[Diane]

Panofsky's freely-given opinion to Ann Nill was that the Voynich manuscript was not continental European but Spanish, Kabbalistic and Mozarabic Jewish. He initially placed it to the thirteenth century, but not having access to some mss now available he could not explain the form for the 'nymphs' so early.  More recent information, including discription description of the pigments by McCrone and discovery (by the present writer) of motifs which link the Vms to the portolan-chart tradition,  make the fourteenth century and Jewish context more likely for a recension prior to ours.

So the 'ladies' in the calendar section could be named by the 72 divine/angelic names used in Kabbalah.
______

There's a web-page  referring to Kircher's table of 72 angelic divine names from his Oedipus Aegyptiacus.

and

a quotation from the Bahir - par.10 - where it says of the 72 Names: "... These are the 72 names.  They emanate and divide themselves into three sections, 24 to each section. Each sections has four directions to watch, east, west, north and south. They are therefore distributed, six to each direction. ..."

and

comparative table of the 72 names as rendered by Bardon, Agrippa and Abulafia

and

that by Francis Barrett (1801)

plus

the system by which the names are generated in the original Hebrew

NB: - also much nonsense on the same the web-page.

http://guideangel.com/angels.htm

[Aaron]

Yeah, I know the 72 divine names are heavily used in mythology... if it is indeed an alchemy book of some kind then that kind of inclusion would make sense.

[Diane]

I was hoping the table for generating words/names might spark some interest.

Wait and see, I guess. 

[Diane]

The Voynich astronomical section (ff. 68r-69v) could be from a Jewish copy of the 12th or 13thC translation of Al Farghani.
Jus' sayin.

[Aaron]

I can't say I know of that, nor have I heard of Farghani. Looks like he was an early astronomer that made some vital contributions.

[Diane]

I've read rather more now, and except that Panofsky usually knew what he was about, I'd dismiss the Kabbalistic link.  Thing is, he did.

Against this we have the opinion of Thorndike (no less) that the ms was "an anonymous manuscript of dubious value" - as far as his own study of western science and magic was concerned.

Metaphysics and religion are not in either category, though, are they?  More to the point, perhaps, is that so many who pride themselves on being rational are irrationally averse to studying the history of such subjects.  "Fear of the perceptual" as one wise man one said, "is the last superstition of rational men."