One very early cipher involved replacing the vowels with dots. In his “Codes and Ciphers” (1939/1949) p.15, Alexander d’Agapeyeff asserts that this was a “Benedictine tradition”, in that the Benedictine order of monks (of which Trithemius was later an Abbot) had long used it as a cipher. The first direct mention we have of it was in a ninth century Benedictine “Treatise of Diplomacy“, where it worked like this:-
- i = .
- a = :
- e = :.
- o = ::
- u = ::.
“R:.:lly“, you might well say, “wh:t : l:::d ::f b::ll::cks” (and you’d be r.ght, ::f c::::.rs:.). But for all its uselessness, this was a very long-lived idea: David Kahn’s “The Codebreakers” (1967) [the 1164-page version, of course!] mentions the earlier St Boniface taking a dots-for-vowels system from England over to Germany in the eighth century (p.89), a “faint political cryptography” in Venice circa 1226, where the vowels in a few documents were replaced by “dots or crosses” (p.106), as well as vowels being enciphered in 1363 by the Archbishop of Naples, Pietro di Grazie (p.106).
However, perhaps the best story on the dots-for-vowels cipher comes from Lynn Thorndike, in his “History of Magic & Experimental Science” Volume III, pp.24-26. In 1320, a Milanese cleric called Bartholomew Canholati told the papal court at Avignon that Matteo Visconti’s underlings had asked him to suffumigate a silver human statuette engraved with “Jacobus Papa Johannes” (the name of the Pope), as well as the sigil for Saturn and “the name of the spirit Amaymom” (he refused). He was then asked for some zuccum de napello (aconite), the most common poison in the Middle Ages (he refused). He was then asked to decipher some “‘experiments for love and hate, and discovering thefts and the like’, which were written without vowels which had been replaced by points” (he again refused). The pope thought it unwise to rely on a single witness, and sent Bartholomew back to Milan; the Viscontis claimed it was all a misunderstanding (though they tortured the cleric for a while, just to be sure); all in all, nobody comes out of the whole farrago smelling of roses.
(Incidentally, the only citation I could find on this was from 1972, when William R. Jones wrote an article on “Political Uses of Sorcery in Medieval Europe” in The Historian: clearly, this has well and truly fallen out of historical fashion.)
All of which I perhaps should have included in Chapter 12 of “The Curse of the Voynich“, where I predicted that various “c / cc / ccc / cccc” patterns in Voynichese are used to cipher the plaintext vowels. After all, this would be little more than a steganographically-obscured version of the same dots-for-vowels cipher that had been in use for more than half a millennium.
As another aside, I once mentioned Amaymon as one of the four possible compass spirits on the Voynich manuscript f57v (on p.124 of my book) magic circle: on p.169 of Richard Kieckhefer’s “Magic in the Middle Ages”, he mentions Cecco d’Ascoli as having used N = Paymon, E = Oriens, S = Egim, and W = Amaymen (which is often written Amaymon). May not be relevant, but I thought I’d mention it, especially seeing as there’s the talk on magic circles at Treadwell’s next month (which I’m still looking forward to).
Finally, here’s a picture of Voynichese text with some annotations of how I think it is divided up into tokens. My predictions: vowels are red, verbose pairs (which encipher a single token) are green, numbers are blue, characters or marks which are unexpected or improvised (such as the arch over the ‘4o’ pair at bottom left, which I guess denotes a contraction between two adjacent pairs) are purple. Make of it all what you will!
Nick: Interesting. Do you think this continued as a specifically Benedictine tradition?
Mark: I don’t know – there may well be some further literature on this somewhere out there beyond what I collected together in this post, but I haven’t yet found it. 🙁
The boundaries of many letters are hard to detect, which requires that both the sender and the receiver know the script quite well and are experienced in using it. This is the case for standard alphabets but not for most secret writing systems.
Koen Gheuens writes on Quora under the heading “Who wrote the Voynich Manuscript?”
“So far we don’t know much for sure. The material of the pages (vellum) has been scientifically dated to the first decades of the 15th century. Studies of the material have also suggested a Northern Italian origin.
So we could say with a reasonable amount of certainty that it was written by someone who was in Northern Italy between 1404–1438. Again, the date is more certain than the location.
You could also add, if you wish, that the person was possibly a monk, since clergymen were some of the only people who knew how to read, write and copy texts.”
This fits with my conclusions that the Voynich manuscript was written by a senior benedictine monk in Northern Italy between 1404-1438 akin to an Abbot Trithemius of Northern Italy in the first half of the 15th Century rather than the Abbot Trithemius of Germany in the second half of the 15th Century that we are familiar with.
Mark: I’d say that while there is pretty good codicological / palaeographical evidence that the Voynich Manuscript spent some time in a monastic library in or around Switzerland in the latter part of the fifteenth century, I wouldn’t (yet) agree that there is any indication that it originated from a monastic milieu.
Mark,
lots of people write lots of different things. One can almost pick what one likes, so one has to be extremely careful in judging one’s sources. I don’t know what is “Quora” and why this should be particularly reliable.
“Studies of the material” is a bit vague. If this refers to the materials of which the MS has been made, then I am not aware of any study that points to Northern Italy, or any other particular geographical area for that matter.
If it refers to the contents of the MS, then there are indications for Nothern Italy, but also (larger) Germany, usually expressed as “Central Europe”.
Nick: As you know my thinking points to the author being in and around Switzerland in the 1430s from my rosette foldout analysis. I would be surprised if the manuscript left his/her hand before his/her death, in the 1460s, as I would have thought the author would have been reluctant to part with it. Within my framework of thinking if correct it does not yet give me any real clarity as to where the manuscript went then; at the moment there are 3 possibilities that occur to me 1) it remained in the family of the author hand’s for not more than a couple of generations 2) It found its way to the Vatican and 3) I guess it is conceivable that it found its way to Switzerland maybe to the same place where some of the sources it was based on could be found.
