Two previous:
- Skies above: elevated souls Pt.2b (base bodies) (January 10, 2020)
- Elevated souls Pt 2a. ‘Astro —-‘ (December 1, 2019)
Header image – detail from a portrait of Gian Francesco II Gonzaga.
STOP PRESS (Feb. 6th., 2020) – anyone who decided to check out the ‘horoscopic charts’ rumour… you can drop it. A specialist in the history of astrology, astronomy and cosmology has just said plainly that that the Voynich month-folios do not accord with any type of ‘horoscopic chart’.
I’m waiting on his permission to quote and instructions on his preferred form for the acknowledgement.
I guess whoever dreamed up that “horoscopic charts” fiction – sorry, ‘theory’ – just didn’t care too much if it was true or not.
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The ‘Skies above’ series so far.. transmission affect
We have seen that in Mediterranean art, and then in that of western Europe to 1438, representation of the unclothed female body occurs within certain definable limits both in terms of regions and of eras and further that Panofsky had pointed out – rightly, and as early as 1932 – that in the art of western Christian Europe (i.e. ‘Latin’ Europe) the unclothed ‘shapely’ female form does not occur until the fifteenth century.
In 1932, while he still presumed the whole to be (as Wilfrid had asserted since 1912) the work of a single western author, Panofsky altered his date for the manuscript from ‘perhaps’ the thirteenth century on to the first decades of the fifteenth, precisely because of its ‘shapely ladies’ and its palette, as Anne Nill reported:
[on first seeing the copy, Panofsky] became intensely interested and seemed to think the MS. early, perhaps as early as the 13th century … but as he came to the female figures in connection with the colours used in the manuscript he came to the conclusion that it could not be earlier than the 15th century!
(for details, see post of Feb. 13th.2019).
However, and before the manuscript had been radiocarbon dated, Panofsky had woken to the possibility that the date for composition of the content and that for manufacture of our present manuscript might be separated by a considerable (if unspecified) length of time – in other words, that it was not an autograph at all. He actually widened the implied gap between content and manufacture in what John Tiltman reports as a direct communication – presumably offered in the 1950s but some time after Panofsky’s meeting with Friedman.
In a later paper, Tiltman writes,:
Professor Panoffsky [sic.] and the keeper of the manuscripts at the Cambridge Library both independently insisted on a date within 20 years of 1500 A.D., and [that] the manuscript as we have it may be a copy of a much earlier document.
- [pdf] John Tiltman, ‘The Voynich manuscript: “the most mysterious manuscript in the world”‘ (1968).p.10.
Had the manuscript been both manufactured and first composed “within twenty years of 1500” it might (in theory) have been possible, still, to argue the “shapely ladies” sections, including the month-folios, a product of Latin culture, but Panofsky clearly considered the content ‘much’ older than 1480-1520 and having as we now do, a radiocarbon range of 1404-1438 and understanding that the clothing in our present copy is a late addition to it, so the implication is unavoidable that the ‘ladies’ folios had their origins somewhere else. “Much earlier” does not mean a few decades; in contemporary usage, in this context, it implied the content’s origin “centuries older” – taking us back to before the fifteenth century and emergence of shapely unclothed female forms in western European art. I agree – although, for reasons explained in the post of January 10th, I do ascribe the ‘lewd’ additions to the month-folios to some later draughtsman during the last quarter of the fifteenth century.
The implication of Panofsky’s statements when considered in sequence, went unnoticed and in 2009 even to speak of the work as a compendium whose material the copyists had from different exemplars was to meet with uproar and derision, as the present writer discovered. Only during the past four of five years have we seen a lessening of the old emphasis on ‘the author” and growing (if oscillating) acceptance of the manuscript as a compilation..
Traditionalists had simply assumed the manuscript an autograph – that is a manuscript inscribed by a single ‘author’ – because there had always been ‘an author’ in the Wilrid-Friedman tradition, and, until a few years ago, “naming the Latin author” was still the chief preoccupation. For the core-conservatives, who emerged in the early 2000s, and gained an increasingly louder voice from 2010, there had to be an ‘author’ and preferably one who was ‘central European’ and connected in some way to the Imperial line. The cryptographers wanted ‘an author’ for different reasons, chiefly because Friedman had framed engagement with the manuscript in terms of a battle of wits between himself and some brilliantly ingenious Renaissance male. The type certainly existed. See e.g.
