Mountain tonics

These are speculative notes I made on the 'vessels' or 'canister' section of the manuscript. I still subscribe to most of the points made.

There is a system of alchemical herbalism depicted in the Voyncich manuscript. The work is clearly in the genre of alchemical herbals typical of northern Italy in the 1400s. It is an eccentric addition to the genre, but that is its setting and its provenance. My purpose is to explain how the herbalism in the work operated, at least in principle.

What is being made in the work is what I will call tonics. A tonic is a medicine that gives “tone”, which is to say it restores general health. A tonic is not for specific diseases. It is for over-all well being.

Note that there are no diseases depicted in the Voynich manuscript. It is not about particular diseases. It is not a work written in response to an outbreak of the plague, for instance. There are those who think it concerns women’s health, but there are no depictions of female diseases, or any diseases, and all the women depicted (nympha) are rosy cheeked and healthy.

But the production of medical or herbal preparations is depicted. So what can these be for? I think they are best described as tonics. Herbal tonics.

And the herbs in question are mountain herbs, an alpine botany from northern Italy. It is important to appreciate the virtues and distinctive nature of this botany. The northern Italian alpine area is a region of extraordinarily rich and unique wild herbs that have been collected as medicines since ancient times. Indeed, it is a region with an indigenous tradition of herbal medicine, extending back to before the Romans, even to prehistory, fostered by the isolation of valleys and communitys. Alpine herbs are often botantically odd, with exaggerated flowers or other features (some are bizarre and carnivorous) and are medicinally potent as a result of short seasons, rich soils, a pristine environment and mineralized mountain waters. The manuscript is about this materia medica and concerns the production of certain tonics from these herbs.

It is also important – essential – to appreciate that herbs are not the only feature of this medicine. Mountain waters and mineral springs are a feature of the landscape, in a dolomitic geology, with many spring-fed lakes and ponds, underground rivers, waterfalls and cascades. The region is famous for its pristine mineral waters and healing springs. I propose that, as well as mountain herbs, the production of tonics also included the use of mineralized waters from the same mountains as the herbs. A tonic, that is, is a water-based herbal complex (as they are called). Note that there is no sign of distillation in the manuscript, and in fact no depictions of fire at all. I conclude that alcohol was not the medium for the medicines. Rather, we have methods of water extraction.

The extraction is done in the vessels (canisters) depicted in the pharmacological pages. I can describe how they worked in principle, if not in detail. The idea is that layers of various pre-prepared herbs are assembled, then water is added to the top of the vessel. This is clearly shown. The water then filters down through the layers and is collected at the bottom – also clearly shown. The water, remember, is not a neutral H2O, but is rather a special medium with virtues of its own that is itself integral to the tonic. The resulting tonic is a combination of herbal extracts dissolved in mineral-rich mountain water.

That, I think, is the basic idea and what is being depicted. We are shown the herbs, and then the herbs are prepared and assembled in combinations in connection with these vessels. The vessels clearly have liquid added at the top, and liquid collected at the bottom. I suppose that the herbs were placed in the vessels and had the water filter through them in layers according to certain recipes. This is still a method used in some herbalism today. It is usually referred to as percolation, although modern herbalists tend to use stronger solvents than water, but that is a modern development. Methods of water extraction were the norm before the modern era, even in highly developed systems like traditional Chinese medicine. What the Voynich ms. depicts, I think, is water extraction by percolation.

There is, however, somewhat more to it. We need to understand this basic process in terms of the rustic folk traditions that underpin this herbalism. What we have here is a mountain alchemy based in a premodern cosmology. For ways of understanding it we can perhaps learn from examples from other mountain alchemies, in Buddhist Tibet and Taoist China, for instance. In the Voynich ms. we have an indigenous European tradition from the mountains between Italy and Germany.

I propose understanding the vessels – filtration vessels – as mimetic of mountains, and the filtering of water down through the assembled layers within them is akin to the filtering of waters down through the interior of a mountain. Each vessel is, as it were, a symbolic mountain, and the process by which the tonics were prepared imitated the natural processes of the mountain. Such a tonic, that is, was designed to impart something of the power and strength of a mountain by sympathetic magic, as we would say. The power of the herbs is thus enhanced.