As you know I believe there are close ties to the diplomatic cipher symbols of the Chancery of Filippo Maria Visconti.
In fact my author was an apprentice “podesta” before choosing the priesthood instead, so would have been being trained for a role in government administration where he could have moved on to diplomatic government work as many of his close relatives did.
Rene: Quora is just a website where people ask questions and people can provide suggested answers. Someone posed a question and Koen Gheuens provided an answer, so the contents are just Koen Gheuens thoughts or opinion.
I didn’t say that Quora or any website or any individual is particularly reliable. Any website will contain contents produced by a human being therefore the reliability will depend on the reliability of that human being’s comments.
If you think the answer is poor you can go on the Quora website and offer an alternative answer or comment on Koen’s answer.
I was not quoting the statement as proof positive of the truth of statements contained within. Koen’s comments were something that I mentioned as they tallied with my own conclusion.
Rene: I should add that if I were to quote a statement from your website that wouldn’t be proof positive of the truth of that statement, it would be your thoughts or opinions which I think worth quoting; no website is a guarantee of truth.
Hi Mark,
this is precisely what I meant with judging your sources. The net is full of statements. How much would you trust the Wikipedia entry, for example?
For a good source, you should be in a position to check what is offered as evidence for any of its statements. Quite often (on the net), there is nothing tangible.
Wikipedia isn’t really any good for what you need, but it is still better than individual statements on discussion fora.
The main point remains: there is no evidence from the materials used to create the Voynich MS that it is more likely to be from Northern Italy. Anyone claiming this has to provide some reference. I am sure that such do not exist.
Rene: indeed, we have lots of small clues as to the Voynich Manuscript’s origin dotted all around Europe – French-style wolkenbanden, German-style zodiac roundels, Italian-style cipher alphabet shapes – but nothing to tie it to any single place definitively.
The only obvious argument I can see is that while the French and German style contributions could easily have been copied, the Italian-style cipher alphabet is something that is more likely to have been originated specifically for it. But even that isn’t as strong an argument as most would like. 🙁
Rene: I wouldn’t describe that as a “source” nor something that I have used as a basis for my theory. My main focus is increasingly primary sources in archives as I am developing more confidence in archival research. I think Wikipedia can be a very useful tool, but I have not based my ideas on that. The internet is not a perfect resource, however it is without a doubt a very useful source. In fact of course the internet is useful in locating primary sources, so I think we shouldn’t underplay how incredibly useful the internet is.
It is true that there is not a lot that can be said about the Voynich with great confidence. I have said before that nobody can really be said to be a known expert on the Voynich, including myself, that is not to detract from the intelligence and hard work that people like yourself and Nick have contributed. I make this statement, because it is possible, maybe not probable, that any individual’s theory, thoughts, opinions and ideas are mostly wrong just from the little we know with certainty. I don’t think one can call someone who is mostly wrong about the Voynich an expert. So there is a chance that anyone researching the Voynich is not an expert, including myself, you, Nick and anyone else. Similarly there may be someone whose theory is very accurate and so is an expert, we just don’t know it yet.
In his remarks on Quora, Koen prefaces his statements quite rightly with:
“[Preliminary note: everything you read about the Voynich Manuscript has to be taken with a grain of salt, especially if claims are made with much certainty and little proof.]”
Some may question why I spend time replying to comments on Voynich blogs, but I think this kind of discussion is useful. I find what people have to say here can be very interesting, though I am often not in a position to check what is offered as evidence for any their statements, as are the case with some of your statements.
Nick: As far the geography goes in addition to the well-known details swallow-tailed battlements. (I also have mentioned before the campinale with arcaded-cornices a distinctive feature in Northern Italy and South Eastern France.)
I don’t have the time at the moment, but it would be useful to know at that period in history in which herbal manuscripts we can find the roots of plants represented as animals and if this can serve as a geographical marker. I have only seen this in Northern/Central Italian herbals, but this may be found in herbals from that era in other places.
I personally do not commit myself to a place of origin. But I give every little hint an environment where he could come from.
The intersection of all circles is still in northern Italy. That’s what all the hints have shown so far, but that can change anytime.
That too is a speculation, of course.
Mark,
as is well known, there are roots shaped like animals in all alchemical herbals, but these are quite different from those in the Voynich MS.
For me, the ones in Harley MS 4986 (a pseudo-Apuleius from Germany) are much more similar. See e.g. some examples on fols. 20-23. There’s another German copy that is quite similar, but I can’t remember which one.
I am not so sure how much this means, though.
I was very impressed by a twelfth century pattern book from the outer Hebrides, myself.
Rene: It may be well-known that there are roots shaped like animals in all alchemical herbals, but this is mistaken. Look at Sloane 4016 for a early 15th century herbal manuscript where from what I have seen no roots are represented as animals with exception of mandrake where the roots are represented as a man which is pretty standard. I don’t have time to produce a list of herbals of that period that do not have roots represented as animals, but I would be surprised if that was the only one.
Rene: It is the case that in the Harley MS 4986 there is more than one example where we can see a plant represented as an animal. I particularly like folio 20v.
Like all information this has the potential to lead to more ideas, so it is unclear where this line of enquiry may or may not lead, so it is hard to say how much it all means.
However I can see difficulties in using plant identifications, even if accurate, as the basis for a crib, because it is not clear which text would correspond to the plant name though I guess it is possible that is it the first word on the page as has been suggested by others. So in that sense I am not sure how much mileage there is in working on the plant pages at this time and unfortunately I can’t yet justify spending my time for the Voynich in that area at this moment. Nick’s search for a “block-paradigm” seems like an eminently sensible approach and one I think that has a fair chance of succeeding depending of course on how easy he finds it to track down such a block; I would be surprised if there is no valid block out their anywhere in an archive, the question to me is will it be devilishly difficult to find such a block.
