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Sunday, July 4, 2010

Voynich-swallow-tail merlons

Is the nine-rosette sea-side castle Nice?

Posted by nickpelling on May 19th, 2010


It’s not widely known that the Voynich Manuscript’s “nine-rosette” foldout page contains two sets of swallow-tail merlons – one set on top of the famous castle (as per the Cipher Mysteries header graphic), and one on a long low wall, apparently beside the sea. This latter runs across one of the folds, making it very slightly awkward to make out:-
seaside castle Is the nine rosette sea side castle Nice?
But where is this? I suspect it’s not Genoa, because (as per this picture from Hartmann Schedel’s 1493 Weltchronik) that had neither a flat sea frontage nor swallowtail merlons. For a while I suspected that it might depict Naples: but while reading up on the Occitan dialect Niçard, I found a, well, nice picture of Nice being besieged from the sea by Barbarossa in 1543. The (fabulously made-up) story goes that outraged local washerwoman Catherine Ségurane climbed on top of the walls to expose her ample rear to the Turkish fleet, which (somehow) caused them to abandon their attack (Ségurane’s triumphant mooning is celebrated on November 25th [St Catherine's Day] each year in Nice)… but I guess you had to be there. Anyway… because of Turin’s history as a key part of the Duchy of Savoy, the Biblioteca Reale di Torino also has quite a few piante e disegni of Nice AKA ‘Nizza’ (see p.508 of this online inventory, though unfortunately few dates are given), which might prove to be a useful resource. I don’t know whether or not all this line of thought is going anywhere: it’s certainly something to bear in mind, though.
I also found a nice picture of the same Turkish fleet wintering in Toulon, a mere 100 miles down the coast: it’s hard to be sure, but it looks to me as though its walls have swallowtail merlons. Were there any more major walled ports circa 1400-1450 between Marseille and Genoa? Perhaps Villefranche-sur-Mer? Someone out there should know…
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23 Responses

  1. Paul Ferguson Paul Ferguson Says:
    Not exactly Savoy/Piedmont but it looks a bit like the Bellinzona castles, in which case it would be a river (Ticino) not the sea:
    http://www.swisstraveling.com/2008/08/02/bellinzona/
  2. Nick
 Pelling nickpelling Says:
    Paul: good point! For all my research into Milan I hadn’t thought to look at Bellinzona. What might also possibly be connected is that one of Filarete’s big secrets was the site where he thought the Sforza’s ‘Milan 2.0′ (AKA Sforzinda) should be built: so if this is Bellinzona, then the VMs’ nine-rosette page might possibly be a local map to Sforzinda. It’s fun to speculate once in a while, eh? Thanks! :-)
  3. Rene Zandbergen Rene Zandbergen Says:
    The Bellinzona castle isn’t actually on the side of the river, or is it? This combination one has in Verona though: http://www.italianvisits.com/images/veneto-im/verona/verona-ponte_scaligero2.jpg
    Unfortunately, I don’t have a date for this construction, but there are a number of walls with swallow tails facing the river.
    There’s lake Garda with a few castles as well…
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  5. Diane Diane Says:
    Nick – who invented the term ’swallowtail’ merlons? Is that what the medieval engineers or masons (or something) called them?
  6. Paul Ferguson Paul Ferguson Says:
    The Skaliger bridge in Verona is mid-1350s according to Wiki:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castelvecchio_Bridge
  7. Paul Ferguson Paul Ferguson Says:
    On Lake Garda another Scaliger/Skaliger edifice would seem the likeliest candidate:
    http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-30301837/stock-photo–the-scaliger-castle-in-sirmione-on-lake-garda.html
  8. Paul Ferguson Paul Ferguson Says:
    This castle in Genoa has swallowtails:
    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Genova-Castello_d‘Albertis-DSCF5405.JPG
  9. Nick
 Pelling nickpelling Says:
    Diane: don’t know, most just referred to them as Ghibelline as far as I know.
    Paul: we’re long on swallowtails but short on seaside castle walls (or, as you point out, riverside castle walls or crenellated bridges).
  10. Paul Ferguson Paul Ferguson Says:

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