VMs: WM, Hieronymus Bosch and Edward Kelley

[Mariusz Wesolowski <shamshir@xxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I am a complete newbie in regard to the Woynich Manuscript - I have heard
about it quite a while ago but so far I did not have a good look at it. I
still have not read any books on this subject, therefore my suggestions and
questions below may be not exactly new.

As an art historian by education, I am interested first of all in the
iconographic aspect of WM. The first thing that struck me while looking at
the photos of it available on the Internet was the parallel between all
these naked women and huge (by comparison) flowers with the similar themes
in Hieronymus Bosch's triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights". I am not
suggesting that Bosch drew the WM's pictures, they are stylistically quite
different, but there may be a link between the two works. After all, nobody
has yet discovered the meaning of "The Garden", just like nobody has
discovered the meaning of WM...

Rudolph II was almost certainly familiar with Bosch's ouevre, collected
enthusiastically by his relative, King Philip II of Spain. Incidentally, in
the royal castle of my hometown Krakow, Poland, there is an early 17th
century triptych composed of the fragments copied from two works by Bosch,
one of them being the Hell wing of the "Garden".
Krakow lies close to Rudolph's Prague, and Dee and Kelley spent some time in
both cities (although this fact is probably neither here nor there).

As concerns the Kelley theory, which has been brought to the fore again in
the January 25, 2004, article in The Guardian (see
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1130832,00.html ),  I
wonder if anybody tried to compare WM with other known works by Edward
Kelley (if there are any)?

I also wonder how Rudolph II viewed this work? The fact that it ended up in
the hands of the imperial gardens supervisor may indicate that it was
consider a herbal or a gardening book.

Regards,

Mariusz Wesolowski

______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list