Nick: On your Voynich Ninja Youtube interview I thought what you said about trying to read the text in the Voynich that it not enciphered was interesting. This part of the manuscript is not one, like most of the manuscript, that I have any familiarity with, so it is hard for me to form an opinion as to the viability of such an approach, however it seems very logical. It seems to me that the Voynich will most likely be deciphered on the basis of a small amount of the manuscript rather than a well-rounded knowledge of the whole manuscript this could be one of your block paradigms or the unreadable, but not enciphered page, or a page like the 9 rosette foldout. That is why I have long believed valuable research on the Voynich can easily be done even with a widespread ignorance of the manuscript only focusing on one or two aspects of it in great detail.
For me, the author of the Voynich manuscript either saw and used the manuscript O.2.48 http://trin-sites-pub.trin.cam.ac.uk/james/viewpage.php?index=671 , or both manuscripts had a common source. Many parallels. 1. Teeth – dovetail. 2. In both manuscripts, the text flows around the drawings. 3. Many similar roots, leaves … 4. The severed snake on f136r is similar to snake f89r1 (right upper corner) of VMS.
Mark,
Sloane 4016 is *not* an alchemical herbal.
Since you read on the Ninja forum, best search for a thread about alchemical herbals started by Marco Ponzi. It has many illustrations.
A good starting point is this page of Philip Neal:
http://philipneal.net/voynichsources/alchemical/
Wladimir,
that is a good find, thanks. Yes, swallow tailed merlins on folios 63,64 and 95. Also, there is a crayfish or scorpion on folio 4 that looks similar to the scorpion in the VM.
Rene:
Interesting page!
Phillip says: “The alchemical herbals are characterised by their somewhat surreal illustrations, similar in each manuscript and deriving from a lost original probably composed in early fifteenth century Italy: many of the plants are pictured with strange roots shaped like animals or contorted into geometrical patterns, and some of the leaves are drawn with eyes.”
I was not aware that “alchemical herbal” was a specifically defined classification.
So anyway I was not wide of the mark in speculating on the basis of what I had seen that this style of herbal manuscript was to be found in early 15th Northern Italy. In fact going on what Phillip says I think this can serve as a geographical indicator if not a strict marker.
Wladimir: There are certainly quite a few page showing swallow-tailed battlements and it is supposed to date from the 14th century which would seem to make one think it is Italian in origin; though it is worth noting that against the manuscript it says “I think the work is German.” Glancing through it there do not seem to be many pages where roots are represented as animals compared to the Voynich.
I guess it is possible that the author saw this manuscript before writing his own. In one sense I suppose they must have a common root as none of these manuscripts can have been produced in isolation without the influence of other manuscripts. I don’t know the history of the influence, cross-influences and evolution of herbal manuscripts over time; I guess this could be quite an interesting subject for someone to explore. I just wonder how, other than using this information to geo-locate or possibly indicate the class of persons writing such manuscripts, one can use this kind of information to decipher the Voynich.
Mark, most of the manuscripts from the 15th century and earlier that are described as “north Italian” are from the area of Lombardy (which is now an Italian province but which was then considered a region in its own right, separate from the central Italian city-states), and was part of the Holy Roman empire. It had a very diverse ethnic population (consider the proximity to Venice, the merchant city), but included many germanic settlers (Germans, western slavs, and southern Scandinavian tribes who settled not only in the Alps and southern Italy, but migrated all the way through Morocco into northern Africa).
The Ghibellines (who used the swallowtail merlons as one of their political emblems in support of the HRE) were Germans, as were their rival papal supporters, the Guelfs. They Italianized their names but their ancestral connections were farther north.
The various settlers in Lombardy were also strongly tied to the Lombardic colonies in southern Italy (particularly Naples and Salerno) even though Lombard rulership had passed into other hands by the 14th century. This is one of the reasons many of the herbal manuscripts from southern Italy came directly into the hands of the Lombardic states in the north of Italy and why many of them seem to be a blend of Italian and German culture. It also helps explain how so many of the southern Italian manuscripts became exemplars for German and French copies.
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So, in modern terms, northern or southern Italian origin would mean the country of Italy, but when one is talking about the medieval period, “Italian origin” frequently refers to Lombardy which, at its most expansive, included Florence, Rome, and Milan, and also included the germanic and later French colonies in the southern boot (Salerno, Naples, Bari) along with a couple of isolated pockets on the central east and west coasts.
Taking into consideration these cultural/political shifts is as important to understanding the medieval period as European colonization is to understanding post-Columbus control for land in the Americas. In terms of manuscript transmission (and illustrative traditions), it may help unravel who gave what to whom.
JKP: I believe that in the period that we are interested in Southern Italy would not be considered Lombardy. In fact I think when we talk about Lombardy at that time we are talking primarily of the Duchy of Milan. My perspective as you doubtless know is that the Voynich was written in the Duchy of Milan in the early 15th century, as clearly the carbon dating implies.
@Wladimir
Definitely a great book, especially the shorthand and the writing style is very interesting.
@Mark
With great certainty the book comes from Italy. Based on the architecture, I’m typing on Florence, Serono … from this area. Towers and multi-storey buildings.
At first I had Venice in mind because of the winged (lion?).
In the text he uses not only Latin but also Italian, you can see it at the endings.
Mark wrote: “JKP: I believe that in the period that we are interested in Southern Italy would not be considered Lombardy. In fact I think when we talk about Lombardy at that time we are talking primarily of the Duchy of Milan. My perspective as you doubtless know is that the Voynich was written in the Duchy of Milan in the early 15th century, as clearly the carbon dating implies.”
Mark, the Lombardic colonies still existed in southern Italy even after the rulership changed a few times. It’s like the conquest of the Americas… long after the U.S. was dominated by the British, there were still significant French and Spanish colonies that persisted for a long time. The same was true of the southern boot of Italy. People who settled permanently and had descendants in the south still had political and blood ties to the people of Lombardy (which is now northern Italy).
Also, there were still many who considered Milan and Florence to be part of Lombardy in the early 15th century. If you read manuscripts and travel itineraries of the time, they refer to the area as “Lombardy” (even though technically Lombardy was considered to have receded to the Po river by then, many of the inhabitants and their blood relations stayed where they were, rather than migrating north as the rulership changed).
