In four words, the Voynich Manuscript is a puzzling old thing (and really, ain’t that the truth?). Filled with unknown plants, unrecognizable astrology & astronomy, and numerous drawings of small naked women, the fact that we also can’t read a single word of its ‘Voynichese’ text doubles or even triples its already top-end mystery. Basically, the Voynich Manuscript is to normal mysteries as a Scooby sandwich is to an M&S prawn mayonnaise sandwich.
People have their theories about it, of course. The last ripe strawberry of a mainstream Voynich theory came back in 2004 from academic Gordon Rugg, who declared that it was a hoax made using late 16th century cryptographic table-based trickery. Sadly 2009 saw an early 15th century radiocarbon dating of its vellum, which would seem to have made a fool of such fruity ingredients. Or if not a fool, then certainly a bit of a mess.
Despite almost-irreconcilable dating problems, numerous Voynich theories continue to find support from eager evangelists, angrily jabbing their fingers at any epistemological cracks they can see. The most notable get-out clause proposed is that some devious so-and-so could theoretically have used centuries-old vellum for <insert fiendishly clever reason here>, rather than some fresh stuff. This is indeed possible. But also, I think, rather ridiculous.
Why? Because it adds yet another layer of possible unlikeliness (for it is surely extraordinarily unlikely that someone back then would have such a modern sensibility about faking or hoaxing that they would knowingly simulate a century or more of codicological activity), without actually helping us to manage or even reduce any of the existing layers of actual unlikeliness.
Ironically, many such theorists prove anxious to invoke Occam’s Razor even as they propose overcomplex theories that sit at odds with the (admittedly somewhat fragmented) array of evidence we have. Incidentally, my own version is what I call “Occam’s Blunt Razor”: “hypotheses that make things more complicated should be tested last, if ever“.
For more than a decade, I’ve been watching such drearily unimpressive Voynich theories ping (usually only briefly, thank goodness) onto the world’s cultural radar. Most come across as little more than work-in-progress airport novella plots, but without the (apparently obligatory) interestingly-damaged-yet-thrustingly-squat-jawed protagonist to counterbalance the boredom of trawling through what passes for historical mystery research these days (i.e. the first half of Wikipedia entries).
And so I think it was something of a surprise when, back in 2006, I grew convinced that the Voynich Manuscript had been put together by the Italian architect Antonio Averlino (better known as Filarete), and even wrote a book about it (“The Curse of the Voynich”). But by taking that step, wasn’t I doing exactly the same thing as all those other Voynich wannabe theorists? Wasn’t I too putting out an overcomplex theory at odds with the evidence that signally failed to explain anything?
Well… no, not at all, I’d say. Averlino was the cherry on the dating cake I’d patiently built up over the years: the cake led me to the cherry, not the other way around. And that dating framework still stands – all the analysis I’ve carried out in the years since has remained strongly consistent with that framework.
Even so, I’m not wedded to Averlino: my guess is that you could probably construct a list of one or two hundred Quattrocento candidates nearly as good a match as him, and it could very well have been one of those. Yet what I am sure about is that when we ultimately find out the Voynich’s secrets, it will prove to be what I said: a mid-15th century European book of secrets; collected from a variety of sources on herbalism, astronomy, astrology, water and even machines; whose travelling author was linked directly to Milan, Florence, and Venice; and whose cipher was largely composed of 15th century scribal shorthand disguised as medieval scribal shapes (though with an annoying twist).
Averlino aside, please feel free to disagree with any of that… but if you do, be aware that you’ve got some important detail just plain wrong. 🙂
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the Voynich Manuscript is that historians still skirt around it: yet in many ways, it offers the purest of codicological challenges ever devised. For without the contents of the text to help us (and a provenance that starts only in the 17th century, some 150 years or so after it was constructed), all a professional historian can rely on is a whole constellation of secondary clues. Surely this is the best gladiatorial arena ever offered?
I’ll happily help any historian who wants to take the mystery of the Voynich Manuscript on, 21st century style. Yet it would seem that few have the skills (and indeed the research cojones) to do ‘proper’ history any more, having lost them in the dense intertextuality of secondary research. Without close reading to back their judgment up, how many can build a historical case from a single, unreadable primary source?
