It’s a hard thing to admit, but I think the Voynich Manuscript tells us much more about History – and specifically about historical proof – than History tells us about the Voynich Manuscript.
Even though we have accumulated so much micro-knowledge about the Voynich (by which I mean how its ‘language’ works, and even – to a certain extent – how it was made and owned), we still have almost no genuine macro-knowledge about it at all. For all the long list of suggestive details, our Voynich knowledge in toto is little more than a forensic desert (and not obviously different to that surrounding the Somerton Man), one that remains so wide that none may cross it and live.
For all Rene Zandbergen’s accumulated provenancing, for all his patient and informed historical nuancery, teasing single strands out of Kircher’s Republic of Letters and weaving them into what are little more than semi-threads, we still know essentially nothing about what Kircher knew of it, or thought of it. We don’t even know if he ever saw the dratted Manuscript, or if the pages (or copies of pages) sent to him by Baresch are still extant in some unknown Jesuit cryptographic archive somewhere. Or (if they are) whether or not they will give us even a flicker of assistance in decrypting Voynichese (based on past form, I suspect they would not).
And yet…
So far, so nothing: but here’s the rub. Even though I’ve long held as a basic research tenet the notion that historians are better equipped at disproving fallacious claims than genuinely proving things, why do you think it is that even after all this time, the Internet is still awash with Voynich claims and theories that make little more than facile, superficial sense?
Example #1: why is it that Stephen Bax’s utterly foolish and superficial nine-word theory has found itself promoted to hits #3, #4, and #5 on a Google search for “Voynich” (as of today)? Is it really the case that nobody has noticed that his attempts at reading Voynichese as a natural language fail to explain more than 99.9% of the text, which is almost the very definition of “unsystematic”? Is it really the case that nobody has noticed that you can “read” almost exactly the same number of words by interpreting Voynichese as English?
Example #2: why is that that Gordon Rugg’s shudderingly awful CompSci misreading of Voynichese as a “language” generated by Cardan grilles still has any faint lustre of validity at all? Why is it that I still – all these years on – run into people whose view of the Voynich is not only coloured by this kind of anti-historical claptrap, but also utterly delimited by its faux postmodern stupidity? When will we ever manage to draw a line under this idiocy?
Example #3: why is it that Rich SantaColoma can still get away with miscasting the Voynich Manuscript’s eponymous 20th century finder as its forger? Though he “plays the game well”, if you multiply out all the individual probabilities that he has to bracket out to keep his ball in the court of possibility, it’s hard to see how he can end up with a net likelihood of more than one in a million. All of which is good for his personal position (in that nobody has outright disproved his assertion that Wilfrid Voynich hoaxed his Roger Bacon manuscript), but lousy for the overall discourse, in that he continues to waste everyone else’s time by fighting against whatever they say wherever it happens to run counter to his blessèd sub-one-in-a-million shot.
…and need I honestly extend the same face-palm of logical despair to Guiseppe Bianchi’s recent Youtube video on the Voynich, however lamentable it may be? I sincerely hope not: because disproving it (and the legions of other disappointingly rubbish Voynich non-theories) would be a full-time job, and I already have three of those vying for my as-yet-uncloned time.
The poverty of disproof
Do you see the underlying pattern here? That if Voynich theorists are happy to retreat to the far unpainted corner of possibility (however dwindlingly small a scrap of floor their ill-formed theories leave them to stand on), absolute disproof becomes almost as hard as absolute proof. Moreover, such theorists are then able to take that absence of comprehensive disproof as confirmation that they were somehow on the right track all along – that the inability of others to sumo-wrestle them out of the dohyo justifies their faith in their own worthless position.
In fact, I have become utterly bored with people sending me their worthless non-theories to disprove, because I know that however I respond with, they will then conjure up a counter-example that proves that my disproof was not absolute: and so use the opportunity that yields them to cock a snook at my so-called expertise.
And so I’m left with an uncomfortable conclusion about the Voynich Manuscript and the poverty of disproof: that if it is almost impossible to disprove a mad theory all the while a given loopy theorist can keep dreaming up flimsily etheral counterexamples of possibility, then we’ve all kind of lost before we even begin. At that sad point, the entire discourse has broken down into some kind of demented two-handed game, where one side has an endless supply of imaginative jokers to place on the table.
Ultimately, we’ve now reached a net position where the core discourse about the Voynich Manuscript is so painfully broken that there is almost nothing that can be said about it that will not immediately be opposed by wobbly counterassertions moulded out of outrageously weak possibility.
Specifically, there is almost nothing I can sensibly write about the Voynich Manuscript that Stephen Bax, Gordon Rugg, Rich SantaColoma and Giuseppe Bianchi cannot immediately oppose (sometimes in the same way, or more likely in four wildly different ways), should they wish: which, to me, speaks of a kind of pervasive epistemological collapse. It is as though knowledge’s graph of usefulness plotted against time has historically peaked, and is now steadily declining: that instead of knowing more, we are losing any sense of equilibrium about the internal dynamics that make up good knowledge. The model of knowledge as a medium for slowly accumulating sensible judgments is giving way to a model of rapidly accumulating possibilities, all as bad as each other: and we are all the worse for it.
Right now, nobody seems to grasp that cipher mysteries sit at an oddly hypermodern frontier – and that if we are not careful, this could be the beginning of the end for all knowledge. But nobody seems to care.
Well, Nick,
I am somewhat disheartened that you have not followed up on my various references to Fray Sahagun’s ‘diary’ and notes about various herbs, vegetables, lakes, and mines (mostly silver and cinnabar/mercury). In the so-called Voynich, you will find discussion of where Sahagun got his education (Leon Province, Spain); his journey, by sail, to New Spain. You will also find his notes about his teaching at the School for Boys in Tla-tl-ol-co.
Other interesting items in B-408 (Voynich) are the pages (four pages which surround a central page) which discuss the dangers of picking and eating the easily MIS-identified mushroom (“Alcohol-Inky) which causes hallucinations/liver failure and death.
I can go on identifying the “Alban Lake (in Europe)” in B-408 as being Sahagun’s discussion/comparison with Lake Titicaca in Mexico.
If I am making you uncomfortable, I hope you will understand that I have been a translator of a few nearly unintelligible handwritten notes that my bosses have wanted me to “clean up/correct ” their spelling and/or grammar.