What you said that I responded to was this, “I don’t know the history of the influence, cross-influences and evolution of herbal manuscripts over time;…” so I thought it might help to post a very brief nutshell version of the transmission of herbal manuscripts from the medical schools in Naples/Bari/Salerno region to Lombardy (what we now call northern Italy) and, from there, into Germany, France (and Britain). Some were copied by scribes at scriptoria, but a significant proportion were copied by medical students at the universities or commissioned by patrons of these educational institutions (e.g., Pisa, Bologna, Siena, Pavia, Trento, Montpelier, Heidelberg, Paris, Madrid, etc.) so they could have exemplars for study and replication.
JKP: I really appreciate your comments. I think we were talking at cross purposes. I meant that at the time in which the Voynich is carbon dated the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily where separate. Sicily under the rule of King Alfonso V of Aragon and Naples was a separate kingdom which later came under the rule of Alfonso. Though certainly I appreciate that people had migrated within the region as they had been doing long before that such as when Sicily was a Greek colony. However your comments are helpful as I did not know that part of Naples would have been considered Lombardy as my other reading on the period only referred to Lombardy as being in the North such as the “Wars in Lombardy”.
So thanks for that explanation.
As far as the herbal manuscript design spread from one place to another my thinking was in more detailed terms. So I was wondering when the herbal manuscript design transitioned from the “alchemical herbal” design and how we can weave the threads of influence from one manuscript to another. As I said, I can see the main purpose of this would be to build a clearer picture of the probabilities of different places of origin of the manuscript, even though I have a very clear opinion as to where the manuscript originates from. As I mentioned, my focus has to be elsewhere at the moment, but it would be interesting to know more.
Anyway, I really value your input, so thanks again!
It wasn’t called “Lombardy” in the south but it was a significant Lombardic colony (with Lombard rulers) for several centuries that were particularly important to herbal traditions.
The reason it matters is because the “Lombardic period”, if you want to think of it that way, was the era during which the medical schools were established and flourished in the south, and the herbal manuscripts were translated and transported to the north (a couple of the very early ones making it all the way to England).
Exemplars from earlier centuries that flowed into Lombardy and Padua (which was closer to the Veneto and not quite in Lombardy) had a significant influence on manuscripts that were crafted in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Masson 116 and Sloane 4016 are of particular interest, and were created in “northern Italy” and yet are housed in the Paris National Library and the British Library.
The Burgundians still had a strong presence in the corridor stretching from Provençe, eastern France, and the Alsace, to the northern “lowlands” (“Frieslandt”, “Hollandt”, etc.) in the 14th century, and may have been important in transmitting both herbal and zodiac traditions.
I try always to keep a map of Europe as it was in the 13th to 15th centuries at hand when I’m studying the VMS because the political borders were substantially different from the way they are now.
I am somewhat confused about what you are saying about borders as I have looked at maps of the time of the Voynich and the borders seem pretty clear of Sicily, Naples, Duchy of Savoy, Duchy of Milan, Republic of Venice, Republic of Genoa, Republic of Siena, Marquisate of Mantua, Republic of Florence, Papal States and smaller states and Counts and Lordships.
You might be interested in what I have written about the Wars in Lombardy on this website.
You say: “It wasn’t called Lombardy in the south.”
Given what you said my statement that you quoted seems correct, this being: “I believe that in the period that we are interested in Southern Italy would not be considered Lombardy. In fact I think when we talk about Lombardy at that time we are talking primarily of the Duchy of Milan.”
I think we are talking about two different things, Mark, when we discuss time in the context of herbal manuscripts.
Herbal illustrative traditions evolved slowly over a thousand years, with some of the most important European editions being copied in the 10th to 13th centuries. As I stated earlier, much of the impetus for the production of these manuscripts was the establishment of medical schools in major centers, including those in the Lombardic colonies in the southern boot.
The early exemplars were from the Mediterranean and some of the most important were carried from the Naples and Salerno medical schools to the Holy Roman Empire (including what is now northern Italy) because the southern colonists had ancestral and political ties with Lombardy and Normandy, and transportation ties with Venice and Genoa. This happened gradually in the centuries before the VMS, but had a significant impact on 14th and 15th-century herbal traditions.
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After stacking thousands of herbal illustrations next to each other since late 2007, I have very few doubts that whoever designed or drew the VMS plants had seen herbal drawings from the group that includes Egerton 747 (which was crafted c. 1280 to c. 1310 in Salerno) and Masson116, Morgan M.873, and Sloane 4016, which are believed to have been created in the Padua/Veneto/Lombardy region some decades later. The VMS interpretation may be unique, but the details are too similar to be mere coincidence. I think it also goes without saying that the illustrator was probably exposed to manuscripts with mnemonic details (most of which are considered part of the “alchemical” tradition as you alluded to above).
Mark,
Calling the Voynich plant-pictures a ‘herbal’ is a fiction, persisting from 1912, when Wilfrid Voynich imagined the manuscript an autograph by a thirteenth-century English fransican friar-and-scientist. What other sort of plant-pictures would be of interest to a thirteenth-century English Franciscan: 🙂
Serious studies of the primary document have constantly resulted in rejection of the ‘herbal’ idea, but no time to summarise them here.
On a related theme – I’m sure you often see it repeated these days that the manuscript was manufactured in ‘north Italy’ but you may not see mentioned the source of that information, and without that transparency, you may not be able to access the evidence and reasoning from which it arose.
Nick came to that view not less than a decade ago and for perhaps seven or eight years of the ten he was left alone in that opinion, except that I had come to a similar conclusion after several years’ work. That work, like Nick’s was offered to the public, and properly included the sources we had used, ourselves, which led us to similar conclusions.
Similar, not identical, for where Nick concluded ‘Milan’, I concluded ‘Veneto and very likely Padua’. My readers were able to follow the research and see what led me to that difference from Nick’s opinions.