- Christopher Cecou, ‘The Hidden Professional Code Breakers of Renaissance Venice...’ altasobscura.com (Sept. 5th., 2019).
For the revisionist, though, the more important point is that any substantial gap between first enunciation of an image and its subsequent copying provides evidence of transmission and this can be very helpful in establishing origin for the first enunciation and thus the image’s intended meaning. Of what this may imply for the written part of this text, we’ll speak later. Much depends on whether a section’s written text is as old as first enunciation of its images.
Transmission affect.
Shifts from one historico-cultural context to another leaves evidence of that event even if the older image is one revived in the same region. Think ‘gothic revival’ for an obvious example. In the same way, a Roman copy of a classical Greek statue will evince both the maker’s ‘Roman’ character and that the model had been made by an older Greek; in a nineteenth century Englishman’s copy of an Egyptian image we see both the nineteenth-century Englishman’s way of seeing and a hint of the Egyptian scribe’s. ‘Ways of seeing’ are the result of a specific time, place and community and are extremely difficult to erase, replace, or imitate precisely .. as any forger will tell you. The later copy points us to the earlier place and time of origin… if you know what you’re looking at.
(and this, by the way, is where most theoretical narratives for the Voynich manuscript fail; they assume the images infinitely compliant – as Aztec one day, German the next, Italian the day after, or sixteenth-century or nineteenth century…)
Very little of the Voynich manuscript’s imagery “reads” easily for people accustomed to our present, European, tradition – because the majority aren’t expressions in that tradition. Conversely, the reason that some few details – such as the late-added clothing, the central emblems of the month-folios, or the supposed ‘castle’do seem accessible and for that very reason have received attention massively in excess of the percentage they represent.
To recognise evidence of transmission is rarely as simple as recognising the difference between Opus Francigenum and ”gothic revival‘ and requires the viewer to know enough to recognise the significance of small details – which is exactly why forgers still manage to fool enough people, enough of the time, to make fortunes. The important thing is that the copyist should have attempted to copy, rather than to replace or re-express the images from his exemplar. We are fortunate that, in the Voynich manuscript, most of the images appear to be driven by a desire to copy with near facsimile exactitude. I say ‘most’ because we have to deal with various layers, some post-dating the vellum’s range and a few (chiefly in the bathy- section) where the copyist had thought he could improve on the original. The rapidity with which that hand vanishes re-inforces the overall sense that the initial desire of those involved in the fifteenth-century copy was to have everything copied exactly. (The couple of ‘improvements’ in the bathy- section might, conceivably, also be due to some term’s being ambiguous as e.g. ‘passage’, ‘basin’ or ‘channel’).
Then we see a different attitude affect the work – the one I call the ‘prude’.
Chronological layers. Separating layers of transmission affect is akin to the archaeologists’ removing a site’s levels of occupation and is similarly described as strata: in this case, chronological strata because one may assume changes in cultural context always attend the passage of time.
In this series, I’ve already mentioned some discernible strata. As I read it, the sequence maps – counting down from the latest/uppermost:
#1 – (Last quarter of the fifteenth century. post-production). the ‘lewd’ additions.
My reason for assigning these details – not all of which are lewd in themselves – to the last quarter of the fifteenth century were explained in the post of January 10th., 2020.
In this context I might repeat an item from a couple of posts to Voynichimagery, namely that it might prove worthwhile to ask if there is any correlation between items so marked in the month-folios and the ‘Dies Aegyptiaci’.
- Ginzel, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie , 1:204-12;
- Sebastian Porceddu et al., “Evidence of Periodicity in Ancient Egyptian Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18 (2008): 327-39
- W. R. Dawson, “Some Observations on the Egyptian Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 12 (1926): 260-64;
- E. A. Wallis Budge, Egyptian Magic (London, 1899), 224-228.