You know, I still sometimes wonder what might have happened if, in the 1920s, John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert had chosen not Chaucer as their über-subject matter but the Voynich Manuscript instead. As a team, they surely had more than enough cryptological and historical brains to come devilishly close to the answer. And yet… other times it seems to me that the Voynich offers a brutally nihilistic challenge to any generation of historians: for the techniques you have been taught may well be a hindrance rather than a help.
All in all, perhaps (capital-H) History is a thing you have to unlearn (if only partially) if you want to make sense of the Voynich Manuscript’s deep mystery – and that is a terrifically hazardous starting point for any quest. For that reason, it may well be something that no professional historian could ever afford to take on – for as Locard’s Exchange Principle would have it, every contact between things affects both parties. A historian might change Voynich thinking, but Voynich thinking might change the historian in the process… which might well be a risky exchange. Ho hum… 😐
Nick
In the end our work is, or is not, helpful to others; and that depends even more on their aims than our own.
Your work on the codicology and palaeography is indispensible and I do wish you’d consider publishing that solid material as a separate text.
I do not intend to flatter you by saying so, and hope I do not flatter myself by saying that my work on the larger part of the manuscript’s content – i.e. its imagery – has also proven useful to a number of researchers.
Speaking of which, I will have to explain the botanical section more pragmatically than you do in the ‘Curse’.
But as anyone who reads my blog cannot but be aware,
I remain,
– fairly respectfully –
Diane O’Donovan
Since no one else has offered a comment on the Averlino side of your post, and silence can be as damaging as criticism, may I say that I have read ‘the Curse’ after long wanting to, and much appreciate your kindness in getting a copy to me. I refer to it often, checking it against the blog to make sure I’m not referring to older rather than later findings.
I can see your point, and certainly if the work had been composed only in the fifteenth century, Averlino might have composed it.
But when I asked that question of the manuscript – or rather of the imagery – the result was rather that the matter was much earlier, and not European.
Tracking the origins of the imagery might seen a bit ‘big picture’ but I felt it important, because if the matter in the book was not created in the fifteenth century, nor in Europe, then perhaps the script and language weren’t either.
It seems to me that the last few years’ work has produced results, although just as I use your book chiefly for the codicology and so on, others seem interested only in the Euro-centred part of my work on the imagery.
As you say, ho hum!
Nick,
You have given us all a great platform for solving one of the most intriguing documents I’ve ever come across. You are also one of the most diplomatic blogmasters on the WWW.
What Would We do for fun and intellectual activities if you should decide not to publish a sequel? Where Would We be able to Wonder “WhoWhatWhenWhyHow?
If (and When) you publish your sequel, I WILL purchase a set (Whether it be a two or three-volume set).
PLEASE keep on keeping on!
bdid1dr Who is still b d i’d 1drng 🙂
Furthermore, I certainly hope you don’t view my comments as issuing from the mouth of a “trifling” “fool”. Especially since I try to “sweeten” my posts with signs of hope for the future translation of the VMs’ obscure clues and shorthand: “Proof is in the pudding”!
Too many puns for you to digest? 🙂
Nick,
I just “checked in” on your “That Which…” pages. Tom Spande has done a lot of very interesting commentary in the last three days. Some of his material may be new, and very interesting to you.
Item of interest maybe:
On Christie’s auction block 28 Nov 2001:
“pseudo-APULEIUS PLATONICUS. Herbarium Apulei. (Rome:) Johannes Philippus de Lignamine, (c.1481-82). Successful bidder paid 35,250 pounds.
I refer to this particular item because of my observation I made several weeks ago regarding the elaborate curlicued initial “P” that appears on many of the “discussion” pages of the VMs.
The VMs has been written from the viewpoint of a woman medical practitioner. Many of the drawings are referring to serious medicinal plants by allusion to gods and godesses:
Artemis – Artemisia, aka “wormwood”: folios 72v through 75r
Alcyone & Ceyx – Phungi/mushroom/agaricales/coprinus
Water Lily – Nymphaecae
Water Lotus – Leguminus – “Sacred Bean of Egypt”
Mandragore – All parts of the plant are strongly anesthetic and various parts were used for battlefield surgery (amputations) and childbirth/labor, and/or as abortifacients.