About a book which three writers took to a publisher, and in which one of the essays presented, near enough, a caricature of the work I’d published over the previous nine years, I won’t say more here. It was an insult to everyone’s intelligence to publish such a book, even if (as one of the authors admitted) it was done just to get a bit of the ‘occult’ audience’s money.
Another ‘acid test’ that left all but four people badly burned, was the radiocarbon dating. As I remember only four people found themselves on the ‘right side’ of the 1438 end-date. The ‘central European’ theorists were mucking about in late sixteenth century Prague and Protestant magic or something.
The four were Nick, Philip Neal, myself and Edith Sherwood – she who thinks the manuscript written by a youthful Leonardo da Vinci.
I mention this because the astonishing thing is that the same people are still trying to turn us back to the same old ideas … Protestants in central European courts interested in alchemy and magic and so on. And shoe buckles and rudds and all that…)
Diane: all I can usefully point out is that even when I first made my own set of tentative connections between the Voynich Manuscript and Quattrocento Milan several years before The Curse of the Voynich (2006), the idea of a fifteenth century Northern Italian origin was already somewhat long in the tooth. But it is, of course, constructing the argument to construct such a conclusion that remains the hard part, which is why so few actually attempt such a thing.
Diane wrote: “As I remember only four people found themselves on the ‘right side’ of the 1438 end-date.”
My estimates have always been within the same range as the radio-carbon dating, so I’m sure there are many others, like me, who were guessing in the 14th to 15th-century range. To state that only four people were in the right time period is fiction.
Even now, we have to accept that the end-date could be off by a decade or so if the materials were sitting for a while before being used, so even those guessing in the mid-15th century still have a reasonable possibility of being close. I tend to think it’s earlier, but I still do searches up to about 1540 to make sure the net is cast wide enough. One can always catch-and-release the ones that fall outside the target.
Diane: I agree; it does seem that the date range determined with the Phoenix Program testing process surprised some proponents with their post mediaeval, more northerly origins. Mind you, some others who also confessed surprise, were nonetheless quite pleased with the outcome, so you must also put that into proper context. I haven’t heard too much about a possible Tuscany origin of late; or could it be that the monks and their scribes were more into Papal concerns around the time in question. I recall that our Ethel Voynich spent a summer backpacking around Florence in the mid ’90s while doing her ‘Gadfly’ book. Whilst looking for copy to earn a living, she was also heavily involved in things like language research and in particular her quest for free flow, unpunctuated, vowel free, exotic writing forms. Apparently she had picked up certain expertise in translating certain archaic Baltic language forms which her good friend, Bernard Shaw, (sans George), later attempted to introduce with his unsuccessful Shavian script. So it seems at the end of the day, if such skills were of no use to sweet, blond haired and bitterly barren Lilly, in her own attempts to decipher the VM, then we must wonder; who might otherwise succeed. Those Everest Boole girls were no slouches when it came to the smarts, even without the benefit of college degrees as such, God bless’m all.
Diane, have you asked permission from the US White House Press Office to copy their concept of “alternative facts”?
It doesn’t require 20 years of reading about the Voynich MS, so see the provable falsehoods in your latest contribution.
This is all the more surprising since you have continually presented yourself in all available fora as a champion for correct quotation and attribution, in order not to mislead future researchers.
The term ‘herbal’ being a myth invented by Voynich? Please tell this to Toresella, Touwaide, Clemens. Not to mention a dozen others who have long died. This was already pointed out here too, without noticeable effect.
Nobody beside Nick believing in an Italian origin? Nick stood out in being much more specific than all the others who shared this most popular of opinions.
Diane as a champion of the Italian origin? If somebody had told me that three years ago, I would have known for certain that he was joking.
Rene: I greatly appreciate you refering me to Philip’s page, introducing me to the specific definition of “alchemical herbal” and the Harley MS 4986 manuscript.
However I don’t see the reason for getting into these back and forth with Diane. I tend to feel that we should be trying to move things forward in Voynich research rather than get involved in pointless arguments.
Mark,
trust me, moving forward is also all that I am interested in.
Having to read intentional misrepresentations of past events, of other people’s work etc, etc, (and that continually) is, however, the opposite direction from forward.
The more people believe it, the more backwards it gets.
Best ignore it all.
Diane: Guess it’s just our perceived lack of decorum that gets everyone antsi; nothing to do with contrary opinions of course. I still find your views refreshing most of the time, though admitedly I’m just a know nothing bushy Koowith an inquiring mind and a yen for better knowledge. My advice is never give an inch and stick by your guns; all will hopefully be revealed in due course, though not likely by self seeking, persistent nay sayers, or pesimists. That includes us of course so be respectful of others less thoughtful, when ever an impasse arises.
Koo, could stand for cuckoo which I’m happy to own.
I was thinking about the author’s influences on his cipher design. He/she had most likely been inventing ciphers for some time gradually improving on them. Now that trail of his/her earlier work is very likely lost. As far as I know, having not studied the text in detail, there is not obvious evidence of a continual improvement of the cipher as the manuscript progressed, so this was all worked out in advance.
I don’t believe things immerge from the clear blue sky.
It is my opinion that the author would have been highly proficient in Italian diplomatic ciphers, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t have knowledge and experience of other cipher systems as Nick mentions with the benedictine cipher
However clearly even if he had a strong background in this area and these techniques constituted the kernel of his cipher he must have introduced significants enhancements ontop of that. Potentially resulting in a cipher which was a hybrid of existing cipher techniques and innovations.
It still seems to me that, contrary to the opinion of some people studying the Voynich, that we don’t know the degree of influence from other ciphers on the Voynich. I think we can say with confidence that there are unique features to it unlikely to be found in any other cipher than the author’s.
As I and others have mentioned before it seems most likely that single word labelese manifests the cipher at its simplest without many of the enhancements(bells and whistles) that one finds in sentence text.
At some point, it might be worth studying the ciphers of Trithemius as conceivably they had shared influences, not just the Benedictine cipher described above.
