VMs: Re: The Fontana ciphers

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Philip,

Thanks for the preliminary report! :-)

> The
> editors suggest that the image is intended to represent the vault
> of a church decorated with the celestial spheres surrounding the
> empyrean.

I've also thought that this simple explanation might well explain the whole 
of the VMS' astro and cosmo sections - that they were merely designs (the 
idea appropriated from the Palazzo della Ragione) intended to describe an 
astrological cycle of frescoes for some kind of mid-1400's public building 
(for example, a court of law, which is basically what the Palazzo della 
Ragione was).

In some ways, this seems like the simplest possible explanation.

> In an
> age of great men he comes over as a second division figure, but
> the book is great fun and I am enjoying reading it.

This strongly connects with other insights I've had: the VMS also strikes 
me as having been created by a "second division figure", but more in the 
sense of someone working in the shadow of more fully-expressed geniuses. 
This was why I rejected, despite the vinci-like gallows, the idea of it 
having been done by Leonardo - as Petr pointed out, there's a 
(well-trained) sureness of hand to the curves in the drawings, but it fails 
to come across as a mark of greatness.

It might be as revealing to speculate which figure was casting that shadow 
as to speculate who was beneath it. :-)

> It isn't the
> key to the Voynich manuscript, but it gives off the Voynich feeling
> of a deliberately created puzzle. I now think that this is the
> context of the VMS.

Hopefully we're getting there... :-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....