A milder and more easily used remedy for eyestrain/eye infections was the plant pictured on folio 8v: Salvia Sclerae, Lamiacae/Labiatae.
In the next week or so, I’ll be writing a “travelogue” of the ladies’ spa adventures — just for my own amusement. I hope I’ve given you some valid input which you may be able to use when writing your “Curse” sequel (maybe sub-titled “Blessings”? 🙂
Carbon dating gives a clue when it was written, however, it may be merely a copy of older book, although I personally believe it is not and the content belongs to the person who created it.
Really, people: I’m not quite as obsessed as I appear to be. I’ve been translating several items of the “Nine-Rosettes” folio (Beinecke’s number 158): My Latin dictionary identifies “Velitrae” as being a Volscian town in Latium on the south side of the Alban Hills.
If you have gotten around to that particular folio yet, and can magnify the entire unfolded page (with the Alban Lake being centermost on page) you will find the town of Velitrae perched on the side of that hill/mountain (upper right corner of the Vms.
From that landmark (which also is the “Headline/Logo” for Nick’s home page) you can “armchair-travel” completely around the Alban Lake and Lake Nemi. It is a great help if you are able to obtain a copy of Joscelyn Godwin’s soft-bound book “Athanasius KIRCHER-A Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge”.
Fr. Kircher did a beautiful job on his travelogue of Frascati, Praeneste Temple, and many of the large estates in the Alban Hills (Gandolpho being the most famous).
Thanks to Fr. Kircher, I am almost finished with my transcription of that entire folio. A word of caution: It helps to have a good, strong magnifying glass if you’d like to be able to read the writing which appears on the uppermost center “doily/rosette” on that folio.
🙂
Also, the Lake itself has a ring of writing around its center-fountaining. I can’t magnify any larger without the lettering fading. Basically, the Alban Lake is a volcanic crater lake. It is likely that the spas and outbuildings that cling to its shores were probably hot (sulphurous?) spring spas.
Hi Nick, hope you are doing well ~ what did you think of Claudio’s hypothesis regarding Poggio Bracciolini as the author of MS408? Found this couple of folios with a number of peculiar particles that should merit at least as much graphotechnical attention as we have put lately on the Somerton Man’s code:
http://www.carnesecchi.eu/Image1141.gif
http://www.carnesecchi.eu/Image1161.gif
Cheers,
Luis
Nick,
Speaking of Chaucer ~
Would you happen to know if the Voynich text has been tested against stages in one language’s evolution rather than against a set of different texts? Or does it make no difference: is the profile for Old English effectively the same as for modern American English (some tests took Moby Dick to respresent English).
Nick,
An Averlino question.
In your study of his architectural and antiquarian drawings, did you ever come across anything that wasn’t an effort to relive the classical dream or, if you like, retun to classical pinciples? I’m looking for some reason that any Renaissance-fashion victim would flout the hallowed rules by e.g drawing a bipedal archer or (as you’ve suggested) conflating vegetable with mechanical forms. If you can think of anything similar in his own remaining notebooks, I’d be grateful for the reference.
Diane: despite his relatively poor Latin, Averlino liked to pride himself on his classical knowledge, much of which probably came from long discussions with his Hellenophile friend Francesco Filelfo. Yet Averlino was also proud of his own architectural inventions and machine designs, devoting much of his libro architettonico to describing (or alluding to his little books containing) them.
He therefore embodies the tension between the humanist rebirth/love of classical forms and the Renaissance-period manias for egotism/individualism/invention/novelty. My hypothesis is that the Voynich Manuscript was born from the unresolvable angles of this tension.
(Incidentally, Averlino also closely fits the “wandering master” profile that Renaissance historians like to invoke as means for the diffusion of ideas, in a period when still not that many people travelled between distant towns.)
As for his extant written works, we only have the copies (and translations) of the libro architettonico and a handful of letters (probably scribal rather than holograph) sent to patrons, but basically nothing else.