Mark Knowles wrote: “As I and others have mentioned before it seems most likely that single word labelese manifests the cipher at its simplest without many of the enhancements(bells and whistles) that one finds in sentence text.”
The differences between labels and main text aren’t super significant. I wouldn’t consider the main text to be particularly embellished or enhanced compared to the labels. It’s simply much more numerous, which means less common characters are statistically more likely to show up in the main text than in the labels. They come out of essentially the same cookie cutter.
“At some point, it might be worth studying the ciphers of Trithemius as conceivably they had shared influences, not just the Benedictine cipher described above.”
I’m willing to bet the WWII Work Group spent considerable time doing exactly that… without measurable results. Some of the more recent Voyich researchers are also quite familiar with the ciphers of Trithemius and have looked into commonalities… without measurable results.
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Mark, you have to remember, the Voynich has been studied on a global scale since Wilfrid unmasked it in the early 20th century. Introductory ideas on how to approach it have all been tried and tried again.
Two good examples of study of the work of Trithemius in direct relationship with the Voynich MS are those by Jim Reeds and Philip Neal.
Jim, in the course of this, managed to discover the ‘cipher’ in Trithemius’ 3rd book of “Steganographia”, which isn’t a cipher in the proper sense of the word.
Philip posted about it on his web site: http://philipneal.net/voynichsources/
(somewhat further down the page).
JKP is right about the relationship between labels and running text in the Voynich MS. A great number of label words can be found back in the text. Depending on how much of the text has been lost, I would not exclude that all label words were picked from the text.
JKP: One it is important for me to follow my own path and take as little on trust as I reasonably can. There are concrete facts and I see little reasons for challenging them and there are theories based on those facts and however likely they are I am generally not willing to take them on trust.
I am doing original research which has not been done before. Whether that research path is correct or not it is certainly distinctive.
I have produced by far the most detailed analysis of the 9 rosette foldout anyone has made; that does not make it correct, but it certainly doesn’t fall into the category of something already done in the last 100 hundred year.
On the basis of the 9 rosette I have predicted, who I believe to most likely be the author. I am only aware of a few suggested candidates for authorship by others and unfortunately my candidate, whilst not unknown at all, is significantly less well known than other suggested candidates. I have investigated his life and found aspects to it which fit with the author of the Voynich and none that contradict it. To find more information I will need to see records from the state archives in Novara, Milan and probably other archives.
I have found that my author has very strong familial connections to the people at the heart of diplomacy and cryptography in the era of Filippo Maria Visconti when the carbon dating says the Voynich was.
I have studied the cipher keys in the Tranchedino, Meister’s 2 books, the Tavoli listed in Cerioni amongst others. I have recently received scans of cipher keys not contained in any of those sources, that I think are relevant, from the Milan state archive. I have subsequently requested more scans of cipher keys. So as far as Italian diplomatic cipher research in the era of Fillipo Maria Visconti and early Sforza, I believe I am gradually collecting and compiling cipher keys not seen by other Voynich researchers. Now for those who believe there is no connection between the diplomatic ciphers of the Milanese Chancery and the Voynich that research would naturally be of little interest.
My research has been influenced my Nick Pelling’s research, but in some areas it has taken a different path to Nick’s ideas. There is some overlap with his ideas of the 9 rosette foldout, though I strongly think his identification of Venice is wrong. He believes there is a cipher connection between the Voynich and the chancery of Francesco Sforza, whilst I believe the connection lies with the earlier chancery of Filippo Maria Visconti.
Using the pluralis majestatis in that case, I would say that WE are almost all convinced that the underlying language of the VMs is neither Klingonian nor Marsian but a natural language from our good old planet. Therefore it is a simple matter of pure logic, that label words are part of that given language and strongly related to or picked from the text. What else sould they represent if not hints, annotations or instructions for the drawer?
Label words may be found in the text in the same form as they are as labels on their own, though I wonder if it has been verified whether they are always found in the text and if not what percentage of the time they are not. However it is not only labels that are found in the text, so by working on labels in isolation the potential complexity of the rest of the features of the text is removed it seems to me.
Charlotte:
If label words are “strongly related to” the text they doesn’t serve much value in the context that I am talking about.
Rene: Label words may be found in the text, but I would assume obviously not all words are found in the labels. So it seems a good way of filtering out some of the polential complexity to only focus on single word labelese. One will only know that they are labels in the sentence text, normally nouns I imagine, as of course we have already found them in the labels. This assumes that the label text is not transformed as being part of the main text by other characters.
My understanding is that the same statistical studies have not been conducted on single word labelese as have been constructed overall; I think that would be instructive.
Hypothetically if one has month or day names labels in the astronomical drawings would it really be necessary to mention them all in the text? Maybe in some cases the information in the drawing and many of the labels are sufficient in their own right. I give month and day names as examples, but they could be constellation names or any other list of names. It would be useful to know which labels do not occur in the text, I would strongly caution against assuming that they don’t occur as text has been lost.
In the case of the single word labels on the 9 rosette foldout, in the context of my theory most of these isolated labels, though not all, correspond to specific geographical locations, so I would not expect them to occur much if at all in the text, unless there is a written account of the journey or reference to specific libraries where various useful sources were found or conceivably places where plants could be found. Of course this assumes my theory is in any way accurate. I really ought to check if any of the labels are repeated.
As far as I can tell the 9 rosette foldout is not included on:
http://www.voynichese.com
Is that correct?
I was wondering about the extent to which there may be “null” words i.e. words which are supposed to be ignored. I guess these would be some of the most common words.
Mark,
apart from your constant getting into a huff you’re now getting really arrogant.
Just to quote you:
“I am doing original research which has not been done before.” Are you sure, and where is the evidence for that bold claim?
“I have produced by far the most detailed analysis of the 9 rosette foldout anyone has made;…” Again: where is the evidence for that?
“I have investigated his life and found aspects to it which fit with the author of the Voynich and none that contradict it.” You have an author in mind but you would never share the name of the suspect with the community you owe so much of input to your “original research”? Poor.