If you think the “Voynich” is untranslatable, you and your friends still have a “long row to hoe”, so to speak.
Give my regards to Rene and/or Rich SantaColoma.
I am now going to go online to find a couple more Christmas songs: “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and “Ho ho ho — who wouldn’t go — up on the housetop — click, click, click — down through the chimney with St. Nick ? !
Hi Nick. Do not be sad. On manuscript burned more aces than you. This is very complicated encryption. The key is writte on the side of 116. I have know him for several years. And so I read the manuscript normally. Try ever too old Czech language. And then you will succeed. You will see that it goes.
The Voynich MS is in itself the embodiment of epistemological collapse. It promises language and readability; but really–Is there any other book (or manufactured object, even) that takes so much from us and gives so little back? It’s the promise of language and writing and meaning that seems to be disappearing into a black hole, but we can’t have THAT happen. So after a while you find yourself stepping back and trying to make sense not of the Voynich MS, but of the people who are trying to make sense of the Voynich MS.
Sally Caves: for me, the Voynich Manuscript is nothing more than a difficult historical artefact, one that requires not only clarity of thought to grasp but also something approaching a Zen Masterly research strategy to try to overcome. The promise is that by tackling such a difficult thing, we sharpen our skills – by testing us so severely, it urges us to do ever better. So I don’t personally see that it gives so little back: in fact, if we can work with it on its own level, it can only make us stronger, surely? The “epistemological collapse” I talk about in the post is a process that I think is happening all around us, if we but open our eyes to it: as an edge-case (if not a hyper-corner case), all the Voynich Manuscript does is bring that societal breakdown into sharp focus.
Oh, and if you ever find yourself trying to make sense of the people trying to make sense of the VMs, walk away: that way only madness lies. Retain your own clarity at all costs, don’t get caught up with other people’s confusions.
” if you ever find yourself trying to make sense of the people …walk away”
Absolutely – there are enough amateur psychologists out there. Besides, once a Voynichero starts on that track, it’s a sign they’ve (a) given up on researching the manuscript itself (b) really can’t absorb others’ results or.. possibly.. are so worried that someone else has better skills that they may lose their research grant. 😀
Hi Nick,
there seems to be more out there to disprove than to prove…. but for me there are much better ways to waste time than to try to disprove any of the scores of theories out there. Indeed, to disprove isn’t easier than to prove.
And why bother?
Whom are we trying to convince? The proponent of theory X? The world at large?
I like to compare the collapse you talk about with ‘signal jamming’. There’s too much noise out there. Indeed, this is not at all specifically about the Voynich MS.
Goodness. Voynich clickbait 🙂
A phenomenon similar to the one you’re describing exists in the mystery surrounding the case of the Zodiac Killer. I’ve observed it over the years and, personally, I call it “Non-Disprovability.”
The case embodies a lot of information and, if we’re being honest, nobody can say for certain what it all means (except, of course, for the killer himself, if he’s still alive somewhere…). I like to say much is known, but little is truly understood.
These circumstances mean there are many “dots” and nobody who can validate how they should be connected. Of course, in the age of the internet, there is no shortage of people who are willing to try, often quite loudly.
It’s a natural human reaction, when confronted with something that cannot be proven, the consider whether or not it can be disproven. The problem, of course, is that too many people conclude the contention is true if they fail to disprove it. The 2007 David Fincher movie “Zodiac” had a line that is apropos:
“Just because you can’t prove it doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
What remains unsaid, of course, is that it doesn’t mean it’s true either, which is actually relevant in that the movie is advocating for the guilt of a person who almost certainly was not the Zodiac.
The main problem is that the average person who is unfamiliar with the case does not know how to evaluate claims about the mystery. One ridiculous claim sounds as good as the next well-reasoned one; in fact, it likely sounds more interesting. Sadly, we end up with people like the one (whom I prefer not to name) who suggests the killer never even existed. Inexplicably, people take him seriously…
In the end, I suppose those of us who are interested in these mysteries that embody nontrivial uncertainty just have to accept there is going to be a fair amount of unpleasant noise.
Congratulations, NIck.
If we cannot solve it, we can at least slap each other in the face :-). Or are you just “under the weather”?
SirHubert: it’s like whitebait, but tastier. 🙂
Rene: when you ask “why bother?”, for me that’s perilously close to nihilism. Yet you obviously do care about knowledge, or else you wouldn’t have gone to the extraordinary trouble of amassing all that fantastic information on voynich.nu . 🙂
My opinion is that disproof is not (as some people would doubtless argue) in any way negative, but is rather a wonderful and noble thing: that solid disproofs stop people investing time and effort into things that can never bear them fruit. Yet even after all these years, we are still in a position where we find it hard to disprove even the most pathetic Voynich theory, which I think is hugely lamentable.
jan: on the contrary, I genuinely do think we can solve the Voynich Manuscript, though probably not by proceeding in the ways that many Voynich theorists seem to employ. 😐
Disproving someone’s Voynich theory isn’t slapping them in the face, it’s helping them avoid wasting any more time on something that might potentially waste years (perhaps even decades) of their life. Isn’t that an inherently kind thing to do? 🙂
Well, Nick,
there was the time I did my slapping too, then I realized I did not miss anybody except myself :-).
Frankly, Ii think our major contribution to the VM was to make it even more mysterious. Well, it is the best we could do. After all, if the VM is written in artificial language, we are at the opposite end than Gord Rugg but still hopeless :-).
For me, there was also another benefit: I learned a lot about myself and my flimsy methods. It was as much enlightening as my studies in Artifical Intelligence – we can only mirror the human intelligence and its drawbacks,
Hi Nick,
in the ideal world you’re right, that disproving something is helpful. However, this is precisely where the Voynich MS is “special”. Making a list of people who have been convinced by solid argumentation that their theory is wrong, and have abandoned it, will not take a very long time….
So, my “why bother” is really only meant semi-rhetorically, and quite literally. What would be the purpose? What would be gained, in the sense: who is going to benefit from it (on a case by case basis).
I guess an exception could be the ‘modern fake by Voynich’ theory, which, if people were to take it seriously, would deserve to be addressed properly, but it isn’t anywhere near that point, and can only be attractive to people who really don’t know most of the basics.
