From the outset, my very first impressions, I have been of the view that the large foldout map that features in the Voynich manuscript must be the key to the work. But so what? So have thousands of others. I remain hopeful that there are still new ways to look at the problem.
Quite apart from indicating a geographical location and placing the work within a landscape, I want to emphasize that the map is stylized according to a certain pattern, and it has always been my suspicion that this pattern in itself is significant to the work as a whole. In my more unrestrained musings I suspect it is the actual masterkey to the work, hidden in plain sight.
While I think the map participates in a tradition of nine sacred mountains and follows certain conventions pertaining to pilgrimage maps, I think its numerological foundations are separate to that and that it represents some system of nine. Nine what? Perhaps many things. My suspicion is that there is a conceptual or philosophical system of nine underpinning the manuscript as a whole.
Ninefold schemes are far from uncommon in medieval and early modern thinking: any or all of them could be analogized to this diagram by the medieval habit of mind. Certain ones stand out in context and have often been noted: Dante's ninefold schema, for example.
In view of my hypothesis, several other suggestions emerge. Most importantly, there are the ninefold hierarchies of Christian cosmology that feature in the deeply influential mysticism of Dionysus the Areopagite. This is the ultimate background to Nicholas of Cusa's Christian neoplatonism.
It is also, possibly, a foundation for Ramon Llull's Ars Magna which features a system of nine Divine Attributes as its first principle and platform.
Then Cusanus develops his own system of nine as a feature of his mystical theology. Throughout the intellectual tradition to which Cusanus belongs there are important ninefold systems. In Cusanus, the number is especially Trinitarian - three sets of three, 3 x 3.
In this post I just want to flag this as a worthy direction for continued study that arises out of both the text and context. The text itself leads us to the map, and the map is formed from a pattern of nine circles. The context I supply - a Cusean authorship - reveals the importance of ninefold conceptual schemes in the relevant intellectual milieu. It is worth exploring.
While I think the map participates in a tradition of nine sacred mountains and follows certain conventions pertaining to pilgrimage maps, I think its numerological foundations are separate to that and that it represents some system of nine. Nine what? Perhaps many things. My suspicion is that there is a conceptual or philosophical system of nine underpinning the manuscript as a whole.
Ninefold schemes are far from uncommon in medieval and early modern thinking: any or all of them could be analogized to this diagram by the medieval habit of mind. Certain ones stand out in context and have often been noted: Dante's ninefold schema, for example.
In view of my hypothesis, several other suggestions emerge. Most importantly, there are the ninefold hierarchies of Christian cosmology that feature in the deeply influential mysticism of Dionysus the Areopagite. This is the ultimate background to Nicholas of Cusa's Christian neoplatonism.
It is also, possibly, a foundation for Ramon Llull's Ars Magna which features a system of nine Divine Attributes as its first principle and platform.
Then Cusanus develops his own system of nine as a feature of his mystical theology. Throughout the intellectual tradition to which Cusanus belongs there are important ninefold systems. In Cusanus, the number is especially Trinitarian - three sets of three, 3 x 3.
In this post I just want to flag this as a worthy direction for continued study that arises out of both the text and context. The text itself leads us to the map, and the map is formed from a pattern of nine circles. The context I supply - a Cusean authorship - reveals the importance of ninefold conceptual schemes in the relevant intellectual milieu. It is worth exploring.
* * *
As a first point, I am especially interested in the constraints upon the possibilities in the diagram. Diagonal connections are not permitted. It is not possible to go from the corners to the centre. If we take the nine circles as a system of combinatorics, for example, then some combinations are possible and some are not by this design.
R. B.
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