“I have studied the cipher keys in the Tranchedino, Meister’s 2 books, the Tavoli listed in Cerioni amongst others.” As far as I remember you wasn’t even aware of these and other authors (like Capelli) when you startet posting on Nick’s blog. All you did was asking question after question and sucking other peoples knowledge and expertise for free.
To follow your own path is fine with me and certainly all others here. But only taking the input and then insulting the uttermost patient spenders is really not the way to make friends. O.k., you don’t need them and you’re not willing to take their work on trust, as you said, but then you should take your own blog or website into consideration. There you could finally publish your “original research” without taking care of anyone else.
No need for reply. Gone fishing.
I was wondering if someone has tried removing the most common words and seen what the nature of what’s left.
An example:
“Null Null ONCE Empty UPON Nothing A TIME Zero Zero A MAN Null WENT TO SEARCH FOR Blank THE SOLUTION Null TO THE Nothing Nothing VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT Blank Blank Blank”
(Block capitals are used just so the message stands out, but would not be used of course in the original text.)
Where obviously the following are null words:
“Null”
“Empty”
“Nothing”
“Zero”
“Blank”
And obviously the message is:
“ONCE UPON A TIME A MAN WENT TO SEARCH FOR THE SOLUTION TO THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT”
I guess if this were true then the question would be how do you filter out the “Null” words to leave the message i.e. how do you identify confidently the “Null” words. How would the statistics alter as a result?
Though Charlotte need not read it my answer is:
There is much of my research that you are not aware of. I have put information about my research on this site, in particular the 9 rosette foldout.
“I am doing original research which has not been done before.” Obviously as I am exploring a hypothesis that I am pretty sure nobody else has explored.
“I have produced by far the most detailed analysis of the 9 rosette foldout anyone has made;…” I have read other analyses of the page and the most detailed of them is not a quarter as detailed as mine.
To be honest as far as the community goes I owe pretty little as it has been made little difference. However my research, such as it is, owes a lot to Nick Pelling. To honest as far as anyone goes they have not very little impact.
When I started my research I did not know anything about the Tranchedino, Meister and Cerioni. However thanks almost entirely to Nick and his book the Curse I have become familiar with these.
I have found many of Nick’s blog posts useful and Nick has definitely helped by answering some questions.
Look I am not trying to me rude and I geninuely wish you well, but input from yourself and others has probably taken more of my time than advanced my research. As you know I have disagreed with a lot of your input rather than sucked up your ideas.
If Nick wants to bar me from commenting on his blog then it is his decision.
Look I want to be on friendly terms with people, but if I don’t agree with someone’s opinion then I say so. You suggested that I am an amateur and you a professional, I took offense at that. So I am quite sure you are a very nice person, but you have been critical of me and I have responded to your criticism. I am very independently minded and have to rely on my thought processes even if others disagree.
All the very best and good luck with your fishing!
Mark: in truth, your analysis of the nine rosette foldout is probably not as detailed as Diane O’Donovan’s exegesis. She wins for quantity every time.
Nick: Well from what I have seen of Diane’s analysis it looks significantly less detailed, but it could be that it is very dispersed in different places on her website. Obviously I am not arguing that quantity means my analysis correct is I stated previously. It is perfectly possible to write page after page of nonsense, so as the saying goes quantity does not equal quality. Nevertheless part of the reason for the level of detail in my analysis was because I made an effort to try to explain as best I could even the smallest aspect of that page, excluding the text, for completeness and to see if my analysis would break down under pressure. Not that whose analysis is longest matters more than who is right, but I doubt Diane’s analysis is more detailed unless she has more than one theory and one counts the details of each separate theory together. If Diane links to all the places I can find her 9 rosette analysis I will double check to prove a point if necessary.
I don’t think what you believe are ravelins of the castle are, I believe they are separate buildings/locations in Milan. I have made a guess at one, but only have a possible thought as to what the other might be. I mention this as that is a very rare example of something I haven’t decided on an identification of.
My long reply as usual, sorry!
Mark Knowles wrote: “I was wondering if someone has tried removing the most common words and seen what the nature of what’s left.”
Yes, of course, and the other suggestions you made have been tried, as well, along with about 100 other ways of manipulating the text (and that’s just me, there are others who no doubt have tried many other angles).
“There is much of my research that you are not aware of. “
Ditto. I’ve been working on an analysis of the rosettes page for 10 years (along with others). I haven’t published it because I’m still looking for certain very specific evidence to support it, and because there is still a small part of me that believes I can solve the VMS. Giving away a decade’s worth of work so someone else can steal it and take credit is not my idea of a good time.
I noticed after I published several blogs about Latin abbreviations and their similarity to VMS glyphs that there was a flurry of “abbreviated Latin solutions” by people who clearly didn’t know Latin or how to expand the abbreviations properly. Coincidence?
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It’s a fine balancing act. I try to be a good citizen and give back to the VMS community as much as possible but I’m not obliged to give it all away (or any of it, for that matter).
Mark: my point was simply that “appeal to size” is no less appealing than other appeals (to authority, etc).
Nick: As I said, I obviously recognise that just, because something is the most detailed solution that does not mean that it is the correct solution.
2JKP
=I noticed after I published several blogs about Latin abbreviations and their similarity to VMS glyphs that there was a flurry of “abbreviated Latin solutions” by people who clearly didn’t know Latin or how to expand the abbreviations properly. Coincidence?=
Could you tell exactly which of your blogs do you refer to?
=Giving away a decade’s worth of work so someone else can steal it and take credit is not my idea of a good time.=
I think there is some general tendency for more educated decoders to hold their ideas, while less educated try to be more open. And there several interesting questions arise:
1) which strategy of solving will win, to be more open or more closed to the public?
2) will the solution be reusable?
3) how many new mysteries will we get by solving VMS?