I bring up this point again here because at least one figure recovered from Naucratis shows an exaggerated pelt, comparable in its dimensions to that seen in the ‘Venus’ miniature in the Ambrosianus manuscript – and we must never forget that Georg Baresch believed the Voynich manuscript’s content was, in some sense, Egyptian. To quote from Neal’s translation of Baresch’s letter of 1637:
In fact it is easily conceivable that some man of quality went to oriental parts …. He would have acquired the treasures of Egyptian medicine partly from the written literature and also from associating with experts in the art, brought them back with him and buried them in this book in the same script. This is all the more plausible because the volume contains pictures of exotic plants which have escaped observation here in Germany.
Note – Neal reads Baresch’s phrasing as indicative of hypothesising but I read it as emphatic – “in fact, it is easily conceivable…’. this being Baresch’s reaction to Kircher’s dismissive response after receiving copied folios earlier sent by Baresch through a Jesuit known to both of them. Kircher had published an appeal to the public for materials helpful in Kircher’s efforts to explain Egyptian hieroglyphics.
On Naukratis see..
- Alexandra Villing et.al., Naukratis: Greeks in Egypt (a British Museum Catalogue). see the Museum’s website.
- The ‘Egyptian days’ are otherwise termed Dies aegri , -atri , –mali , -maledicti, -ominosi , -infortunati and -tenebrosi. Some of the Latin sources appear to be accurate; though others are wildly imaginative/theoretical.
folio 116v. It seems (at least to me) that a line of marginalia on folio 116v might belong to the same time (i.e. last quarter of the fifteenth century) and possibly to the same hand as the ‘lewd’ additions. According to Anton Alipov’s translation the writer of the marginalia on folio 116v was inclined to coarse expressions .
- Anton Alipov, ‘God’s Thingum: On Voynich f116v, Line 0′ , athanaea.net (March 15th., 2015)
Stratum #2 – the ‘prude’. post-copying – possibly before binding ( c.1430)
It may be unfair to describe as a ‘prude’ the person who had some of the figures overlaid with heavy pigment. Whether he was the painter, or an overseer, he may have been merely of sensitive or modest disposition. Often called the ‘heavy’ painter, he is distinguished from the ‘light painter’ since Nick Pelling observed and commented on the distinction.
‘Light-‘ and ‘Heavy-‘ painter.
After drawing attention to the ‘heavy painter’ and ‘light painter’ painter in Reeds’ mailing list; Pelling spoke of the matter in his book (2006) and thereafter in various posts to his blog as e.g. this from 2017, in connection with ‘labellese’ and codiciological issues. While this passage sounds as if Pelling is speaking about the central emblems, he means any figures on the specified diagrams. I’ve added clarification in square brackets:-
To my mind, the most logical explanation for this is that the colourful painting on the light Aries [ i.e. April #1 diagram] was done at the start of a separate Quire 11 batch. That is, because Pisces [March-] and dark Aries [April #2] appear at the end of the single long foldout sheet that makes up Quire 10, I suspect that they were originally folded left and so painted at the same time as f69r and f69v (which have broadly the same palette of blues and greens) – f70r1 and f70r2 may therefore well have been left folded inside (i.e. underneath Pisces / f70v2), and so were left untouched by the Quire 10 heavy painter. Quire 11 (which is also a single long foldout sheet, and contains light Aries, the Tauruses, etc) was quite probably painted separately and by a different ‘heavy painter’: moreover, this possibly suggests that the two quires may well not have been physically stitched together at that precise point.
quoted from: Nick Pelling, ‘Voynich Labelese‘, ciphermysteries, September 3rd., 2017.
What Pelling had not realised was that his distinction sheds light on that broader issue of ‘authorship’.
Stratum #3 ‘The Modest’ clothing & the central emblems. (added in copying c. 1400-1430)
Before that final heavy overlay of pigment, some effort had been made to provide some of the bodies with covering using pen and light wash, but without altering the look of the limbs or obscuring the bodies’ form.
In my opinion, this pigment was added after completion of the original copy, but in all probability by the fifteenth-century copyists. I would not rule out the possibility that a precedent for the line-drawn clothing existed in the nearest exemplar (which I would date not later than the second or third quarter of the fourteenth century) but I’ll treat the style of this line-work in another post.