That is the question: how is the simple power of the herbs being enhanced? Alchemies enhance, exaggerate, speed up, natural processes. A tonic is a concentration. In later alchemical herbalism (Paracelsean) the powers of herbs are enhanced by extracting and concentrating them in tinctures with alcohol as the solvent. That is not depicted in the Voynich ms. Instead, we see herbal complexes, and water is the agent. We do not see fermentation processes either, or calcination, or other familiar processes. Instead, I propose, the vessels energize the tonic with a process that imitates that of a mountain. If nothing else, this preserves a quality of the environment in which the herbs grew: mountain herbs in mountain water prepared in a vessel that imitates a mountain.

It is unlikely to have been a rapid process. More likely, the desired effect was to have the mountain water dripping slowly down through the layered herbs. Percolation is a time-consuming method of water extraction. Possibly, layers of clay or sand or pebbles or other similar substances were added at controlled points to further extend the analogy with a mountain. The dynamic of the device is taken from the internal hydrology of the mountain, the mysterious filterations of water through various geological layers in a complex system of underground streams, pools, seeps and watersheds producing the magical vital waters of the springs. I imagine that a vessel was prepared, layer upon layer, the water added at the top, and it is then left for some time (weeks, months?) as the water moved slowly down the vessel to be collected at the bottom. Possibly more water was added and the process repeated several times.

The result would be a liquid extraction of minerals and herbs. In the case of tinctures, the alcohol acts as a preservative as well as a solvent. In these ‘mountain tonics’ the minerals in the water play that role. Many important ingredients in herbs are not water soluable. Moreover, plant matter contains sugars and water extractions will quickly sour. That is an advantage of using alcohol; it dissolves and preserves. But mineralized waters will extract a wider range of chemistry from the herbs than pure water, and tonics made with mineralized waters will last much longer. As with any folk medical tradition, this would be calculated according to age-old experience and observation.

The analogy with the mountain is important because it explains the depictions of the nympha and many of the features of the manuscript. I take it that these are indeed water nymphs and what is being depicted is the way the nymphs control and regulate the internal hydrology of the mountains. There is a very clear depiction of the process on one page. At the top is a nymph collecting rain water at the pinnacle of a mountain. This water then filters down through underground pools and streams - streams depicted uniquely as an organic vascular system, implying a conception of a living mountain – into mineral springs, guided all the way by nymphs. This is a picture of the natural process that is imitated - by folk mimesis - in the filtration vessels, the percolators, used to make the tonics.

The natural process is illustrated with nympha because this was indeed the belief of the peoples of those regions and this herbalism. Even today, numerous lakes and water features in that landscape are said to be populated by water nymphs. Water nymphs feature in the folk legends of those mountains, most famously in the legend of the nymph (more recently ‘mermaid’) of Lake Carezza. The traditional cosmology of the people of the mountains and valleys – we must include the mountain herb gatherers – was explained in terms of nature spirits, tales of nymphs. This is what we see in the Voynich ms., water nymphs at work. The making of tonics in the mountain-vesels imitates and participates in their work and is perhaps supposed to harness their assistance or at least something of their powers in the waters used to make the tonic.

This last point, I think, explains the astrology in the work where, importantly, the nymphs appear again, but in a celestial rather than a sub-mountainous setting. I take it that they are the same nymphs and so the manuscript establishes an explicit connection between the mountain nymphs (and their work) and the astrological cycles. It is reveaing that some of the nymphs in the bathing scenes are measuring the depth of the water. The nymphs control the rise and fall of the underground waters. This is of great importance and needs to be explained in some detail.

It is a conspicuous feature of mountain waters in these regions that they rise and fall, and not always just with the seasons. Some spring-fed lakes, like Lake Carezza, for instance, are famous for mysteriously rising and falling water levels. That is exactly why the lake is said to be enchanted by a nymph. The hydrology of it involves two types of water: snow thaw, or surface water, and spring water coming from inside the mountain. Some water bodies are fed more by one than another. The underground flows can vary according to complex processes, often slow, through different geologies that mineralize the water along the way. The maze of rivers and caverns and water tunnels beneath the mountain are the terrain of the nympha. They control the rhythms and cycles of the deep mountain waters. We see them doing this in the manuscript and specifically we see them measuring the flows. At the same time, these flows dictate the mineral content of water bodies. I take it that the blue water in the manuscript is snow thaw or plain water, rain water, and the green water is mineralized.