In general, I don’t believe that any of the tentative solutions or explanations have a great following, and I find their existence relatively innocent. I would even say: the more the better, because the mass of them makes each individual one stand out even less.
A far worse problem is the flow of “correspondence” to the Beinecke library of Yale University, which, apart from normal requests, ranges from ill-advised to bordering on criminal. They do real damage to the reputation of the “Voynich community”. Even though there really isn’t such a community.
Hi friends.
The Voynich manuscript is yours, to complicated. Try to solve something easier. On the Voynich translation is needed quite big experience. A knowledge. They will ( as some experts ) is missing. Therefore, you can never succeed. It’s beyond your abilities.
Champollione.
Rene: just because we haven’t managed comprehensive disproof of rubbish theories yet doesn’t mean it isn’t something to aspire to, or that we won’t get there in the future. Given the chance, I’d happily destroy a thousand wonky Voynich theories. Wouldn’t you?
As for such theories being “relatively innocent”: I find the current situation (where Stephen Bax’s non-solution sits high up on Google’s first page, and where Bax, Han and Sherwood all feature on Bing’s first page, etc) really rather wrong-headed. For me, that’s similar to the situation you’d have if half of Google’s top search results for Shakespeare returned links to Ignatius Donnelly etc.
Hi, friends.
Try , to example cipher Devil. There might be resolved. It is short and very simple. Characters are doubled.
5 line , characters :
CIDIMVICIXURIMINMANICJEXICICCISIEJEXIN-33X.
I believe that resolve. 🙂 Champollione.
@ Rene: “Voynich Community” I’m not sure Nick has been considering all the people who present their ideas in re the “Voynich” manuscript as being part of a community of any kind.
I, for one, translate written works. I cite my references. I proffer no arguments or criticism to other’s offerings on Nick’s blogs. I have fun. I wish Nick could have as much fun. He is a most gracious host. (At least he seems to be considering my posts; he’s corrected me now and then and here and there….)
I wish Nick could contact Professor Leon-Portilla at the University in Mexico City.
And then there is Fermin Herrera’s “Hippocrene Concise Dictionary.
🙂
For myself, I can’t see much point in doing research only to prove a theory, and then studiously ignoring all evidence to the contrary, and refusing to engage in the sort of dialogue which is meant to aid both the producer of new research and the receiver of it.
Blank refusal to engage, and equally bull-headed determination to proceed by trampling down opposition seem both unconducive to advancing the study of this manuscript.
Or has it become nothing but an amassing of data carefully selected to present as overwhelming support for one specific theory.
I’m absolutely in agreement with Nick that both the producer of new discoveries and insights, and the persons who receive them, have much to offer each other in refining the opinions on both sides.
Isn’t that how it’s done? Or am I just old-fashioned? Do you know, identifying the crossbow-device which seems fairly to explain the movement of the archer’s hand in folio 73v hasn’t received a single response, either to the blog (rare) or in private emails.
What AM I to think of that?
Some Things On Internet Not True, Report Claims.
“I Defecated In Tree Rich Environment,” Admits Bear.
Oh, come on…
“For me, that’s similar to the situation you’d have if half of Google’s top search results for Shakespeare returned links to Ignatius Donnelly etc.”
Yeah, I can relate to that. I’m a medievalist facing a tide of neomedievalism. Not quite the same as your situation, but I live and work in a cloister.
Just to clarify my first post. I don’t think the Voynich MS is meaningless, only that it seems to *symbolize* that epistemological collapse you first spoke of, in that it seems to attract, by its very mysteriousness and WEALTH of detail, a certain amount of logical fallacies that won’t accept doubt. Doubt is depressing; faith is easy. Self-questioning is weakness. Assertion is strength. The sensational attention given to the Ignatius Donnellys, instead of the disciplined thinking you pursue, is due in great part to the book’s new digital accessibility–which wasn’t there when I was poring over it 20 years ago. So it now has a fan appeal where faith in its decipherability can’t be shaken by criticism. To read your blogposts about this book is hard work, and it showcases one’s own stupidity. For the record, I’ve ordered your book for my class next semester on language mysteries. And I’ll be asking them to look at this and other blogposts.
By “giving so little back” I don’t mean that in a negative sense. I rather admire the formidable wall it’s built. Or maybe I should reword it: the VM gives us a ton of information piecemeal, but not the essential information we pour our efforts into finding. At least not right now. And people don’t want to hear that.
Of course, I hope to be able to contribute to a better understanding of the MS, and which ideas for the interpretation of the text can and cannot work.
Unfortunately, this particular area of my web site is in desperate need of improvement, and this is happening only gradually. However, the aim is to make clear *why* none of these ideas work.
Just to be to the point: indeed, the solution of Stephen Bax certainly cannot work for the entire MS. The recent ‘solution’ of Mr.Bianchi isn’t a solution but just a change of the problem into another problem. The suggestion that the MS is a 20th C fake by Voynich is so much in conflict with everything we know, that the hypothesis cannot even be properly formulated.
The solution of Gordon Rugg doesn’t work. The MS was not created in this way. But (!) in principle his approach is much more sound than that of most other proposals.
The Google ranking issue I do indeed accept in a nihilistic way. Really. Google is a commercial enterprise. It would be better if there were an alternative.
I find myself very much in agreement with you Nick; when you scrape away skein of hearsay and hypotheses, there’s a very small core of real information on the true history and content of the Voynich MS, and Voynichese in particular. Even the facts we have (and you’ve pointed out how hard it might be to even read Voynichese correctly) are such that it’s difficult to even present reasonable hypotheses that can be effectively tested (although I do think your thoughts on a Voynich numbering system are worth more investigation).
To Mike on “non-disprovability.” A little like the argumentum ad ignorantiam. The evidence of absence about a thing proves the absence of presence in a thing. Or worse: your doubt disqualifies my evidence because it’s only doubt. Why are you so cynical? (relocating the argument in an ad hominem; assuming that doubt in something is a bad thing) All you can do is cite the fallacy; but it’s harder to make people believe it. So by “stepping back” and observing the people observing the VM, I meant that that’s the burden of disproving their “proof.” It’s a waste of time.
I don’t see any big problem here. It’s not like politics or something, where the society might greatly lose if one faction fails to persuade the general population of the maliciousness of another faction (e.g. fascists or islamic radicals). “Voynich factions” are harmless, so why not let the people have their own way.