There is a reference to someone having seen Averlino’s elegant-looking herbal written in the vulgar tongue, but this appears to have vanished in the mists of time… at one stage I planned to go through all the 15th century herbals to see if I might be able to identify Averlino’s lost herbal, but life over the last few years hasn’t been that ridiculously generous with spare time, frankly. 🙁
So… if you’re looking in his extant works for a bipedal Sagittarius (let alone a machine design disguised as a plant), I’m pretty sure you won’t find any: but my guess is that you may not find them anywhere else either. All the same, absence of evidence etc. 🙂
Nick,
You say:
… if you’re looking in his extant works for a bipedal Sagittarius (let alone a machine design disguised as a plant), I’m pretty sure you won’t find any:
[Thanks, saves me hunting his remaining papers for chimeras]
But you also say:
but my guess is that you may not find them anywhere else either.
I agree it’s unlikely I’ll find a machine design disguised as a plant .. . Bit early for Dali’s cross-overs between animate and inanimate…except maybe some clocks.
The bipedal Sagittarius, though, I think I’ve sorted pretty well.
– Examples from early Hellenistic north, these link nicely to one north French ms (two centuries before the ‘nth French miscellany’), with previous Carolingian Spanish example, and then hop over to Germany, 12thC to see the type nearly stripped of that classical and non-Lavtin character.. so ‘normalised’ it’s now a bit of a joke.. then the late 15th(?) century and an example Rene put on his web-page (though no ms attribution so couldn’t check its date).
But why would he pick so un-classical a figure for Sagit. do you think?
Diane: even before Jens Sensfelder, the roundel drawings seemed to me a century too early for the 15th century; and so the long-standing suggestion that they may well have been copied from a 14th German woodcut calendar has always seemed fairly likely to me. The drawings there certainly seem an awkward fit when compared with most of the rest of the drawings.
Yes, they are early – I’d say the orignal forms for the calendar roundels came to (or emerged within) the southern region of Christian Europe about the eleventh century.
PS Yes, fourteenth-century for the recension prior to ours, but nothing to do with woodcuts. the order of evolution is quite the reverse.
Diane: actually, I’m pretty sure that woodcut printing began in the 14th century, roughly a century before Gutenberg etc:-
http://oldprintgallery.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/history-of-woodcuts/
“Though paper from the east was known in Spain in the 11th century, it was not until paper was produced in large quantities in France, Italy, and Germany in the 14th century that the art of the woodcut began to unfold. In southern Germany, woodcuts began as primitive religious figures. Their directness, simplicity of line, and economy of means made them very powerful. They were handbills for veneration, sold for pennies to pilgrims visiting holy places and to the populace on religious feast days. Woodcuts of Christ or the Virgin Mary were often pasted inside traveling chests or onto small altar pieces and frequently sewn into clothing to give protection from evil forces.”
I think there are other ways to interpret the Voynich than an herbal or astrological book.
The pictures could be there just to provide the key codes.
For the plants, the keys could be 8, 12, 3, 11 ( 8 leaves, 12 roots, 3 flowers, 11 branches).
The number of colours could also be a key.
With those numbers men could retrieve the meaningfull lines, words, characters (etc.) in the text of the same page of the plant (just like local steganography).
So, plants could be there to contain the keys AND to mislead the reader about the actual content of the book.
But if it has nothing to do with some elixir with plants and astrology, what could be the so important secret to hide, requesting such an effort?
I think that it is a time invariant that human being want to protect military (and/or economical) secrets by coding them, so why not for the Voynich?
Then one possible such military secret could be related (just for example) to Venice.
In the beginning of the XV century, Venice was a military power and its arsenal was one of the most protected place.
So it could be possible that the Voynich is a coded description of the catalog of ships, fleets, weapons, maritime routes, etc. intended to be used by the highest military or political hierarchy.
Encryption served to avoid spies to decrypt it.
The idea of pictures containing only key codes, can be extended to all other pictures (women, etc.), they are just there to contain the keys and their representation is meaningless. For pictures with women, the keys could be the number of women, number of tubes, number of crowns on women, number of pregnant women, etc.
Once the relevant information is extracted from the pages thanks to those keys, the coding itself is probably very simple (like a coding dictionary).
Fold-out pages without text could contain crypted info about important buildings, maritime routes, maps, etc.