Nick: The point that I was trying to make was that my research is not a rehash of someone else’s research, it is distinctive. Being distinctive doesn’t make it right, as I have said many times, so I was not “appealing to size” as a way of demonstrating the truth of my research. I was just indicating that I have done something different. For example I have identified who I believe is most likely the author of the Voynich based purely on the 9 rosette foldout, that is unusual, but that does not make it correct. I have and am in the process of compiling cipher records unseen by other Voynich researchers, which could potentially benefit those exploring a broadly spesking similar line of research.
FarmerJohn, I don’t want to post links to my blog on Nick’s blog. I don’t like to hijack his space, but if you go to my blog and post the keywords “Latin” and “scribal” (together) it will pick up most of them and I have also posted a number of examples (textual and visual) in the past on the Voynich forum (which I admit is a bit difficult to search because the same keywords tend to show up on all the threads).
As for how many new mysteries might be created by solving the VMS, I think that depends largely on whether the text is meaningful. 🙂
And as for whether the solution will be reusable (which I think is an interesting question)… assuming the text is meaningful, I don’t know how much it will contribute to the historical record (in terms of medieval knowledge) but it might add a few tools to the cryptographic tool chest.
Looking for mentions of Wladimir Dulov online, I was directed here, and found that while he’s come into his own of late, he’s been interested in the manuscript since at least 2018.
The thread also contains a comment from Rene Zandbergen which I didn’t notice when it was written, so I’ll take this opportunity to reply.
Shorn of snide comments and ad.hominem as a means to avoid addressing the issue, Zandbergen comment (May 7th, above) consists of no substance but only three rhetorical questions, all evidently expecting a simplistic ‘No’ in response:
viz.
1.The term ‘herbal’ being a myth invented by Voynich? …
2.Nobody beside Nick believing in an Italian origin?
3. Diane as a champion of the Italian origin?
In answer to the first – I’ve never said that the term ‘herbal’ was invented by Wilfrid Voynich. What I say is that Wilfrid Voynich’s assertion that the plant-pictures in the Voynich manuscript form a medical herbal is based on nothing but his imagination. It was no product of investigation or research. No other possibility occurred to him, and the idea has survived so long – despite negative results over a century – simply because the idea has been adopted without critical consideration. In that sense it has become a Voynich myth.
As to the second rhetorical question – as Nick says rightly, there were people before him who attributed the manuscript’s making to Italy. To judge from the letter reported by d’Imperio as having been sent to John Tiltman by Kraus’ assistant, Italy was their consensus opinion. The same letter gave the near-consensus opinion on dating as around 1400.
My point was that with the rise -apparently from next to no evidence – of a ‘greater German’ theory promoted after about 2010 by less than scholarly means and not excluding resort to privately-circulated ad.hominem and rhetoric aimed at ‘discrediting’ Pelling and thus the Italian provenance he maintained, Pelling was increasingly isolated and left the only person explaining *with added support from his own research* why an Italian manufacture was likely.
As to the third bit of crowd-stirring rhetoric. I see no reason to ‘champion’ anything except a bit more reasonable debate and less reliance on snide personal comments and remarks addressed to audience. My studies of the manuscript’s drawings involve not only prior studies and experience but use of secondary sources across a wide range of disciplines. I do not rely only on material written about this one manuscript. My conclusions, in brief, are that there are several discernable layers evident. I’ve spoken of them as chronological layers. The earliest and most general comes from the Hellenistic period; the second dates, I should say, to about the 1st-2ndC AD, the third to about the twelfth century though its influence is not great; the next is when I date the translation of the material into the western side of the Mediterranean – the south-western Mediterranean in my opinion and this I date to around 1350 AD. The final level consists of items which are legible according to the conventions of non-Islamic Mediterranean art and are most likely due to western European acquisition of the material. These items include the so-called ‘castle’ (a token for Constantinople/Pera as I concluded after an unexpectedly long and difficult investigation), some drawings on the back of the Voynich map, some of the plant pictures – the viola group among them.
When the material came into western horizons, all evidence suggests it came at the same time to the Genoese and to the Jewish communities of the south-western Mediterranean. In the case of the astronomical matter – the calendar and the ‘ladies’ folios but not the plant-pictures – the line of transmission appears to me to be from centres where Genoese and Jews (at present I’m inclined to think Karite communities) had a co-operative working relationship, notably in Kaffa.
The wave of expulsions and the reception offered the Jews in Italy during the fourteen century, especially after the papal court left Avignon, suggest again that Italy is the most likely place for the matter to have been inscribed on vellum early in the fifteenth century.
Whether the quires were bound then into a text-block, or whether we should speak of ‘a fifteenth-century manuscript’ is not altogether certain, given what is emerging from Wladimir’s research.
Sometimes quality depends on providing information in sufficient quantity. Rhetoric is proverbially empty, but can be so misleading, which is the more issue where medieval studies are concerned.
Dear colleague Diane.
I have been following your manuscript research for about 12 years. And today I can write to you here that you have been working for a very long time. But you are still a long way from an academic understanding of the text and images of the manuscript. On the other hand, I must praise you because you also write about Jews. It is well. Of course, the text of the manuscript also states that the notation is based on Jewish encryption. Each character of the handwriting text also has its own numeric value. So, if you are able to read the text, you will of course find out the different dates and the different years when, for example, someone who was written about in the text was born. I can write to you here, dear colleague, that the manuscript has nothing to do with Italy. You live in the false belief that everything important took place in Italy. But that’s bad. Do you think that in the Czech Republic, ie in the Czech Kingdom, there is perhaps prehistoric times and here we drove on a banana peel. I can write to you that in the Middle Ages there was a so-called navel of the world. Prague has been an important point since the time of the great Roman Emperor Charles IV.
Therefore, I would of course like to help you and advise you on the text. As I have written to everyone several times, the text is written in the Czech language. And you should bounce back from that and continue to examine the text of the manuscript. Then you also have a chance to succeed in your magnificent and very long and exhausting research.
Otherwise, you will wander from despair to despair for about eight years.