A person pursuing his/her own favourite “Voynich theory” may not contribute to the increase of the actual Voynich knowledge – that’s true – but the “Voynich science” won’t gain anything if that person does NOT pursue that theory.
The problem is not the abundance of the dead-end Voynich theories, the problem is the lack of productive methodologies to approach the decryption.
Hi fridens.
You do not know. So I will help you. ( 33 – indicates – X ). ( X = 6. substitution – U,W,V,X). This will show the author substitution. Now I hint words. So try.
5 line :
Is . Dat. Vici. 66. Rim. In. Man. Is. Jew. is, illis. in Jew. In – 33 ( 6 ).
Champollione. 🙂
SirHubert: my point was not that the Internet is full of self-propagandized cipher-related untruths (even if that is manifestly the case), but more that you can now barely see the trees for ursine ordure – and our +10 Disproofer Pooper Scooper seems to have lost all ability to make any kind of difference.
Do you not also feel queasy every time you see Bax’s claims smeared over Google’s top-ranking Voynich results page?
Diane: perhaps you’ve got the crossbow right, perhaps you haven’t. To most people’s eyes, though, I’m pretty sure the crossbowman looks ~100x more likely to be a badly dressed (and badly paid) hunter than some kind of Genoese Admiralty apparatchik… but I might be wrong.
Anton: thank you for a sense of perspective. This isn’t people publishing the ‘truth’ about the Holocaust or 9/11. It’s not even as if we’re dealing with Stalin airbrushing the Khazars from history, or the Chinese deciding that Genghis Khan can’t possibly have invaded China because he was already Chinese himself, being…er…Mongolian. ‘The Voynich community’, if that means anything, consists of amateurs, some hugely skilled and knowledgeable but amateurs nonetheless, with an interest in an old manuscript.
Nick: I am simply not going to get into a discussion about The Meaning Of History with you, for reasons you mention above in another context. But what you are actually talking about concerns the Internet specifically, because it doesn’t have the kind of moderation and peer review that an academic journal or commercial printed book would, vanity/self publishing excepted. Sadly, Google doesn’t have two search buttons, one saying “No, I’m Sane” and the other “Yep, Show me the Crazy Stuff,” unless this a level of Google-Fu I have yet to reach. And it does surprise me how uncritical many people are of what they find online – in my job I hear a variation of “But I saw it on the Internet” almost daily.
To that extent, I would prefer it if anyone new to the Voynich Manuscript found something sensible if they looked for it online, and I agree with you and Rene that Bax’s work doesn’t fit the bill. But the point is that Bax’s ‘solution’ simply doesn’t work, and anyone who looks at it for a few minutes will spot that. It’s not even like creationism – that explains something, albeit completely wrongly. It just fails.
But we then have to define ‘sensible’ and lots of posters here have their own views on what ‘sensible’ might be. There are at least four posters on this thread with irreconcilable views, and as a man correctly observed: “Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong.” Gender notwithstanding, you, Diane, BD and Boyfriend can’t all be right…so shall we have lots of posts here going over your respective positions? Clickbait much?
Finally, forgive me, but if you *really* want to reduce the quantity of stercus ursi and give the trees a chance, is it unfair or unkind to ask you why you allow *quite* so much of the stuff to appear on a well-known blog?
SirHubert: I do take your points, and take them well. I suppose the specific issue for me – if not for anyone else just yet – is that I think what we’re seeing here is a leading indicator of the decline down which things are heading, the sclerosis soon to be jamming up all our intellectual arteries.
I’m genuinely not trying to impose my idea of what comprises “sensible” onto anything or anyone: rather, I’m just saying that I’m unhappy to be complicit in the way we’re collectively allowing this kind of nonsense to sprawl. It’s not some cutesy Tribble trouble trending, it’s more like epistemological Japanese knotweed.
The reason I let so many comments through is simply because I try to only delete the utterly objectionable stuff (such as everything Stephen Bax trolled here, for example). My moderating instincts are doubtless a little more libertarian than yours. But all the same, it’s a balance that I do find hard to maintain.
I think the ultimate disproof (for anything not just crypto stuff) is proof that something else IS rather than this ISN’T. That’s just the nature of proof. And human nature sort of dictates that when we’re convinced we’re right we’ll find arguments against any nay-sayer…..that is, we seek endorsement and fight criticism rather than considering weaknesses in our stance….
Cheer up NIck, it’s Christmas!
Tribbles? Queep to you too! And I’m not sure if you mean libertarian or liberal…
But on the practical front, two suggestions. Firstly, to get the Wikipedia page as good as it can be, because for all its faults Wikipedia is pretty well-trusted and usually pretty reliable. And secondly, can the Beinecke library please update their own site so it presents up-to-date and relevant information about the manuscript rather than what’s there at present?
SirHubert: for what it’s worth, I found myself stuck between ‘liberal’ and ‘libertarian’ and tried to choose the lesser of the two weevils. 😐
As far as the Voynich Wikipedia page goes, there is not a damn thing you or I or anyone else can do to fix it. I submitted a whole load of changes a few years back, but I think they’ve all been removed by now, or edited to Wikimush: a few faint glimmers of what I wrote still remain, but no more than that.
As far as the Beinecke goes, it has its own issues to worry about (e.g. not getting caught up in anything that might be Son of Vinland Map), and is also unlikely to make any substantial changes any time soon. 🙁
Johnno: disproof is rarely easy, for sure, but genuine proof is hard… extremely hard.
Fighting your corner is human nature, but – as you suggest – that ain’t really proof. 😉
Merry Christmas to you too! <#8^,
Hi friends.
Nick . I can still write, Bax that a manucript can not be resolved. Cipher is very complicated.
Sir Hubert. The same. Even it someone had, for example , 10 universities. So not translate handwriting. I wrote ten. But even twenty universities is not enough to translate voynich. Nobody here in the Czech Republic, it can not. This is a very complicated encryption. The only one who could do it myself Champollione. That is why I am writing to try to resolve the cipher Devil. It is simple.
Champollione.
Sally,
“A little like the argumentum ad ignorantiam.”
Yes!
“All you can do is cite the fallacy; but it’s harder to make people believe it.”