Pije: if such high-powered military secret books were used, it seems very likely that there would be some reference to them in the extensively-mined Venetian archives. But – to the best of my knowledge – no such references have ever been found.
Also, code-book explanations for the Voynichese text fail to satisfy, because the text presents such a wealth of curious statistical properties. Whatever it is, it is not a simple thing!
Hi Nick, you probably right and I don’t want to really say that it is the Venitian secret that I wrote above. I’m just trying to bring some logic into the tentatives to find an explanation.
Instead of trying to understand the Voynich itself (its text, its pictures, etc.), an approach could be to understand the possible reasons of doing such a complex and costly effort.
It could be a hoax from a rich man (this possibility includes the description the elexir of youth, since the author(s) knew that it does not exist, so he could just write meaningless things and always reach its goal).
But if we take the hypothesis that it is not a hoax, it must have some (economical or political) value.
I don’t think it could contain religious (catholic) text since such info was not coded.
I don’t think neither that it contains heretic text, since it is easier to write in clear and not sign it (or take a pseudo) to avoid inquisition (which was, in addition, not very active at that period).
Also, in the beginning of the XV, not a lot of coding methods were existing. So it must be relatively simple and probably the keys are in the book.
So if it has not been cracked until now it is possibly because the author(s) explicitely mislead the reader by complexifying things (adding a lot of ancillary info) and inducing him on the wrong track with pictures of a complete other type than the book’s actual content.
Pije: sadly, the world (let alone the Internet) is already full of speculative explanations as to why [insert name of cipher mystery] is unreadable, and to the best of my knowledge I don’t believe such speculation has yet helped a single decryption take place. That’s more the kind of thing you’d find in a Dan Brown novel than in real life. 😉
But you are absolutely right that there were not a lot of coding / ciphering techniques in play at the time indicated by the radiocarbon dating. And you are also very probably correct that the Voynich Manuscript is indeed not about alien plants but about something else completely! 😉
Pije, Nick,
The main question has not yet been answered why the VMS would have been encoded. What purpose would there be to encode a herbarium, an astrologium or balneum, which were openly available in Arab, Latin, Italian or Spanish. As far as coding would apply to the apothecary pages only, it would not need to encode the whole volume. The quire numbers of the herbarium indicate that this part of the VMS is taken from an earlier publication or planned publication, because quire numbers are used only for printing and binding. This earlier publication would be based on loose folia or copied from them. So the origins of the present VMS go back to earlier centuries, when each town and region in Italy still had its own script.I mean the period of time between the Carolingian script and the Renaissance script as is indicated by the quire numbers themselves, by the ghibbeline walls (1245- ), the rather primitive portraits of females, the drawings of plants without veins, the clothes of the sagittarius and his cross-bow. All of them indicate 1250-1350. I think it is not by accident that the manuscript later on has been related to Roger Bacon (1214-1294), though by mistake. It really shows the characteristics of his time. As for the script, it could well be that it has been made up by ligatures as is known from the littera bononiensis, mainly juridical texts. I have earlier indicated Bologna as the place of origin. The university of Bologna (founded 1088, oldest of Europe) played a central role in that time. Before deciding, if the VMS has been encoded, we should learn more about the script itself.
Menno Knul
Menno Knul
Hi Menno, this is indeed also a logical possibility. Do you have an explanation why there no title and no author name? Also why was the book, or parts of it, copied in the beginning of the XV century?
Pije,
This is a good and relevant question. Let me first state that the combination of the herbarium with other parts like the apothecary folia, the astrolabium and balneum belongs to the second binding (when upper right page numbers have been attached), when someone (Gerolimo Cardano ?, see below) thought it useful to bind the left papers in the old script to prevent them from getting lost. Secondly I found, that the quire numbers belong to the herbal section and loose herbal folia only, which indicates that this part existed as a separate volume (libella). If one counts the quires according to the given numbers one may calculate that the volume originally consisted of some 180 folia, so that a larger portion of the herbal section got lost already in the first binding. The number of 180 folia can be compared with both the number of small designs of plants in the apothecary section and with the number of lines indicated by stars ar the end of the VMS. So there could be a relation between the herbal part, the apothecary part and the final register. We do not know yet. I noticed that the last page of the register (f116r) contains a first part with star lines and a second part initiated by a greater special sign, which I would call an epilogue.
