VMs: Re: Re: Plants in the VM - "scribe gone wild"

["DANA SCOTT" <dscott520@xxxxxxx>]

Yes, I agree that it is worth looking through the old manuscripts, assuming
that they are available. What I have found is that some of the plants in the
VMS seem obvious once identified to known plants, many have parts which are
recognizable but don't seem to belong together in the same drawing, and some
seem near impossible to identify the way they are drawn; however, I haven't
given up hope yet. For example, the first plant drawing you refer to
immediately suggests a variation of garlic but then the crown
skirt above the bulb needs further scrutiny. It's a one step at a time
process.

Allium Sativum: (Garlic)
http://www.rootgrafix.com/herbalnexus/p_garlic.htm
http://www.elwin.net/pics/GarlicWeb/source/16.html
http://www.bakerlite.co.uk/pics/Wales/South%20Wales/aberthin/home%20and%20garden/Fruit%20and%20veg/garlic-2.jpg

For the second plant drawing I might start with a variety of a young 
pomegranite.

Punica grenatum: (Nana)
http://misseto.ca/frm_r13n02.html

It's a long and arduous process but one worth pursuing for those who have an 
interest in botany and the mysteries of the VMS.

Regards,
Dana Scott


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "PK#01" <pklist01@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2004 1:09 PM
Subject: VMs: Re: Plants in the VM - "scribe gone wild"


> Jan wrote:
> > in medieval manuscripts, the pictures were
> > either illustrations ( i.e. of battles, events or persons) or
> > embellishments - here we are apparently dealing with something
> > different
>
> I've been looking at a lot of reproductions of old manuscripts in the
> Royal
> Library. And not those nice ones, but the "day to day" ones, legal
> documents, accounts, notes. I've seen many manuscripts where the lettering
> is nice and neat and then the embellishments are awful. But still the
> embellishments are recognizeable as coming from the "common gene-pool" of
> book illustrations of that time.
>
> There is one quite horrid example here:
> http://uair01.xs4all.nl/Voynich/Strange_Plants/Strange_plants_2.html
> It's the third picture from the top (example 3).
>
> The weird plants on the right have that surreal VMS "look and feel". But I
> think it's just lack of imagination and drawing skill.
>
> Suppose that this was one page from the VMS. Imagine that the lettering is
> Voynichese and not ordinary Italian. Wouldn't we all be puzzled by the
> weird
> illustrations?
>
> So my hypothesis is that the VMS is just such a case of a scribe who could
> write, but who couldn't draw - and did it anyway. Strange as they may be,
> the illustrations are still built from the "common gene pool" of book
> illustrations, but they're executed without much skill.
>
> Let's call this my "scribe gone wild" hypothesis.
>
> There's a way to prove it - simply by collecting more of these examples
> (and
> I have some more up my sleeve). But is there a way to disprove it?
>
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