I agree. Most of the people whose interest is driving the relevant results to the top of google (and dominating social media, etc.) care little about the nuance of logical fallacy. Their level of engagement is often more superficial. Hence, we end up with the “noise.”
Mike: is it really that simple? If you asked Bax, Rugg, Bianchi, SantaColoma, Mervyn, Sherwood and a whole host of similar theorists, I’m sure they’d all loudly affirm that their level of engagement is far from superficial; that they are working according to a rigorous and well-thought-out methodology; and that their theory is the fruit of many years (and in some cases even decades) of hard-fought research. They would further deny that they are in any way “noise”, and suggest firmly but politely that you should stick any such suggestion somewhere unlit by any sun.
And yet their theories are fallacious nonsense (if not indeed “complete pants”, as we in the UK like to say), without any obvious historical, cryptographic, linguistic or logical merit.
It is entirely true, as Rene points out, that few people have been dissuaded from their splendiferous theory by anything so facile as logical disproof. But somewhere along the line, the inmates have taken over the Voynich asylum, and the writhing mass of their theories has become the putrid public face of the Voynich. Their theories are what the Voynich’s diseased discourse now comprises.
Anyway, a very Merry Christmas to you before I get any more annoyed. 😉
Nick (and anyone still interested): Have not any one of you bothered to follow up my references which I supply to you with my various posts? Nick, what do you require as proof (besides citations, which I give with each of my posts) on your various discussions? Over the years, I’ve given you the translated dialogues straight from the Florentine Codex which match any page (illustrated or not) which appear in the so-called Voynich manuscript.
So, I guess, from reading your latest post, herein, you have not had time (or strength?) to follow up my references?
Can you not ignore Professor Phony and his nonsense? Have you given up on a sequel to your book? Several months ago, I offered to purchase your first book when you produce your sequel.
Because you call this particular discussion “poverty of proof”, I am still hoping that you will not lose patience, entirely, with the constant argumentation which inevitably occurs on many of your blog items.
bd eyed one-der
Hi friends. and blue eye. 🙂
I could only wonder. Why do so many smart heads. Unable to translate the manuscript. For let’s says here 10 years. And even more. What it probably is. And those blue eyes. You put sidung on the finial. They ketchup.
Cipher : the ywonk togi btihs
Blue eye. Do you have a blog too. You do not know it ?? Then write down your version here. I look at her. And then I’ll write and know. So also show the world.
Nick,
Perhaps the issue is that the Voynich environment has become so saturated with personality-linked theories that it is increasingly difficult to consider results as results. It has become all “x’s opinion” and our opinion of data then becomes our opinion of “x’s” data, and coloured accordingly.
With that detail of the crossbow as example, the issue for me is not whether “I” have it right, but whether the Spanish artefact offers an explanation for another detail hitherto unexplained.
As I made clear, in any case, I’m not the person who first noticed the Spanish bow. I’m obliged to accept credit only because there are people who feel interest in the manuscript but none at all in entering the bear-redolent environment – woods or -pit as it may be.
Hi Nick. And friends.
I’ll show you, original text translation. Page 73v. Voynich.
Old Czech language, 500 years old.
Can any of you translate into contemporary language ? Probably not.
And this language is written the entire manuscript. On the side is written in Czech history. Specifically, this applies Charles IV. and his birth.
Write carried Anna Polish piasto. Wife of John II. of Rosenberg. This passage deals with the infidelity of Elizabeth, wife of John of Luxemburg. Of infidelity little Václav was born. Future Charles IV.
What I write. It is written in a Large circle. 🙂
A rak žifí Jana je jó páno co ac Cájo. Ac co ví co Crála a coj aplo. Ana já slofo sije z Cáje. Zla jejšš Lííška jo našo. A spolo jó sona . Co háro co Saóco Fill. Lísoj fój slof. Mapoj slof zpis cóži zla kážo.
____________________________________________________________________________
Cájo = Kájo = Karel = Charles.
Líška = Eliška = Elizabeth.
Saóco = Zajíc
Fill = Will = Willem Zajíc .
Nick,
I’m sure there are multiple layers to the onion. The one I’m describing is not about the people creating the flawed theories, but the people who find the flawed theories interesting or, at least, worthy of some level of attention. In particular, the flawed theories get to the first page of google because of the way they appeal to other people. I’m suggesting that it’s these people who are often superficially engaged.
Back in 2011, a person who had little to no experience with ciphers managed to twist his ignorance into a belief that he had solved the Zodiac’s 340 cipher. He approached the local branch of an online news site with the story of his so-called “solution.” Sadly, they ran with it. Today, several google searches related to the Zodiac’s 340 cipher have that story on page one, despite the fact that I don’t know a single person who both (a) is legitimately knowledgeable about ciphers and (b) believes there is a snowball’s chance in hell that the solution is correct.
Why, then, is the story on page one of google? Unfortunately, people find it interesting. If you look on twitter, you can find users who have tweeted about the story within in the last 48 hours. Many, if not most, of these people don’t care about the validity of their arguments. Their level of critical thought is often something along the lines of: “the cipher is unsolved, so this solution is as good as any other solution.” If I were to suggest to one of these people that their conclusion is invalid because of the “argumentum ad ignorantiam” logical fallacy, I suspect they would make some colorful suggestions on how I should spend my time.
This byproduct of our technology is the kind of “noise” that I was referring to. I find it very unpleasant, but it’s almost certainly not going away. Those of us who have a serious interest in the affected subjects just need to filter it out.
BTW, a Merry Christmas to you, too. I hope I’m not contributing to your heightened level of annoyance…
Mike: at one point I thought (albeit briefly) that Cipher Mysteries might end up becoming a place that might somehow help purge the infosphere of these sterile nonsenses. But as far as I can tell nobody (apart from Klaus Schmeh) has ever linked externally to the site: half of CM’s traffic comes from Google, and the other half from mailing lists. And whenever somebody links a Wikipedia page to anything on Cipher Mysteries, there are some Wikieditors (hi Spike) who go out of their way to remove those links post-haste because neither I nor Cipher Mysteries is deemed to be authoritative or peer reviewed. (I’m not claiming this is unique to me: I’m sure it’s also true of most Zodiac sites, for instance.) Given all that, it’s a minor miracle that anyone finds Cipher Mysteries at all. 😐
So… where is the signal to act as a counterpoint to all that noise? Perhaps we might collectively create some kind of peer-reviewed meta-journal for historical cryptography: but even if that managed to get heavyweight participation, would even that be deemed authoritative in any way? I’m not talking about reinventing Cryptologia, but rather finding some way of colonizing the extraordinarily wide gap between it and blog posts, which right now only really seems to contain the Fortean Times. I don’t know: one man’s authoritas is another man’s crackpot theorizing. 🙁
Hi Nick,
of course I refer to CM on my references page. Fairly high on the list too 🙂
In general I share the sentiments of Mike, and would add that the printed and internet media aren’t helping either. There is no market for the infinitesimal progress or repeating the “same old”. There is a market for cool stories. The authors usually delve into the topic with basically no prior information, often do quite a good job of getting up to speed fast, but then need to come up with something “new”.