The astrology concerns cycles of the heavens that coincide with the activity of the nympha, which is to say the rising and falling of the mountain tides. The nympha, as I say, also dwell in the celestial waters. The quality and quantity of mountain waters coincides with the sightings of various stars and constellations. This is what happens in Egypt. The rising and falling of the waters of the Nile are observed to be syncranized with the cycles of Sirius. In the Voiynch ms. the author is elaborating relationships between the subterranean waters and the cosmic waters, with mountain-as-cosmos the implied analogy. Theirs is no need to argue that mountain people are star watchers: we build our own observatories on mountain peaks. The Voynich ms. contains a mountain astrology that is specifically tied to the cycles of the subterranean waters.

This is important, as I say, because it controls the qualities of the waters, as well as rise and fall – Lake Carezza changes colour according to changing mineral content – but also, I suggest, because it also signals crucial points in the growth of the alpine herbs. The mountains are a dynamic cosmology. Some herbs have very short lifecycles, growing and flowering quickly under certain conditions, often in remote or hidden valleys. Herb gatherers have many means of following these cycles, including astronomical signals and changes in the water flows of the mountain. The Voynich ms. is a book made by herb gatherers. They do not grow herbs. It is not horticultural. It contains information relevant to herb gatherers – including a map of nine mountains and their springs in the Rosette Folio - who then prepare and preserve the collected herbs in the form of tonics – potentized or alchemical tonics made by water-extraction percolation.

We know from contnuing modern herbal traditions in this region, and from comparable traditions elsewhere, that the same herb can be counted as having different properties and powers depending upon what mountain it grows upon, what soil, watered by what springs. It is a highly localized tradition. The time in the season, in the moods of the mountain, and under what stars ,is an important factor too. It is, in fact, a traditional craft, and that is what we find presented at the core of the Voynich ms, a work concerning the herb gathering/ folk medicine craft of the Italian Tyrol, or at least one iteration of that tradition. We know there was not just a single version of that herbal medical tradition in northern Italy. Since different regions have different herbs and different conditions, they develop different methods and preparations. It is likely that many traditions, many recipes, were confined to single villages or even single families or lineages.

For all of that, I think this craft tradition has been blended to extraneous material, especially in regards the astrology. The production of tonics is likely to be traditional knowledge, undeveloped by the addition of exotic alchemical ideas and processes and equipment. But the astrology system has been blostered by the addition of new and outside influences which have been synthesized with the local star-lore. The new knowledge is Graeco-Arabic such as we find in humanistic learning in northern Italian cities in this period. The oft-noted humanist hand of the scribe tells us of at least some humanistic education. He seems less influenced by Graeco-Arabic herbalism and labotarory methods than by Graeco-Arabic astrology. The herbalism in the work is essentially rustic. But the astrology is more book-learned. We can suppose that the author is from the mountain herbalist tradition – it is most likely ancestral – but he has also been exposed to more developed astrological schemes during an education in the towns. I would describe him as an elder and an authority in his craft, who is bringing a new knowledge-set to his own star-lore. The astrology in the work is not indigenous, or not entirely so, but the herbalism is, or is mostly.

This makes the Byzantine handbook of Ptolemy especially interesting. It shows similar arrangements of similar celestial nymphs. We know that text was in Brescia in the relevant region in the 1460s. It has long been suggested that the author knew this work. If so, he has matched the nymphs of the ptolemaic scheme with the water-nymphs of his mountain tradition. That is the point of synthesis. That is the point of assimilation. The identity of the celestial waters with the subterranean waters would not have been an innovation: this is a very ancient and widespread cosmology of water. The author has enriched his folk tradition of nympha – mountainous and celestial – with more sophisticated astrologies, Greek and Arab, then current among the educated in northern Italy.

