Voynich Pharmaceutical Pages: Vessels, Jars and Plant Fragments

Something changes in the Voynich Manuscript when the large plants stop behaving like whole plants.

The page becomes more modular.

A root appears without the rest of its plant.

A leaf cluster sits beside another fragment.

Rows of tall, decorated, container-like forms appear.

Short pieces of writing attach themselves to visual units.

The page begins to look less like a botanical portrait and more like a shelf, catalogue, inventory or working bench.

That is why these folios are conventionally called the pharmaceutical pages.

The label is sensible.

It is also where certainty can outrun evidence.

A vessel-like drawing becomes an apothecary jar.

A plant fragment becomes an ingredient.

A label becomes the ingredient name.

A row becomes a recipe.

And suddenly an undeciphered page has turned into a pharmacy.

Perhaps it is one.

But the interesting question is not how quickly we can make the page familiar.

What does the shift from whole plants to fragments and repeated containers tell us before we decide what the containers contain?

Quite a lot.

Quick Read

One-sentence answer: the Voynich pharmaceutical pages are a real visual family in which detached plant components, repeated vessel-like forms and short labels create a more modular, catalogue-like information architecture than the large herbal pages, but that architecture does not by itself establish whether the vessels represent literal pharmacy jars, whether the plant parts are ingredients, or whether vessel shape encodes preparation, storage, quantity, category or another function.

The so-called pharmaceutical visual family includes folios around f88–f89 and the pages conventionally grouped in Quire 19.
The modern term “pharmaceutical” is a descriptive interpretation, not a deciphered medieval title.
Whole-plant imagery gives way in many places to detached roots, leaves, stems or smaller plant-like components.
Repeated tall vessel-like objects appear in rows or groups and vary in shape, decoration and proportion.
Short labels often sit near plant components or vessel-like forms, suggesting that individual visual units may have been independently addressable.
Historical apothecary jars and albarelli show that pharmacies and shops did use sets of visually differentiated storage containers, especially in later fifteenth-century and Renaissance Italy and the Mediterranean world.
Those historical jars are useful comparison objects; they do not prove that a particular Voynich form is an albarello or that the manuscript was made in Italy.
Container shape could reflect contents, storage, visual classification, workshop convention, quantity or process state; no universal “jar shape = preparation method” rule has been established.
Detached plant components may connect internally to earlier whole-plant pages, but resemblance can indicate same plant, same component class, same drawing template or same artist habit.
A fragment beside a vessel does not automatically mean “put this ingredient into this jar”. Spatial adjacency is weaker than a demonstrated operational relationship.
Known medieval medical manuscripts such as Egerton MS 747 combine herbals, antidotaries, doses, substitutions, weights, measures and synonym lists, showing that plant-part, storage and pharmaceutical information could coexist in one practical knowledge environment.
The strongest surviving public interpretation is architectural: these pages look more like component-level retrieval or classification surfaces than the large whole-plant folios.

That is already a meaningful change in how the manuscript organises information.

We do not need to know the contents of a jar to notice that the page has become more like a system of parts.

“Pharmaceutical” Is a Hypothesis Hidden Inside a Useful Label

The modern section name works because several features point toward pharmacy-like practice.

plant parts rather than only whole plants;
container-like forms;
short labels;
repetition that resembles inventory or storage;
a manuscript already rich in plant imagery.

Together, those features make a pharmaceutical interpretation historically sensible.

But the label contains several claims that should remain separable.

Claim 1: the forms are literal vessels.

Claim 2: the vessels belong to medicine or pharmacy.

Claim 3: the nearby plant parts are ingredients.

Claim 4: the labels name ingredients or preparations.

Claim 5: the page tells us what to do with them.

Each step can be plausible while the next remains unknown.

The safe use of “pharmaceutical” is therefore:

a modern descriptive label for pages whose vessels and plant components invite comparison with historical pharmacy and materia medica.

That keeps the comparison useful without turning it into a translation.

The Most Important Change Is Whole Plant → Component

The herbal pages often centre one large plant-like figure.

The pharmaceutical pages frequently break plants into pieces.

That change matters regardless of whether the pages are medical.

Whole-object representation supports one kind of information problem.