Clearly, the nearest one can get to a peer-reviewed resource is exactly wikipedia. Other than that, who are the peers? The same dilemma…..
I know it doesn’t help, but Yale is in a considerably worse position than we are, as regards the noise about the MS…..
Rene: as a matter of high-level editorial policy, Wikipedia doesn’t accept OR (original research), while Wikieditors routinely reject edits unsupported by peer-reviewed / authoritative sources. Yet at the same time, Wikieditors feel free to fill its pages with stuff that is horrendously outdated and inaccurate, together with vast realms of top-level speculative stuff in a kind of dumbed-down hemi-demi-review style (i.e. “in 2012, John Xyzzy suggested that the Voynich Manuscript might be…”) which helps nobody. As such, I’m not sure it currently qualifies as a resource of any but the most toxic kind.
So I don’t think cipher mysteries of any ilk currently have anything approaching an authoritative reference, bar your excellent Voynich site (but much of which would doubtless still count as OR as far as Wikipedia is concerned) and possibly The Cipher Foundation website as it builds up.
Friends. and Nick. I am also on the first page of Google and I do not mind ad all. Also, I do not have no problem. I even praised Google as they it nice going. Wikipedia I even asked me Zo write an article about the Voynich manuscript . etc. I also got several otters on several documentaries. But some films do not have time. Because I teach a variety of academics and historians.
Mrs. Diana. A crossbow is not important. Such crossbows were at that time in at many. It the picture, it is important where the crossbow heads. What a word.
Champollione.
Well, Nick and Rene: Have either of you taken a look at the Cordelierean history — as far as it relates to St. Francis and the evolution of the monasteries dedicated to him? Fray Sahagun was the first Franciscan monk to reach New Spain. And yes, Fray Sahagun wore a knotted cord, instead of a sash or belt.
The entire manuscript of B-408 was written by Sahagun while traveling to the New World. With the remaining blank pages, he began teaching his Nahuatl students/scribes how to translate/transcribe/illustrate some sixty years of his investigations and histories of the Aztec/Nahuatl people and their way of life.
My latest reading might appeal to Diane:
The Colors of the New World — Artists, Materials, and the Creation of the Florentine Codex — Diana Magaloni Kerpel — The Getty Research Institute
Fascinating!
Nick, how is your blood pressure reading? Is it worth hiking it up to ‘stroke-level’ whenever Bax..ter gets televised with his nonsense? I surely hope I’m not rankling you.
Take deep breaths, now and then, and slowly release the contents of your lungs (between pursed lips). Do that while mentally counting to 100. I visited his page twice, several years ago. Nonsense! Not worthy of any further consideration (by me, anyway).
eye. no nahuati. none Francis with a drawstring around the hips. Of course, no tomato. Unnecessarily mistaken . foreign students.
Champollione.
Dear Nick,
Yes, it is hard to look at the world and not despair. Round here, we call it ‘curmudgeonisation’.
Thanks for a fine website. Though I am not really a cipher buff, I appreciate the stories. I have admired your prose, your patience, your wit and good humour and the poignancy of your dogged insistence on trying to be systematic, detached and rigorous. Your contributors, in all their variety, are every bit as engaging as The Desert Fathers: I love ‘em all, especially bdid1dr! She is a champion. (That said, I am glad I don’t have to moderate them.)
Your lament has a few aspects. Part of it is, of course, a personal problem.
There will always be Baxes and also those impressed by them. So: nil bastardo carborundum. In any sort of competitive setting engaging fiction always clobbers truth: the ‘world’ still believes Colombus discovered the Americas, that Marco Polo was the first European to go to China and that Jebediah Springfield was born in 1774, founded the Simpson’s home town and was a good man. For me, these things have been around forever, and they shouldn’t get to me anymore but, like old spider bites, they flare up periodically.
The internet has democratized Voynich, inter alia. Those who were engaged in Voynich in pre-cyberspace days are in the position of the wise but humble fisherfolk whose sleepy, picturesque and purposeful village has been turned overnight into a bustling, ill-directed city: you can’t stop progress, you can only redefine it.
Popper’s notion of disproving is an advance on trying to prove things because proof is not really possible, even in mathematics. In my area of study, archaic pre-history, evidence is thin on the ground and understanding downright anorexic so I think quite a lot about how to prove things. For now at least, any sort of proof is an impossible dream. Despite the apparently strict application of the scientific method by neurologists, zoologists and paleontologists, proof in old prehistory boils down to surmise and persuasion, the practitioners’ aspirations to rigor notwithstanding.
Scientists build on the achievements of the past. That these achievements are inevitably flawed is a problem. The inertia of received wisdom doesn’t help approach the next version of truth. Aspects of the way science works nowadays – the hierarchical structures within which most of it operates, and the reliance on definition and quantification – also inhibit advances. It is amazing that they get anywhere and they can’t generally do it fast.
This sort of science is not very good at generating ideas.
A friend of mine is an editor and her business is called ‘Here’s Proof’. A wag left a message on her business phone to wit: “Proof? Proof? We don’t want proof! What we want is WILD SPECULATION!” Quite right.
Lots of people are like that, and lots of people fall in love with and marry the first idea they ever had. Lots of people don’t have enough to do. Such people are not that adept at science but by gee they sure can generate ideas and for this they are useful even if you have to clear the detritus away with a bulldozer from time to time.
