VMs: RE: St Mark's Basilica in Venice...?

["Mark Hippenstiel" <M.Hippenstiel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Nick,

Though I would agree that the 'onions' (for want for a better word) do
bear a vertain resemblance to San Marco's, from my feeling I'd say the
existence of distinct features as in the differently shaped bases
suggests that the drawing depicts something in a more precise way. 

Wouldn't that be so, you could disregard the whole drawing as being
imaginary and useless for further investigation. Supposed it is for
real, you'd have to take into account that there are six onions, not
five, and they are arranged in a circular way. Ihmo, this would rule out
San Marco, at least if we take that the current shape is 'authentic'
i.e. unchanged and has not undergone a lot of reviews during
construction of the building.

The aspect of availability of a high persepective is interesting in any
case, but remember that height is something you do not necessarily
achive by artificial buildings; for instance you could climb on a nearby
hill to have a view from above.

What do you make of the canopy thing between the 'towers'?

Mark


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nick Pelling
> Posted At: Friday, October 31, 2003 12:33 PM
> Posted To: VMs
> Conversation: St Mark's Basilica in Venice...?
> Subject: VMs: St Mark's Basilica in Venice...?
> 
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> A while back, I mentioned that I suspected (following Philip Neal's 
> suggestion) that the central part of the 9-rosette "map" page might 
> represent Venice (I'd previously suspected Istanbul). 
> However, it remained 
> (regardless of precisely *where* it represented) an open 
> question of *how* 
> such a view from above could have been created.
> 
> However, while looking through a Venice guide-book yesterday 
> at a friend's 
> house, I noticed that overlooking St Mark's Basilica (with its five 
> distinctive "onion-skin" domes, arranged in the shape of a 
> Greek cross) 
> stands the Campanile (bell tower) - both of these were intact 
> 600 years ago 
> (though the Campanile did collapse 100 years ago, it was 
> rebuilt extremely 
> closely to the original design and location).
> 
> Here's a (modern) picture of the Basilica taken from high up on the 
> Campanile (taken by Chris St John, posted on the Exploitz.com 
> website):-
> 	http://www.exploitz.com/pictures/4177/index.php?pix=5&size=1
> 
> And (to compare it with) here's the VMs' central rosette:-
> 	http://www.voynich.info/phpwiki/central-rosette.jpg
> 
> In detail, they're different - but in essence, they're the same.
> 
> If you subscribe to the school of thought that says 
> "everything in the VMs 
> is likely to be completely imaginary, so poring over it for 
> obscure art 
> historical matches is a waste of time", then you won't find 
> anything of 
> interest here, for sure. But if you think (as I do) that 
> "most things in 
> the VMs are likely to have come from elsewhere, no matter how 
> obscured they 
> were in the process", then its iconography *is* important.
> 
> Whereas the Great Council of Venice had (according to its 
> constitution) 
> 2,500 members in 1500, the Senate then was far fewer (70? 
> 100?), and in 
> turn was controlled by the Council of Ten. Might it be that 
> the stars in 
> the middle of the central rosette represent the Senate and/or 
> the Council 
> of Ten?
> 
> I believe that this and the "castle" rosette are members of 
> the same family 
> - that they are both encoded Quattrocento diagrams, referring 
> obliquely to 
> North Italian towns... but only if you are familiar with the source 
> material (Venice viewed from the Campanile and circular maps 
> of Milan, 
> respectively). By this, my reading of Naples (as the long low 
> sea-facing 
> castle-like structure, located on one of the inter-rosette 
> "causeways") 
> would seem to be more probable as well.
> 
> Note that I'm not trying to explain either what the page is 
> saying or what 
> its function is, but am instead trying to explain *by what conceptual 
> means* the images were produced. One thing at a time! :-o
> 
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
> 
> PS: the expert on the history of St Mark's Basilica is Ettore 
> Vio, the 
> Procuratoria di San Marco, and editor of the (2000) book "St Mark's 
> Basilica in Venice". If anyone out there knows of any early 
> (pre-1500) 
> sketches of the basilica (as viewed from the Campanile), it's 
> likely to be him!
> 
> 
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