Component representation supports another.

A whole plant can help with recognition.

A detached root can help with usable-part identification.

A detached leaf can classify a harvested material.

A fragment can represent a stored drug rather than a living organism.

Or it can simply be a visual shorthand for a known whole object.

The shift therefore suggests a change in resolution:

from organism-level representation toward part-level representation.

That is one of the strongest structural conclusions we can preserve without naming the parts as ingredients.

A Detached Root May Be a Drug Before It Is a Species

Modern botany asks which species a root belongs to.

Practical medicine can ask a different question:

Which usable substance is this?

The distinction matters.

A medicinal material can be traded detached from the whole plant.

Roots are dried.

Leaves are bundled.

Resins, seeds, bark and fruits circulate as materia medica.

Historical pharmacological traditions therefore often care about the usable substance as much as the taxonomic organism.

This makes the Voynich fragmentation meaningful.

It could indicate a move from “what plant?” to “what part or substance?”

But even that should remain a hypothesis until recurring fragments, labels and historical parallels agree.

Part-level drawing is compatible with pharmacy.

Compatibility is not proof of use.

The Vessel-Like Forms Are Not All the Same

One of the most striking features of these pages is variation among the container-like forms.

Some are tall.

Some are squat.

Some have narrow necks.

Some widen above or below.

Some carry bands, lobes, dots or repeated decorative structures.

This variation is precisely what invites code-like interpretation.

Perhaps one shape means infusion.

Another powder.

Another distillation.

Another storage.

That would be elegant.

The problem is that visual variation can encode many things besides process.

contents;
container type;
size;
quantity;
workshop style;
decorative differentiation;
category;
owner;
source;
or no stable semantic variable at all.

A shape difference is evidence of differentiation.

It does not name the differentiated variable.

Historical Apothecary Jars Make the Comparison Plausible

Late medieval and Renaissance pharmacies really did use ceramic jars designed for shelves and repeated storage.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art preserves Italian apothecary jars from the later fifteenth century, including albarelli made in Naples and Florence-area workshops.

These vessels can be tall, cylindrical and narrowed around the middle, with flanged rims that could be covered and sealed.

Sets of jars could sit together in pharmacies or shops and visually differentiate stored substances.

The Aga Khan Museum preserves fifteenth-century Syrian pharmacy jars whose history also reminds us that ceramic forms and trade circulated across the Mediterranean, including through Italian commercial networks.

This comparison establishes capability.

It shows that a late medieval reader could live in a world where medicine was stored in visually distinctive repeated vessels.

It does not prove that Voynich vessels are copies of those jars.

And because many surviving comparison objects are later than the parchment date, chronology must remain visible.

Historical resemblance can illuminate a function while remaining too late or too broad to establish origin.

An Albarello Is a Useful Comparator, Not a Voynich Translation

The albarello is one of the most recognisable historical pharmacy-jar forms.

Its narrowed waist makes it easy to grip.

Its open top can be sealed.

Its ceramic surface can carry decoration or inscriptions.

When a Voynich vessel looks vaguely albarello-like, the comparison is worth noting.

Then three brakes are needed.

Chronology: many museum examples are from the later fifteenth century or later than the Voynich parchment window.
Geography: related ceramic traditions circulated widely around the Mediterranean.
Function: a jar-like silhouette does not prove that the drawing represents a literal jar rather than a schematic container class.

The comparator is therefore strongest when used to say:

repeated differentiated storage vessels belong to the historical possibility space.

It is much weaker when used to say:

this Voynich shape is a specific Italian pharmacy jar and therefore the book is Italian.

That second sentence asks resemblance to carry provenance, chronology and semantics simultaneously.

It cannot.

Container Shape = Process Did Not Survive as a Universal Rule

One of the most attractive hypotheses in our wider work was that container morphology might encode operation.

Different shapes could correspond to:

grinding;
infusion;
boiling;
distillation;
storage;
dosage;
fermentation;
another preparation state.

Historically, equipment type can indeed signal process.

The problem was predictive consistency.

A universal process code should behave like a code.

The same vessel class should repeatedly align with the same independent visual or textual variable.

It should predict an unseen instance.

