Re: VMs: Alchemical / MY Version

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

At 21:04 26/10/2003 -0600, Dennis wrote:
> The astrological diagrams (we
> aren't certain that's what they are, the goat, etc.
> could have been done by later hands) ...

Note that the 30th star on the Pisces diagram seems stylistically bound up 
with the pair of fishes. To me, this indicates that the pictures and 
Voynichese were almost certainly done at the same time. The month-labels 
probably came later, of course, but I think the pictures are for real. :-)

>         There was and is spagyric alchemy, with plants, but I
> know little about it.

FWIW, I think that the VMS' source traditions are likely to be similar to 
those of Catarina Sforza's "Experimenti" and of Gasparinus de Bripio's 1464 
herbal (both of which I'd classify as empiric-spagyric).

Essentially, there's no evidence that I can see in the VMS of an alchemical 
mindset - everything seems "strange but literal", which you might denote 
"representational and not metaphoric".

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


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