Now, to return to your question, this epilogue might well contain information about the identity of the author. We don’t know yet.
Menno Knul
*Gerolimo Cardano was professor in medicine and mathematics at the Bologna university. He invented the Cardan grille and did many other inventions. He was seized by the Jesuits in 1570 for heresy. This could be the moment the Jesuits got the VMS in hands. The script could easily be regarded as a secret code and used against him. He lost his position at the Bologna university and committed suicide. He wrote an autobiography, but did not reveal the circumstances of the accusations.
Nick,
The history of the souvenir/charm print is very interesting. It begins with single-sheet rubbings from stone or metal plates, and is a separate development from moveable type and book-printing.
the term used for such rubbings, and for playing cards, in nineteenth century Egypt ( as Burton reports) was still ‘tars daylani’ – Median shields – which is intriguing. In the west, the idea evolved on the one hand as sets of playing-cards or thetorical aids and on the other – which may have been first – to religious holy pictures made as gifts for pilgrims.
I agree that there are things about the Vms which suggest connection to printing, but if someone’s trying to turn my joke about ‘greeking the cake-book’ into a serious contention, or argue that the existence of print-blocks makes the Vms imagery the result of their use, I should be disappointed in them – as doubtless they in me, since the joke was my own idea.
Pije,
You ask why the book, or parts of it, were copied in the beginning of the XV century. Because of the quire numbers of the herbal section and loose herbal pages, one has to decide that a publication has been planned, but not effectuated because the script became obsolete, when the Renaissance script was introduced. Similarly recently the German publishers had to throw away all their prepared publications, when after WO II the European script replaced the Gothic script. The same will be the case, when the Japanese change (if ever) their character script to the Western alphabet.
Menno,
The main question about the Vms is why so many creative reconstructions of its history, sources and meaning ignore the evidence of science, experts, contextual history, comparative imagery, people who were closest to the manuscript in the seventeenth century, and indeed the primary source itself.
History as the reification of daydreams, though gossip may be very post-modern, but still unlikely to assist efforts to read Voynichese.
For the record: my analysis of the imagery finally left me standing in a very small group, of whose company I am not ashamed: Erwin Panofsky, Georg Baresch, and in our view, MS Beinecke 408 itself. We are unanimous in denying that the manuscript’s content is an original product of fifteenth-century Europe’s Latin (i.e. Christian) culture, or the work of any single author.
…so it’s a compilation, epitome or reworking of material drawn from a variety of sources, hence there is no single ‘author’ mentioned. Sounds perfectly sensible to me. Any objections, other than to point out the obvious: that it might be something else?
It may well be instructive to explore the origins of the script, but please can this be kept separate from inferences about the ‘language’? The statistical properties of Voynichese may be a bit dry for some, and some of the people who’ve worked on this are quite clearly better stattos than linguists, but I really do think that we can rule out the often-repeated suggestion that this is a familiar, if obscure language written in an unfamiliar script, with no other modification.
PS – Diane, what you are describing is not post-modern history. It’s something else which I doubt Nick’s spam filter will permit me to describe accurately. There are times when the two overlap, but correlation need not imply causation!
Diane,
Where did you read in my comments that the manuscript’s content would be an original product of fifteenth-century Europe’s Latin (i.e. Christian) culture, or the work of any single author ? On the contrary, I wrote: All of them indicate 1250-1350. I think it is not by accident that the manuscript later on has been related to Roger Bacon (1214-1294), though by mistake. It really shows the characteristics of his time.
Menno
Menno: careful analysis over the last 7 or 8 years has revealed that the quire numbers were added *after* the bifolios had already been shuffled from their original order. (The bifolios were also shuffled and rebound several times after that before the folio numbers were finally added).
There is also very strong evidence – e.g. in Q13 – that the person who added the quire numbers was unaware of the original structure (i.e. that had been lost in the shuffling).
I therefore contend that there is a very high chance that the quiration was done purely for binding by a later owner (as was often the case with multi-quire manuscripts), and not for printing by the original owner.
If you have uncovered evidence that goes against any of this, please say!
SirHubert,
… origins of the script, but please can this be kept separate from inferences about the ‘language’?