Central emblems
As I explained when treating the central emblems, in 2011-12, I think they are fifteenth-century additions gained from a tenth- or eleventh-century text available to the copyists, and preserved in Spain or in France, but in my view probably the latter and perhaps in Fleury. Just for the record I add details for two of my studies.
D.N. O’Donovan, ‘Of Fishes and Fleury’, voynichimagery, (Oct. 27th., 2012); ‘Crosseyed feline and red splash’ ibid (Oct. 29th., 2012).
Postscript – (Feb. 8th. 2020) A reader upbraids me… and it is true that I should have mentioned here that signs of alteration within the central emblems allowed me to date their adoption to the fifteenth century. I have explained this, with the historical, archaeological and literary evidence in posts to voynichimagery. There had been no analytical studies of the central emblems, but my conclusions failing to suit the traditionalist model, alternative efforts soon appeared. I would maintain, still, however that e.g. the standing archer figure had its origins in the eastern Mediterranean, came west in c.10th-11thC and was first adapted for Christian use in glass made for the new ‘gothic’ windows, but the form of its bow in the Voynich manuscript indicates a fifteenth-century adaptation, the bow being (as I explained from the usual sources) being a particular, light, wooden, double-lock crossbow used by marines and the type of mercenary recorded in the rolls for Calais as a ‘Saggitario’. The proverbial type continues to be known to as late as the the writings of Cervantes, he associating it with the earlier Aegean.
Since then, Koen Gheuens has provided a superb study of the way the calendar’s oddly formed ‘lobsters’ were disseminated from France through Alsace between the 13th-15thC. Gheuens begins with the books on astronomy which Scot produced in Sicily. It should be kept in mind, though, that before Scot went to Sicily, his study of mathematics and astonomy (including astrology) had been pursued in Canterbury and at the University of Paris, whence he travelled to Toledo and worked with the Toledo school of translators, completing in 1217 a translation of al-Bitruji’s .Kitāb al-Hayʾah, entitling his translation De motibus celorum. Moses Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation was completed in 1259. In the works which Scot produced in Sicily are images whose details show him familiar with non-mainstream astronomical lore, usually described as ‘Berber’. Thus, connection to Scot is not inconsistent with Panofsky’s attributing the manuscript to ‘Spain or somewhere southern’ and believing it presented as a Jewish work. But do see:
- Koen Gheuens, ‘ A network of faulty lobsters: Scotus, Cantimpré, Megenberg and the Voynich Manuscript‘, the voynich temple, (December 11th., 2018).
Since 2012 there has been much put online which aims at illustrating German and/or French zodiacs, to support ‘national’ theories of the manuscript but Gheuens’ post is one of the few pieces of original analytical research. Darren Worley’s valuable work and his supplementary comments were published by the late Stephen Bax, whose site is now corrupted and all the comments erased.
Scot’s ‘de motibus‘ is included in a compilation (Brit.Lib. Harley MS 1) with a very tasty provenance. Here’s a detail.
items from northe
Clothing – dating and placing…
Much that has been written about the clothing is flawed by an idea that what is found in one time or place has occurred nowhere else. This idea infuses most of the ‘national’ theories for the Voynich manuscript, focused as they are more on asserting their theory proven by such means and choosing so narrow a range of comparative material that no other view is possible. There is also the habit of treating the heavy overpainting as if it can date or place the manuscript’s ‘national character’.
To show why such methods are flawed, I’ll provide a contrasting example and since the unclothed figures also include some with headwear, demonstrate the fact that headwear of similar types were to be found earlier and over a very wide geographic range. The few seen below show the padded band, the band-and-veil, and the ‘mural’ crown, in works from north Africa to northern India, and from the 4thC BC to 3rdC AD. In fact, it is the unclothed forms which tell us most about the text’s origin and character..
Upper register (left to right) Hellenistic figurine 3rdC BC; Indo-Greek sculpture Gandharan period; coin of Carthage 350-270 BC. detail from folio 80v. Lower register: detail from Louvre Ma590 ‘Three tyches’ dated c.160 AD
…. to be continued…
Voynich Revisionist 