The evidence did not justify promoting vessel shape into a decoded universal operation system.

The variation remains valuable.

The semantic legend remains unknown.

This is exactly the kind of failed theory that should be preserved publicly as a boundary:

container morphology is worth measuring; it is not yet a preparation dictionary.

Storage May Be Simpler Than Preparation

A vessel does not need to perform a transformation.

It can simply store.

This possibility is easy to underestimate because process is more interesting than inventory.

But a working pharmacy depends on retrieval.

Which substance is in which container?

Which part of the plant is usable?

What is the local name?

What can substitute for it?

How much should be used?

A catalogue or inventory page can therefore be operationally important without depicting the operation itself.

This fits the page morphology surprisingly well:

component + container + label

can form a retrieval unit.

Again, this is a hypothesis.

But it reminds us that the most practical function may be less dramatic than a coded alchemical process.

Classification Can Look Like Storage Even When No Physical Shelf Is Being Depicted

There is another possibility.

The vessel-like form may be a visual category rather than a literal portrait of a container.

Modern interfaces use folders that do not represent literal paper folders.

A medieval visual system can likewise borrow a familiar object to organise abstract information.

A jar-shaped frame could indicate:

substance class;
preparation class;
origin;
quality;
storage type;
another metadata category.

The way to distinguish literal and classificatory roles is not by asking which story feels more medieval.

Ask whether the vessel forms obey object realism or symbolic reuse.

Do forms correspond to physically plausible containers?

Do the same forms recur with different plant parts?

Does one vessel class predict one text class?

A symbolic category should behave more consistently than an ornamental drawing habit.

Labels Are More Important Than the Jars

This may sound backwards.

The jars dominate the eye.

But the short textual units may be the more powerful evidence.

A label tells us that the maker considered some visual unit worth addressing separately.

The first question is therefore not:

What does this label mean?

It is:

What kinds of things receive labels?

Whole plant fragments?

Roots?

Vessels?

Pairs of vessel and fragment?

If one structural unit consistently receives one label, the page ontology becomes clearer before any translation occurs.

Document architecture can tell us what the maker considered an addressable entity.

That is often more useful than guessing the entity’s name.

A Label Could Name the Contents, the Container or the Category

Suppose a short string appears beside a vessel.

Modern readers often imagine a jar label.

That is plausible.

But several semantics fit the same placement.

name of contents;
name of vessel type;
quantity;
preparation state;
storage location;
source region;
quality grade;
cross-reference number;
category code.

The label’s position narrows the job.

It does not select one semantic field.

Textual recurrence can help.

If the same label accompanies the same fragment in another context, content identity becomes more plausible.

If it accompanies several different fragments but the same vessel class, container or category meaning becomes more plausible.

This is why cross-page recurrence is stronger than one local match.

The Internal Whole-Plant ↔ Fragment Crosswalk Remains One of the Best Questions

The pharmaceutical pages create an opportunity the external-comparison hunt cannot provide.

We can compare Voynich with itself.

A detached root may resemble a root from an earlier whole-plant folio.

A leaf cluster may resemble an earlier leaf cluster.

If several features align, the internal relationship becomes interesting.

But even a strong internal visual match can represent several things.

same plant;
same medicinal part;
same visual template;
same class of root or leaf;
same illustrator habit.

The next layer should therefore be textual.

Do labels or nearby word-like forms correspond?

Do physical and Currier contexts make sense?

A visual match plus a text match is stronger than either alone.

And if the text prediction was established before the image comparison, stronger still.

Same Fragment Does Not Necessarily Mean Same Whole Plant

Two different plants can have similar roots.

Two different medicinal substances can be represented using the same generic leaf convention.

One illustrator can reuse the same shape habit across multiple objects.

This means the internal crosswalk needs multiple features.

Root geometry alone is weak.

Root + leaf + colour + label + page role is much stronger.

The principle is the same as botanical identification:

a coalition of independent features is more reliable than one memorable resemblance.

Internal comparison removes the external-provenance problem.

It does not remove the identity problem.

Egerton MS 747 Shows What a Working Pharmaceutical Knowledge Environment Can Contain

British Library Egerton MS 747 is valuable because its contents are known.

