how the newly born Venus reached shore vary, but here is one version…
When her father’s godly froth hit the sea and Venus was born, she was aided by fishes, who ferried her safely to the beach and guaranteed their place in history by reigning over her in the sky. The following image may be intended to reflect the environment in which Venus was born, rather than the story of the fishes, but it helps us visualize Venus’s birth. Note the cherub handing her the mirror that became her attribute:
The birth of Aphrodite from a Roman mosaic in the Bardo National Museum, Tunis.
In the Iliad, Aphrodite (Venus) is associated with sexual intercourse, which would make her an appropriate symbol for a biological description of sexual organs or the sexual act. It is thought by some that Hesiod (c. 700 BCE) added or adapted the story of the severed genitals.
But is 77v a clinical description of sex and sexual organs dressed up with classical imagery, or is it classical imagery in the context of ancient myths (without the clinical component)? The difference would influence how one interprets the text.
My personal suspicion, until we know more, is that the drawings on this folio are meant to express biology, with classical myths as mnemonics. I lean this way because plants, astrology, biology, and therapeutic bathing (especially bathing in thermal spas), are all important medieval medical subjects.
Wresting Meaning Out of an Obscure Drawing
The VMS is not exactly like the Rawlinson drawing. It has an extra detail. There is a “tube” by the nymph’s hand. I thought it might be the connection between the seminiferous tubules and the penis long before I realized there might be a connection to classical literature. If there is, then the VMS drawing makes a more direct reference to the biological path for the “froth” by which Venus (Aphrodite) was born (the Greek word αφρός/aphros means “foam” and can also be interpreted as semen).
Usually we see sanitized versions of Venus’s birth (albeit some lovely ones like Boticelli’s). Here is a much simpler 14th-century drawing (right), from an Occitan manuscript—Venus in the surf, holding her mirror attribute. An ancient depiction, from a Pompeiian fresco, shows her lying in a large shell, with a stylus or small scepter, with drapery overhead. In fact, they aren’t necessarily sanitized, they are probably alternate versions in which the semen falls to the sea without the father losing his family jewels. The tradition that explicitly talks about castration diverges from Homer.
The Cringe-Worthy Version
William Sale suggested in 1961 that the castration myth traces back to the Cyprians, as expressed in a Corinthian terracotta figure of Aphrodite arising from a genital sac, but I had trouble finding examples online, and was hoping to find exemplars more accessible to a medieval manuscript illustrator.
There are gruesome drawings of Cronos castrating his father Uranus, and some where the victim just stares in another direction as though it’s no big deal for your son to whack off your privates (e.g., Bodleian MS Douce 195).
It doesn’t seem necessary to post dozens of examples (which can be found in ceramics, sculpture, manuscript art, and also in tarot cards), as there appear to be three main kinds:
Cronos/Jupiter castrating his father with no inclusion of Venus,
Cronos castrating his father with Venus nearby, often in water,
Venus born from the castrated genitals of her father (as in Rawl. B 214 and possibly the VMS).
Here are examples of what appear to be typical variations, with the less common Rawl. drawing included for reference:
Summary
I was eager to find a possible exemplar for the VMS but one never knows how long it will take. Most of the more common depictions are of French or English origin, but there may be other sources for a theme that dates back to ancient Greece.
If additional images of Venus standing in her father’s genitals were found, or even just one that predates the VMS, it could be a key link in unraveling which predecessors may have influenced its construction.