Despite Socrates’ arguments in Philebus, progress and wisdom are achieved not by pursuing reason but by pursuing pleasure, by people pursuing what pleases them
The purpose of elucidating the Voynich Manuscript is far better served by having a big crowd excited about it than a small one. That your site attracts so many interested and engaged people from everywhere is a marvelous thing for me even if it drives you nuts occasionally!
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Lots of people are working on their own version of Dogpatch Stew (L’il Abner – bdid1dr will remember) and one day an edible one will be produced.
Don’t worry, be happy. Stick to your guns, Nick, and thanks!
PS For symptomatic relief, try listening to the wonderful song “I’m An Old Cowhand” by Johnny Mercer. I’d recommend the Bunny Berigan/Chick Bullock version.
Hi Robert, without getting overly curmudgeonly, I’m pretty sure that having to wade through ever-expanding swamps of rubbish theories would have pissed Socrates off too. I doubt he’d have found much virtue in this wasteland of supposed knowledge. 😐
But perhaps a modern Socrates would instead, gadfly-like, persist in asking these wobbly theorists questions that are goadingly difficult to answer. Like to Gordon Rugg: remind me, how did a 15th century person get to use a 16th century person’s grille? Or to Stephen Bax: why might it be that your nine chosen words seem to run completely counter to the Voynich’s other 30,000+ words? And so forth.
Thanks for the words of encouragement: I’d certainly stick to my guns, if I had any guns. 😉
Nick,
I wonder if whole notion of disproof is being misdirected, given that so much of the doubt=disproof fallacy is applied to details within constructed versions of the manuscript’s supposed place of manufacture, supposed author, supposed cipher..
Most of these fundamental premises on which the multi-storey theories are built were never formally established by evidence and argument. It’s all details ornamenting the upper storey of a card-house, so why waste time trying to disprove stuff which is based on next-to-nothing? You are the only person I’ve seen recognise this in relation to the written part of the text, but it applies to the constructed histories and all else.
I mean – we don’t know where or when the manuscript’s content was first enunciated: the idea was floated that it was the product of a Latin European as author. For all that is certainly known, it might be something dredged up from the bottom of the Caspian, and the scarcely intelligible script re-written.. very badly. For all we know.
We don’t know that the botanical section is a collection of medicinal plants. The point was never made a question to be considered, let alone explored before reaching any decision. It was just asserted, and things went from there. People might argue which sort of Latin herbal it resembles, and try to disprove someone else’s argument, but… who ever proved it related to the Latin herbal tradition – or not – between 1912 and 2010?
Disproof is certainly ‘poor’ in Voynich studies, but not only in the sense you mean it, I think.
PS – Has anyone bothered to enquire whether Bdid1dr’s Nahuatl-Latin theory and her translations stand up? Why not?
Diane: what do you mean by the “doubt=disproof fallacy”? What I’m talking about here is direct logical disproof (something quite opposite to what you seem to be talking about), i.e. proving that Stephen Bax’s stupid linguistic theory is not only stupid but also impossible.
bdid1dr’s Nahuatl-Latin theory doesn’t seem even vaguely tenable to me, but what would disproving a one-person theory gain? Compare and contrast Bax’s and Rugg’s crackpot academic theories, both of which have both been foolishly elevated to some higher plane of acceptance. To my mind, only two of the three theories in this paragraph are poisoning the shared well of knowledge, and it shouldn’t be too hard to work out which ones I’m thinking about. 🙂
There is a distinct difference between the Aztec/Nahuatl ‘tomatillo” / ix-to-ma tl and the European tomato. Tomatillos have a papery husk surrounding the fruit — and appears in Boenicke manuscript 408. There is no picture of a tomato in B-408 nor in the Florentine Codex.
The Nahuatl story of the ‘eclipse of the sun” was that the god of the night and the god of the day fought a battle for supremacy of time. So, how do we relate this story as being an eclipse (of the sun or the moon).
Diane might enjoy “The Colors of the New World” -Diana Magaloni Kerpel (Getty Research Institute publishers)
Hello!
Not included in the crackpot list so far. Aw shucks… I mean, hey, thanks a bunch.
Heraldry is not a crackpot theory. Heraldry is a valid field of investigation. A heraldic interpretation of VMs f71r opens a path to further understanding of medieval armorial heraldry and other elements of the VMs Zodiac illustrations. That interpretation depends on the researcher’s prior familiarity with a particular period of history, that is, one that is focused on the history and the heraldry of the Fieschi popes. While that bit of history has come to the verge of blinking out or existence for the ongoing stream of modern investigators, it would have stood in somewhat greater regard for the intelligentsia living within the VMs parchment period. Not only are we dealing with persons who were members of the same predominant institution, but fairly prominent members of that institution. They instituted an ecclesiastical, heraldic tradition, the red galero, as represented in the VMs illustration, They were among the first in the papal tradition of possess an armorial, heraldic insignia, as recorded in a relevant time. They were so well known, from the author’s point of view, that a bit of disguise was deemed necessary. A bit of obfuscation has been used, which has been totally overwhelmed by multiple, objective, positional confirmations placed in the illustration by the author. Discovery of the author’s intent is the purpose of VMs investigation.
So while I agree that there is much so-called research that is far too speculative to be given serious consideration, this has unfortunately taken certain members of the research community to a point where they expect only more of the same and have become too jaded to see that what is plainly drawn on the VMs pages is there though the author’s intentional construction. Perhaps understanding will come to them out of the *blue stripes* = bendy, argent et azur *paired*!
Furthermore (not at all referring to the Voynich Mss but rather to the “Zodiac Killer”):
Since I’ve “burned my bridges” with my sons, I don’t feel that I have to consider their disbelief, when I told them that the daughter of their father’s second marriage went to New York City a few years ago to identify him (when he was a derelict and dead). A good twenty years ago, I notified the California State Police of his identity.
Nick, several months ago, I gave you the name of the radio-man on the “Ticonderoga” during the Vietnam War. Well, his daughter proved the truth of my discussions with various Law Enforcement agencies. You may still have that name in your backpages.
Out*of*the*Blue: maybe I’ll wait until I see you on a TV documentary expounding your Voynich theory, that’s when you know you’ve got a proper crackpot theory. 😉
Nick,
not to harp, but just because it’s the most recent instance of … oh lord.. seven years’ worth.