It includes herbal material, the Antidotarium Nicolai, material concerning doses, ingredient substitutions, weights and measures, synonyms for medical substances and a calendrical fragment.

This gives us a historically grounded list of jobs a practical medical manuscript may need to solve.

identify a substance;
recognise its synonyms;
find a substitute;
measure a dose;
combine ingredients;
organise recipes;
connect practical medicine with calendrical knowledge.

That is important because a Voynich vessel-and-fragment page need not perform only one job.

A component could participate in identification and substitution.

A label could record a synonym.

A vessel class could organise stored materials.

A later starred page could hold recipes.

These are historically plausible functions.

The comparison does not tell us which ones Voynich uses.

It expands the function space more intelligently than the single word “pharmacy”.

Substitution Is a Particularly Important Alternative to Identity

Historical pharmacy has a practical problem that modern visual matching often forgets.

What happens when the preferred ingredient is unavailable?

Substitute another.

Egerton MS 747 contains exactly this kind of quid pro quo material.

This creates a powerful interpretive warning.

If two plant fragments are associated, they do not necessarily represent the same plant.

They could be alternatives.

If two labels recur near similar vessels, they need not be synonyms.

They could be paired substitutes.

Practical knowledge systems organise relations beyond identity.

That is why “same context” is not equivalent to “same thing”.

Weights and Measures Are Another Hidden Possibility

A pharmaceutical page can care about quantity as much as identity.

How much root?

How much powder?

How much liquid?

How large a vessel?

Known medical manuscripts include systems of weights and measures because treatment depends on dosage.

This reminds us that short Voynich labels beside fragments or containers need not be names.

Some could in principle encode quantity or class.

There is no accepted evidence that they do.

The point is methodological:

practical pages create many plausible textual roles beyond naming.

A translation theory should therefore explain why a short string is a noun rather than a number, measure, instruction or code.

A Vessel Beside a Plant Fragment Is Not Automatically an Instruction

Spatial adjacency is one of the most common sources of overinterpretation.

Plant fragment beside jar.

Therefore:

put the plant into the jar.

That is one possible relationship.

Others include:

the vessel stores the substance;
the vessel identifies a category;
the image pair forms one catalogue entry;
the vessel belongs to a different row;
the plant and vessel are independent examples sharing page space.

An instruction requires direction or syntax.

Adjacency gives association.

The two should not be confused.

This is the same lesson we learned from the Rosettes connectors and the Quire 13 tubes.

Relation precedes operation.

Rows and Repetition Suggest Retrieval

Why repeat similar visual units in rows?

One answer is efficient retrieval.

Rows make comparison easy.

They let a reader scan categories.

They create stable visual slots for labels.

They support lookup rather than narrative reading.

This is why the pharmaceutical pages may function more like a reference interface than a sequence of instructions.

A catalogue does not tell you how to use every item.

It helps you find the item.

If these pages are retrieval surfaces, the later text-heavy recipe pages could perform a different job.

That relationship is historically plausible.

It is still not proven.

But separating retrieval from instruction makes the manuscript architecture more realistic than forcing every pharmaceutical-looking page to contain a recipe.

Catalogue-Like Does Not Mean Alphabetical

Once a page looks like a catalogue, another assumption arrives.

Perhaps items are ordered alphabetically.

That would be useful if the labels were names.

But catalogues can be ordered by:

substance family;
medical use;
storage location;
source;
preparation type;
availability;
visual similarity;
traditional textual order.

The ordering variable is itself a research question.

If labels could be ranked under a proposed alphabet, do vessel and fragment classes show corresponding order?

If not, perhaps the page is not lexical at all.

Reference architecture can be detected before its sorting key is understood.

The Textual Regime Adds Another Layer

The pharmaceutical pages do not exist outside the manuscript’s textual structure.

Traditional Currier classifications often place important parts of this visual family closer to A-like textual behaviour than Quire 13’s strongly B-like profile.

This matters because it prevents a simple narrative:

all medical pages use one medical language.

If herbal, pharmaceutical, zodiacal and Quire 13 material distribute differently across textual regimes, then either:

their topics differ;
their source traditions differ;
their writers differ;
their encoding states differ;
their production phases differ;
or several variables contribute.