The Voynich ms., that is, is a blend of old and new, but mainly old. I suggest it is a type of compendium that not only preserves a body of traditional herbal knowledge, recording an essentially oral tradition of herb and medical lore, but sets out to illuminate that knowledge with new, book learning, thereby bringing it up to date. Trained and expert in his own alpine herbal and tonic-making tradition, our author – perhaps unusually – also received at least some town education. Astrology was an integral part of the medical curriculum at Padua and other north Italian universities and centres of learning. Our author is literate, multi-lingual, but perhaps not cosmopolitan, and to be frank the manuscript, though remarkable, is rustic and unprofessional. The evidence is against him being highly educated. This is the work of a mountain herbalist, a herb gatherer, deeply learned in his craft, who has learnt something of bookish medicine, especially the astrology which he blends with his native (and ancient) stellar cosmology of nympha, amplifying them with the compatible Greek ideas.

Clearly, the work is not a contribution to academic herbalism. So what was it for? The author is not presenting his tradition, its botany and its tonics to either a general or a learned humanistic audience. Rather, he is taking things he has acquired from academic herbalism in order to assemble materials for a small and private readership within his craft. The work should be considered a type of craft document, a reference work for himself and his fellow herb gatherers. Above all, though, it is best understood as a work on the cusp of literacy. I suspect it is bringing much of its material into a literate form for the first time. The tonics are an oral heritage, and it is being brought into writing by an author deeply learned in that oral heritage who is perhaps among the first of his people to read and write and to be taught something of the modern medicine in the cities.

We might be reminded, in this, of the story of Paracelsus a hundred years later. He grew up steeped in alpine herbal traditions, then went to the city to study medicine. In his case, he was appalled by the new methods and reinvented his native mountain herbalism as an alternative school of medical thought, building upon its inherent alchemical themes. In the case of the Voynich ms. the author is not taking his tradition to town. He is taking things learnt in the towns back home. Singer insisted the manuscript is proto-Paracelsean. It is a similar encounter between alpine herbalism and Graeco-Arabic cosmology, but the Voynich author is engaged in a different enterprise than Von Hohenheim, and at a lesser level of competence. There is no polemic against a medical establishment or any similar agenda we can detect. It is not a vexatious document. It is private and good humored and often whimsical.

Yet, as with many traditional crafts, the herb gathering traditions contained in the work are likely to have been secret or at least a guarded knowledge. Herb gatherers do not share their knowledge of mountain terrain and vegetation any more than people who gather mushrooms in the hills reveal their best picking spots or a prospector will tell you where he found his gold. And the tonics are not being explained for industrial production: they are handcrafted medicines, mountain elixirs, made according to secret recipes, and secret methods, I surmise, from herbs and waters and ingredients collected from the mountains according to ancient, and secret, or closely guarded, traditions.

This, of course, might well be enough to explain the cryptic language and script in the manuscript. It is an in-house text, for a private audience, perhaps coded. Anyway, the regions in question – South Tyrol – are a language soup upon a Latin base. There has always been a patchwork of obscure languages and dialects in the mountains and valleys, sometimes in very small populations. Forms of vulgar Latin persisted from Roman times, along with Bavarian and German influences. The area was often under the control of the Holy Roman Empire from the Germanic north. I note the evidence suggesting the author may have had German as his first tongue.

Even though we cannot read it, the Voynich text is very likely from this background, and in that case may be in an extinct language. This is compounded by being written in a private script and perhaps a private short-hand. But worse, the text might remain half-oral and the marks on the page, the letters and words, may be prompts for oral instruction and only make sense when informed with oral explanations. Note that there are what appear to be songs and poems in the text. An oral tradition is being written down.

To recap: the manuscript presents alpine herbs in the context of mountain hydrology – we might say a sacred hydrology, or at least an enchanted one. And an accompanying, connected astrology. These two sources, materials – herbs and waters – are the ingredients for the tonics made in the vessels in the pharmacological pages which operate by water-extraction percolation. This method, I want to say, imitates the internal hydrological processes of a mountain.

It is especially important to place the work in the right geography, the right landscape. The mountain is the central fact in the Voynich world. It needs to be understood not only in terms of a mountain herbalism but also a mountain cosmology.

R. B.

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