Re: VMs: VMS Revisited

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

At 22:40 29/05/2003 -0700, Dana Scott wrote:
> Hmm. I wonder who "compiled" this article on the VMS? Be sure to click on
> the 'Features' in the left hand column.
>
> http://www.pharo.com/history/voynich_manuscript/articles/mhvm_00a_voynich_ho
> mepage.asp

I don't recall anyone's using the word "gravida" (for "nymph") on list 
beforehand, so whoever put those pages together may not be a particularly 
vocal list-member. :-)

        Anatomical illustrations dating from as early as the first
        millenium of babies in the womb became a convention,
        called gravida figures.  They were more than babies really,
        because the conventional way of depicting them was as
        miniature adults who pose.  By the 15th century many of
        these gravida figures, which appropriately lived in the
        uterus, gained stylisations which had nothing to do with anatomy.

There's plenty more interesting stuff to be read there... :-)

The (unnamed) author (who appears to be English, and to use Microsoft 
FrontPage) writes:-
        The pipes and valves of the plumbing in folios 75 to 84 are
        unusually modern-looking if they are to be interpreted as a
        man-made fluid transport system.  A reading of Vitruvius on
        plumbing suggests that the joining, branching, tapering,
        curving of the VMS designs could not be realised with the
        technology of the time, but the Murano glassworks of the
        Republic of Venice ( founded in 1291 ) could turn tubing
        thus, albeit on a smaller scale.  So, if the plumbing of the
        VMS is glass, then the text is indeed probably alchemical
        and the gravidae or nymphs are correspondingly allegorical.

I recently read "The Mirror - A History" by Sabine Melchior-Bonnet (2002 
English edition, translated from the 1994 French original). This makes it 
quite clear that the artisans of Murano (and all their trade secrets) were 
kept in place by the powerful Venetian political machinery, to prevent 
Murano's "competitive advantage" over the rest of Europe from diminishing. 
For a number of reasons, I'm quite confident that the balneological section 
does include some secrets spirited out of Venice (though amongst many other 
things). In the past, I've also pointed to the very Murano-like decoration 
on the glass containers on f89r.

BTW, from my research into the history of plumbing, it's clear that a 
number of major buildings in Northern Italy circa 1460 had extremely 
complicated, modern-looking plumbing systems - though it's also true that 
the limitations of implementation, as in Leonardo's failed automated 
kitchen for the Duke of Milan, proved these to be more theoretical advances 
than practical advances.

People seem consistently to underestimate the ingenuity and intellect of 
the Quattrocento - I think that's a big mistake, and one which a solution 
to the VMS might help to correct. :-)

Our (presently anonymous) author also points to a similarity between 
Bartholomeus Del Bene's "Civitas veri sive morum" (Paris 1609) and the 
9-rosette map page. "His circular city has five roads ( five senses ) which 
function as connectors between the outside world and the heart, at the 
all-seeing nexus of the city's centre." Here's a link to a (scratchy) copy 
of this map, so judge for yourselves:-
http://www.phil-hum-ren.uni-muenchen.de/GermLat/Acta/Berschin.htm
        (scroll down to the first illustration, Abbildung 1)

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

PS: all quotes (c) Pharo plc 2002. :-) 


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