One grand medical function can still coexist with several textual states.

But the states need explanation.

The visual label “pharmaceutical” cannot erase the Currier problem.

A Practical Medical Book Can Be Modular Without Being One Pipeline

This is where known manuscripts help us avoid false simplicity.

A historical medical compendium may include:

herbal entries;
substitution tables;
dose rules;
recipes;
calendars;
astrological material;
bath treatments;
synonyms;
weights and measures.

Those modules can work together for one practitioner without forming one linear workflow.

You do not read a dictionary from A to Z before using a recipe.

You consult the module you need.

Voynich may likewise be modular.

The herbal pages could support identification.

The pharmaceutical pages could support retrieval or substance classification.

Quire 20 could support short records or recipes.

Quire 13 could be a separate body or bath module.

This architecture is historically plausible.

It remains a model until internal cross-references make the module relationships explicit.

The Clean Whole-Plant → Fragment → Vessel Sequence Is Still Not Proven

It is tempting to place the herbal and pharmaceutical sections into a simple sequence.

First, identify the whole plant.

Second, select the medicinal part.

Third, put the part into a vessel.

This is so intuitive that it feels discovered rather than invented.

But three different relationships are being assumed:

whole plant ↔ detached part;
detached part ↔ vessel;
page order ↔ operational order.

Each needs evidence.

Internal visual matches can strengthen the first.

Repeated label or vessel associations can strengthen the second.

Codicology and cross-references are needed for the third.

The complete sequence has not been established.

The smaller links remain productive questions.

The Page May Be a Crosswalk Between Visual and Stored Knowledge

Suppose an earlier herbal page helps a user recognise a living plant.

Later, the same user encounters a dried root in storage.

A component-level page could bridge those two contexts.

Whole organism → usable part → stored substance.

This is one of the most attractive practical interpretations of the page-family shift.

It has a virtue that grander theories sometimes lack.

It predicts internal correspondences.

If the model is correct, we should find repeated visual or textual links between whole-plant and component pages.

If we do not, the model weakens.

A good hypothesis gives the manuscript a chance to say no.

What Survived From the Vessel and Fragment Work

The pharmaceutical pages form a genuine recurring visual family.
The move from whole plants to detached components is a real change in information resolution.
Vessel-like forms are systematically differentiated enough to deserve classification.
Rows and repeated slots make retrieval, catalogue or inventory functions plausible.
Short labels suggest independently addressable visual units.
Historical pharmacies did use visually differentiated storage vessels, making literal-vessel interpretation plausible.
Known medical manuscripts show that identification, substitutions, doses, synonyms, measurements and recipes can coexist in one practical information environment.
Internal whole-plant ↔ fragment matching remains more promising than dramatic external resemblance because both sides belong to the same codex.
Container morphology is useful evidence but did not survive as a universal decoded process code.
Adjacency between fragment and vessel proves association more readily than instruction.
The strongest current public description is a component-level classification or retrieval system with possible pharmaceutical function.

This is a substantial result.

It tells us how the manuscript changes its information architecture even while the labels remain unreadable.

What Did Not Survive as Established Knowledge

A proof that every vessel-like drawing is a literal pharmacy jar.
A proof that any one vessel type is an albarello.
A direct Italian provenance derived from jar resemblance.
A universal vessel-shape → preparation-method dictionary.
A proof that every detached plant part is an ingredient.
A proof that nearby labels are ingredient names.
A proof that fragment + vessel adjacency is an instruction.
A complete whole-plant → fragment → vessel workflow.
A demonstrated one-to-one internal identity map for all plant fragments.
A proof that the section is strictly pharmaceutical rather than storage, classification, retrieval or another practical system.

Those failures are useful.

They tell future readers which attractive shortcuts should not be treated as results.

A Better Vessel-and-Fragment Analysis

1. Segment the visual units

Separate root, leaf, stem, flower-like form, vessel, label and running text before interpreting relationships.

2. Classify vessel morphology neutrally

Record neck, body, base, proportion, bands and decoration without assigning process.

3. Map adjacency

Which fragments sit beside which vessels and labels?