True. I’ve regularly failed to observe the distinction, and will be more careful in future.
One question nags, though – why did Bresch ask Kircher only to identify the script?
Sir Hubert,
I don’t think Latin, Italian or even Spanish are obscure languages. As for the script: there exist a whole collection of litterae ignotae. As for the modification Nick suggested shorthand, I suggested ligatures as in the littera bononiensis, which is basically the same. You remember my comments on the Moustier enigma, which showed an other way to deal with a so called encryptic text. The main question has not yet been answered why a text would be encoded, which is commonly available in known languages.
Menno Knul
Menno
*biiiig smile*
That’s the very century when I think most of the material re-enters the Mediterranean after more than a millennium. Except maybe the calendar, which appears to me to have come [first?] in the late 10thC, though one might argue independent derivation from the one source or tradition.
filter won’t let me tell you where that’s being posted, sorry.
Nick,
If so, please explain why herbal pages are scattered throughout section B, but apparently kept the consecutive numbering. This would not be the case, when the whole volume would be shuffled and reshuffled over and over again.
Menno Knul
Diane,
*biiiig smile*, from ear to ear ?
Menno
Menno: at its simplest, the consecutive (folio) numbering is in a 16th century hand, whereas the quire numbering is in a 15th century hand. The folio numbers were added last, and had even less to do with the original order than the quire numbers.
Menno:
*with no other modification.
And it is reasonably obvious that none of the languages you mention is particularly obscure. In fact, I have heard of all three.
just been notified of a new post to JB’s blog. I see that there’s a comment in the same thread, where Vytautas sys ( June 1st., 2011)
… I think Voynich MS is written through long time – older part IMHO is Zodiac …
…other parts may be written later and quires may be mixed not chronologically
D.
Nick,
To avoid misunderstanding I do not talk about the 16th century (folio) numbering (top right) , but about the 15th century consecutive quire numbering of herbal folia only (bottom right), which surpasses astrologigal and balneological pages, the last herbal page being f96v (quire 17).
Menno
Everybody,
Here follows the text on my website, which summarizes some of my recent comments:
Date
The result of the C14 analysis is that the vellums date 1404-1436, which is called the first binding. However, the use of quire notes indicates that one has planned to publish the manuscript, else page numbers would have been preferred. From the rather primitive style of the pictures of naked woman and animals one may conclude that the present Codex Voynich is a compilation of 12th – 13th century libellae on various subjects. The quire notes too indicate the 12th – 13th century. A second binding (with modern page numbers) occurred in the 16th century. By then many of the pages were missing. The herbal quire numbers range from Q1 to Q17, which gives a total of 270 pages missing half of them in the second binding. Similarly with the balneological, pharmaceutical and astrology pages (some of them are even doubled). All appear to be incomplete. Just the register at the end of the Codex Voynich seems to be fairly complete with four missing pages. The 12th – 13th century character is confirmed by fashion of cloths and the picture of the cross-bow in the hand of Sagittarius. The Codex Voynich has not been published, probably because the script was already incomprehensible in the beginning of the 15th century, when humanistic writing and printing took over from Renaissance writing. However the famous Oroloj of Prague shows, that the Roger Bacon numerals have been mantained untill the 16th century.
Menno Knul
Menno:
(1) Quire numbers were primarily for binding, not for printing. Why would you think something that apparently predates the widespread introduction of printing would have anything much to do with printing?
(2) And anyway, printing was extraordinarily expensive in the 15th century even when using standard type (and there was arguably not even any such thing as standard type then anyway), let alone having to commission a completely new typeface.
(3) The quire hand is a fifteenth century hand, not earlier (you can tell from the number shapes)
http://ciphermysteries.com/the-voynich-manuscript/voynich-quire-numbers
(4) The quire numbers further speak of a long series of intermediate rebindings for a whole variety of reasons (I gave a presentation on this at the 2012 Voynich Centenary Conference in Frascati).
http://ciphermysteries.com/the-voynich-manuscript/voynich-codicology
(5) The folio numbers were largely complete, but a few individual folios were removed (I suspect by Georg Baresch, but that’s another story completely)
(6) The crossbow was “first half of the 14th century”, according to Jens Sensfelder’s 2003 analysis
http://ciphermysteries.com/the-voynich-manuscript/crossbow-article
(7) The parallel hatching that appears on a number of pages points to a post-1410 writing date if Germany, post-1440 if Florence, and post-1450 if elsewhere in Europe.
http://ciphermysteries.com/the-voynich-manuscript/voynich-parallel-hatching
Nick,
I appreciate your extensive answer very much. Please give me some time to work through the references.
