Rene Zandbergen recently commented that much of the codicological reasoning presented on my Voynich codicology page fails to satisfactorily differentiate between observation, hypothesis, reasoning, and fact. At the same time, Glen Claston has also set about trying to pin down key facts about the Voynich Manuscript’s codicology (though taking his own angle on the evidence): while I have also been thinking about alternative (and hopefully better!) ways to present this mass of information.
From my perspective, doing significantly better is a far harder challenge than it might first appear. Generally speaking, I’ve been working to ‘art history‘ standards of proof – but I think that what Rene is asking me to do is to raise my presentation to the level of scientific proof.
Here’s a first pass attempt, that examines merely part of the chain of codicological reasoning I put forward in 2006 (Curse, pp.54-56) to do with the stitched-up vellum flaws in the herbal section. I’ve marked observations in yellow, and inferences in green, with the arrows mapping out the chain of reasoning:-
However, even this tiny fragment of codicological reasoning needs to be accompanied by extensive visual evidence to back it up. I did what I could in The Curse to present all my visual evidence in as clear a manner as I reasonably could, but without a great deal of parallel forensic evidence, this will always amount merely to probabilistic arguments, not scientific arguments.
In retrospect, given that science can only (except in certain remarkable situations) ever disprove, not prove, I think I did tolerably well to present my evidence so openly. But who (apart from Glen Claston) is out there actively trying to disprove my hypotheses? For all Rene’s desire to see a scientific presentation, where are all the Voynich scientists?
Hi Nick,
It’s important that you point out that your reasoning regarding quire order is born from an ‘art historical’ perspective and that extensive visual evidence is required.
Statements made about art history (e.g. Futurism started in early 20th century Italy) are just opinions until accompanied by visual evidence that is dated. In my example, the ‘theory’ would stand until someone came along with a picture that everyone agreed was e.g. Russian futurist that pre-dated the earliest known Italian example, etc etc.
To choose between your and Glen’s theories, I’d just have to actually compare the quoted Voynich pages against the respective theories and make my own mind up ! That’s about it…. how much further could we go ? Not that much really…
So questions like ‘Are nymph hairstyles more like 13th or 15th century German examples’ or assertions like ‘the script is similar to 15th century Humanist examples’ can only be answered or ‘proven’ by visual evidence and counter-evidence. In your case, your need an ‘art historical’ disproof of your quire-order theory from a suitably interested party like Glen.
Scientific analysis on the VMs is probaly only feasible on it’s measurable content which for me is limited to script analysis (e.g. character counts). Some forensic analysis on the physical ms might help but we all know that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Anyhow, your flowchart helped my understanding of your theory. I look forward to one from Glen regarding his paint-bleeding perspective.
Robin
PS Good blog, I am following it with interest.
Hi Robin,
Thanks for your comments, glad to hear you’re enjoying the blog! 🙂
As should be apparent from the list archives, I spent a lot of time back in 2002-2004 thinking about secondary art historical stylistics (such as hairstyles / clothes / maiolica / architecture / handwriting etc) and wondering whether they might prove sufficient to narrow the date range – but as you point out, the answer is ‘probably not‘. By way of contrast, nowadays I focus more on primary art historical evidence (writing technique, drawing technique, forensic codicology), because these should yield far stronger proof (and disproof!) of any given claim or theory. Yes, the amount of physical information currently available is fairly limited, which is why VMs discussion continues to be so hypothesis-heavy – but there is actually plenty of activity going on behind the scenes which I hope will cause this balance to shift dramatically before very long. =:-o
The only real problem with the flowchart presented above is one of scale: essentially, that I would need to draw up another 70+ similar flowcharts in order to map out all the various codicological arguments. In my mind, these fragmentary ‘forensic micro-narratives’ support each other insofar as they all seem to me to be re-telling the same basic ‘macro-narrative’ – of a manuscript owned, emended, multiply shuffled, multiply rebound, damaged, quirized and foliated by a succession of people (from the late 15th century onwards), all of whom were unable to read a single word. And none of that depends on any secondary art history at all!
Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….
Hi Nick,
I think that a macro-narrative of a codicological theory would be fine as long as it was possible to drill-down into the micro-aspects of that theory in order that it can be validated and, to be honest, sanity-checked. I would like to encourage you to publish one. My interest would be in seeing a theory of page-order that would shed more light on the hands and languages of the VMs.
I recall the input to the list from Marke Fincher who was quite adamant, on occasion, that it would be counter-productive to mix analysis of the two main hands/ languages (A and B). Given that the sequence of hands (and never mind different painters, artists, etc) is inconsistent in the current page-order, it would be interesting to see if your macro-narrative supplied more logic to the sequencing of the hands and languages as seen in the current composition of the VMs.
In this way, an ‘art historical’ interpretation of the ms may have a great deal to inform our understanding.
Robin
Hi Robin,
I tried to publish as complete a codicological account as I practically could in my 2006 book (while still keeping it reasonably accessible). Broadly speaking, the only person who was arguing against the central ‘scrambled page’ macro-narrative was Glen Claston, and even he is now uncovering his own class of evidence which suggests an “early gathering” page order very different to the one we see at present. Separating A and B pages out probably amounts to less than 5% of the ordering clues we have!
As an aside, what I fail to understand is why reconstructing the original / compositional page order of the Voynich Manuscript isn’t widely seen as the Everest of academic codicological challenges – after all, it is a steep test of what can be inferred from fragmented forensic / physical evidence.
Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….