4. Search internally first

Look for matching fragments in the herbal pages before importing external plant identities.

5. Test whether vessel classes predict anything

Do they correlate with fragment class, text class, label form or page position?

6. Compare historical storage and pharmacy objects

Use them as capability and functional controls, not provenance certificates.

7. Add medical-manuscript functions

Consider identity, synonym, substitution, dose, measure, preparation and retrieval as competing textual jobs.

8. Require prediction

A proposed vessel class or fragment identity should predict an unseen occurrence.

This sequence lets the page teach us its categories rather than making the word “pharmacy” provide them in advance.

What Would Make a Storage or Retrieval Theory Strong?

Vessel classes recur consistently.
Each class correlates with a stable plant-part, label or textual category.
Rows have a recoverable sorting rule.
Whole-plant pages cross-reference component pages under independent features.
Labels behave like identifiers rather than ordinary running-text fragments.
Historical storage practices make the proposed visual organisation plausible.
The model predicts where a new fragment should appear or which vessel class should accompany it.
The system explains exceptions rather than discarding them.

A storage model does not need to be glamorous.

It needs to be predictive.

What Would Make a Preparation-Code Theory Strong?

Different vessel morphologies map to distinct operations under stable rules.
The same vessel class repeatedly occurs with the same textual markers.
Plant fragments change in ways predicted by the operation.
Historical apparatuses provide plausible functional analogues.
Direction or sequence can be established independently.
The mapping predicts a vessel on an unseen page.
The model explains why storage-like and preparation-like forms differ.

Without these properties, “this jar means distillation” is an attractive caption rather than a decipherment.

What Would Count as a Real Pharmaceutical Breakthrough?

Imagine a detached root on a pharmaceutical page is matched independently to a root on an earlier herbal folio.

The match uses several morphological features rather than one curve.

A stable textual rule independently predicts that the two labels are related.

A second pair behaves the same way.

Then a third.

Now the proposed relationship predicts a fourth pair not used to build the model.

The prediction succeeds.

That would be a real internal crosswalk.

Or imagine vessel classes reliably predict a preparation term recovered from the text and align with historically plausible equipment.

Also a breakthrough.

In both cases, the key is the same:

the rule travels farther than the example that inspired it.

Primary School: Same Shape or Same Thing?

Show a child three simple pictures of containers.

Two look similar.

Ask:

Do they contain the same thing?

Not necessarily.

Then show two different-shaped containers with the same label.

Ask again.

The child discovers that appearance, category and contents can be different variables.

That is exactly the problem with Voynich vessels.

Lower Secondary: Build a Vessel Classification Without Meaning

For Secondary 1 and Secondary 2, give students ten invented vessel drawings.

Ask them to classify by:

height;
neck width;
body shape;
base;
decoration;
number of bands.

Then ask:

Have you discovered what the jars are for?

No.

They have discovered morphology.

Function needs an independent correlation.

The lesson transfers directly to classification in science and data analysis.

Upper Secondary: Compare Storage, Preparation and Classification Models

Give students three competing explanations for one vessel page.

Storage model: each vessel represents a stored substance.
Preparation model: vessel shape represents an operation.
Classification model: vessel shape is a symbolic category.

Ask what each predicts.

Storage predicts stable contents associations.

Preparation predicts operation-specific textual or visual changes.

Classification predicts consistent category membership even when literal vessel realism is weak.

The student sees that several theories can explain the same drawing but make different future predictions.

That is the beginning of model comparison.

JC and Adult Readers: Treat the Page as an Interface

At a higher level, the pharmaceutical pages may be easier to understand as an interface problem.

A user needs to move between representations.

Living plant.

Usable component.

Stored substance.

Name or synonym.

Preparation.

Recipe.

Different manuscript modules could support different transitions.

The pharmaceutical pages may occupy one transition point.

This does not require the page itself to contain a complete procedure.

It may simply help the user locate the right stored thing.

That interpretation is attractive because it explains the shift to fragments, rows, vessels and short labels together.

It remains a model until cross-references prove the transition.

A Parent and Teacher Guide

These pages are ideal for teaching one very practical reasoning habit:

Do not let an object’s familiar appearance decide its function before the system does.