I would also be interested to read the comments of Diane and others.
Just two points now.
The shapes of the numbers is referred to as the Roger Bacon numbers, 13th/14th c.
Sensfelder dates the cross-bow first half of the 14th century. This complies with my 1250-1350. Some reports tell the cross-bow dates back to Roman and Greek times, but there may be some technical differenes.
Menno
Nick,
deciding whether the Voynich fillers and motifs count as paralell hatching in the sense you take it is not so easy. even if the field is limited to manuscripts, and within manuscipt art to European works, there are plenty of examples of similar pen-work. One which seems to be popular for Voynich discussions is late 11thC, St.Gallen Co. Sang. 250, which you might like to look at some time.
Its date allows consistency with Sensfelder’s dating for the crossbow, and with Panofsky’s assessment of the imagery.
The archer’s arm is shaded in that way. (fol.498).
Elsewhere in the same manuscript is a little ‘Pan’ – bipedal with bow;
God’s beard is a nice example (f.505) and even the line-and-dot motif is there, on snakes (e.g.fol.479, though not the only instance).
I haven’t read up on it lately, but I doubt if anyone’s changed their minds about the conservative, Carolingian-Ottonian style of the drawings.
The more usual opinion, I should think, is that the Vms contains that sort of pen-work. The equivalent exists in other media, and other regions of course. (Its leo has a nicely twisted head, but is not the Vms’ )
*St.Gallen Cod. Sang. 250
Diane,
I understand that parallel hatching and other forms of hatching are meant for printing purpose (black and white). That’s what Wikipedia says. Can you confirm that ?
Menno
Menno,
If you’re trying to go with this where I think you are, I’m not the person to ask. I wouldn’t describe anything I’ve noticed so far as ‘hatching’ in that sense, at all.
In any case, if someone was creating a manuscript for printing, they’d either carve a single block for each page, pics and all, or else (as I understand it) block out the written text and leave spaces for pictures. The carver then made his block to fit the empty space.
I guess the blank spaces were lettered, or numbered, but what we have in the Vms seems very different from that process, don’t you think?
Diane,
I just wonder what you mean with ‘If you are trying to go with this where I think you are, ..
I have never before related parallel or other forms of hatching with early medieval handwritten manuscripts. So I wonder, why hatching has been brought up in relation to VMS. Nick uses this argument (see above 7.) against my observation, that the origins of the VMS date back to 1250-1350.
Maybe it is good for you to learn, that I followed a course on the history of the book at the Amsterdam University as a professional librarian.
Menno Knul
Menno,
Sorry. I ithought you were implying that if parallel hatching were in the Vms, this was evidence for its being a printer’s mock-up.
But as I’m sure you’ll know from that course, early printers worked differently, and constantly re-used their blocks (not always appropriately).
Diane,
On the contrary.
For your information again: I specialize in investigating hoaxes, like the fake Oera Linda Book. This book is said to have been written in 1256 in Old Frisian, but is presented in the form of a 15th century block book. This is of course an anachronism.
Menno
Menno,
About that dating – some of the imagery was certainly first enunciated much earlier than the dates you specify but I do not think it beyond possibility that most of what we have was completed by then. I have posited the mid-twelfth to mid-thirteenth century for return of all or most of the present sections to the Mediterranean region. However, more additions occur thereafter, and some speak to the type of imagery produced within the context of maritime chart making in the Majorcan-Mallorcan-Genoese-Catalan nexus. Recent research suggests input also from Barbary men and the Basque, but the four named above are most commonly noticed. Dates for their work take us certainly into the fourteenth century, and its later part at that.
But in the main, I’d agree that the work shows some evidence of contact with the Crusader states period, and art which reached the western Mediterranean and Adriatic from that time on.
For what it’s worth.