Describe first. Vessel-like, not pharmacy jar.
Classify morphology. What changes among the forms?
Map associations. Which fragments, labels and vessels occur together?
Generate several functions. Storage, preparation, classification, quantity, retrieval.
Use historical controls. Apothecary jars show possibility, not provenance.
Require recurrence. One vessel meaning should survive more than one page.
Ask for prediction. What should appear next if the model is right?

The routine works equally well when students interpret graphs, circuit symbols, maps and unfamiliar scientific diagrams.

Reader Checklist: Before You Believe a Voynich Pharmaceutical Theory

Is “pharmaceutical” being used as a descriptive label or a proven function?
Are vessel-like forms literal containers or symbolic classes under the theory?
Does vessel morphology correlate with any independent variable?
Is one historical jar resemblance being turned into provenance?
Are later fifteenth-century albarelli being used carefully with chronology?
Are detached plant parts matched to whole plants using several features?
Do text labels independently support the proposed matches?
Does fragment + vessel adjacency prove association or instruction?
Could the page be inventory, retrieval, classification or storage rather than preparation?
Does the model explain short labels and running text separately?
Does it account for Currier and physical manuscript structure?
Does it predict an unseen occurrence?
What evidence would make the theory fail?

Frequently Asked Questions

Are these definitely pharmaceutical pages?

No. The name is a useful conventional description based on plant fragments and vessel-like forms. Pharmaceutical function is historically plausible but not decoded.

Are the vessels apothecary jars?

Some forms invite comparison with historical pharmacy jars and albarelli, but no one-to-one vessel identification has been established. Historical jars are comparators rather than translations.

Do different jar shapes mean different preparation methods?

No universal process code has been demonstrated. Container morphology remains a useful variable that may encode storage, category, contents, process or another distinction.

Are the plant fragments ingredients?

They may be usable plant parts or stored substances, but fragment identity and function remain unresolved. They could also serve classification or retrieval roles.

Do fragments match earlier whole plants?

Some internal visual correspondences are worth investigating. A robust match needs several morphological and ideally textual features because the same generic component shape can recur across different plants.

Could the pages be an inventory?

Yes. Rows, repeated vessel-like forms, fragments and short labels make inventory, storage, catalogue and retrieval functions plausible alternatives to direct preparation instructions.

Does an albarello resemblance prove Italy?

No. Pharmacy-jar forms and ceramic traditions circulated widely, and many surviving museum examples are later than the Voynich parchment window. Resemblance alone cannot establish provenance.

What is the strongest conclusion?

These pages represent a deliberate shift from whole-organism imagery toward a modular system of plant components, differentiated vessel-like forms and short labels. That makes component-level classification, retrieval or pharmaceutical use plausible while leaving the exact semantics unresolved.

Research and Further Reading

The Final Idea

The vessel pages feel like the moment the Voynich Manuscript becomes practical.

Whole plants become parts.

Parts become sortable.

Containers repeat.

Labels attach.

The page looks ready for work.

And that is when we must be most careful not to invent the work.

A jar can store.

It can classify.

It can mark quantity.

It can encode a process.

Or it can merely look like a jar to us.

The real achievement will come when one of those possibilities begins predicting the rest of the page.

Until then, the most important discovery is simpler:

the manuscript has changed from showing things as wholes to organising things as parts.

That is not the translation.

But it may be one of the clues to how the book expected to be used.

Continue Through the Voynich Research Map

This article is one specialist node in eduKateSG’s larger Voynich research library. Return to the canonical master to see the physical, visual, textual and historical evidence in one continuous argument.

Structure is evidence; structure is not translation. The master keeps resemblance, statistical structure, historical possibility and decipherment claims at separate evidentiary levels.

Next Best Routes

The Herbal Pages — move back from components to whole-plant representation.
The Human Figures, Pools and Tubes — compare container-like visual units in a very different relational regime.
The Starred Pages — continue from modular visual units into modular text records.

Deep bridge: The Museum Label Is a Tiny Piece of Scholarship is a useful control for thinking about compact labels as compressed associations rather than automatic object names.

Voynich | Everything eduKate Knows and Tested | The Vessels and Plant Fragments