I explain in detail every element of the archer-figure, compare it with *relevant* comparative images, include historical and other background, identify the use of ‘sagittarios’ and ‘sagittario’ as meaning specifically a crossbowman, show that the ms has been attributed to precisely the same regions, and finally explain a detail which has stumped everyone… not from my imagination but from the archaeological record… showing that for all sorts of reasons, the figure is not a hunter, or a landsman, but one of those Catalan, Genoese or Venetian “noble crossbowmen” chiefly employed on ships. I’ve even shown the stats for such employment… It’s historically, contextually, proverbially and every other way appropriate. Plus there’s that additional cocking device.
The disproof “most people would think it looked like a hunter”….
Not the most rigorous method of disproof, but absolutely normal in this field.
What if Bdid is correct? Game over – let’s all go home.
So couldn’t someone at least try testing it out? Not me – I do not see that the imagery is even slightly influenced by native south American style, and the script and language are nmb.
Diane: the zodiac roundels sit quite apart from every other drawing in the Voynich Manuscript, while at the same time your explanation would seem to sit at odds not only with every other drawing in the Voynich Manuscript but also with every other zodiac roundel. Hence your explanation doesn’t appear to explain anything beyond itself, while it only stands up with reference to a set of fragmentary historical facts and observations collated from a broad and unconnected set of sources drawn from across Europe. And even if your explanation were true, it doesn’t appear to point to any kind of external drawing tradition or historical literature: so I’m not sure that I would even be comfortable calling it a research “lead”, given that it doesn’t appear to lead us anywhere.
But… it’s your conclusion and no doubt your sincere belief, so please feel free to research it further, and to prove me utterly wrong by finding out to where your lead leads. 🙂
Diana colleague. What do you still have the crossbow ? As I wrote you. So it is important. To which words crossbow direction. On what words and letters. Crossbow direction the lwtter — M !!
The author manuscript, shows you everyone. What is needed to erase a character. Erase the letter M. It is one character. Which is deceptive character ( misleading sign).
Crossbow —Direction — Target.
Kill the character = M. ( character letter M )
The substitution number 4 = D,M,T.
Everyone will notice. That character is similar. duplication of a small letter = t.
( tt = M ).
The leter M is , in addition, text and therefore should be deleted from the record.
( Deceptive character erase ) 🙂
Champollione.
@ Sally Caves: Have you reviewed the recent dialogues/translation in re “Kort” and “Cordillerean” (Early Franciscan History) . I have a vague memory that we began the discussion on Nick’s “Flibustier” blog, not too long ago. Today that cloister is a winery.
beady-eyed wonder-er
Nick,
I am beginning to understand why the aussie guy keeps calling you “the dome”, and it’s not for your, arh, physical appearance (*duck). You are simply spanning… miles. Keep on to your quest, keep the virtual crossbows bow-taut.
But may I suggest that there are more efficient ways to do what you do. More suitable softwares, saving you a lot of time and frustration, also avoiding the decreasing usability of these never ending discussion appendixes. There is one in the making, and if it has it’s appearance to online daylight sometime soonish, there is hope you might get into using it.
Best
Gert
The Voynich is too nonlinear to be solved by reductionism. Breaking it apart will lead you down a dark rabbit hole.
Nick,
That the zodiac roundels sit quite apart from every other drawing in the Voynich Manuscript, is your perception, and doubtless sincere. Nonetheless, the way the surrounding figures are drawn is closely similar to the way they are drawn wherever they appear, so that isolation of the months’ fold-out is more apparent than real in that respect.
Saying that my explanation “doesn’t appear to explain anything beyond itself” rather overlooks the fact that it also explains the otherwise inexplicable position of the figure’s right hand, and the fact that he is plainly wearing a flounced skirt, which I’ve shown is appropriate to the regions of Latin influence during the same thirteenth-to-fifteenth centuries.
“it only stands up with reference to a set of fragmentary historical facts and observations collated from a broad and unconnected set of sources drawn from across Europe”
No, that’s not so. The ‘fragmentary’ facts are simply a set of relevant ones – explaining why one would see a skirt, and a bow of this type on a crossbowman, and why – and where and when – there is a close connection made between the “sagittarius” and the ‘sagittarios’ – demonstrating that, too, from the historical record, and showing it occurs at the same time, and in the same common region of influence, as month-names in the same orthography.
” it doesn’t appear to point to any kind of external drawing tradition or historical literature”. Actually, I’ve cited the historical literature, with footnotes, throughout.
“it doesn’t appear to lead us anywhere” – ah, I rather think it leads us to the thirteenth-to-fifteenth centuries, the southern regions of Europe where Occitan and Judeo-Catalan were spoken, and the region to which the type of bow with that mechanism was made.
Wouldn’t you say such a critique might also apply to Jens’ attempt?
But this is just one instance of a great many where there is no attempt at disproof at all, and where new evidence suggests disproof of an old theory, it’s the new evidence which is ignored or ditched. This is why Voynich studies has gone nowhere much for a very long time, imo.
Nick:
B-408 folio 2v: (Nymphaeacae — Water Lily):
oa tl aom eceo sp ece os ollamosan ceos aes an ce ll cer ll geus
translates to : water lily specie ……. ceruleus
second line of text refers to water liliacea aquaticus
Third line of latin-based discussion refers to water lily, also but discusses
cerus ea lu sam (and wraps to a fourth line: ceaco ecoxo ceacos ceo ae sam).
Although the illustration is of the white water lily, the last line (of top 4 lines) seem to refer to a blue water lily. The second set of lines is much the same repetitions, but does eventually come up with another nomenclatural term: a quo ll cea cea geus.
When I finished folio 2v, I did a search (for comparative features) to find the water lotus. I did find the water lotus (folio 55 verso) and did a quick survey/translation.
Some other time, I may be able to find time to fully translate folio 55 verso. Meanwhile, I will revisit folio 56r (which I last commented on your “That Which Brings Your Website to its Knees” — April 27, 2013. (Dianthus Caryophyllacae).
A couple of weeks ago, I downloaded a folio (from Boenicke) of that very mysterious illustrated manuscript (which has only six lines to translate) — which everyone is guessing is a ‘pineapple’.. I beg to differ: it is an enlarged illustration of a single MULBERRY FRUIT. The accompanying lines of script are trying to be obscure; because mulberry tree LEAVES fed the silk-producing caterpillar before she began to wrap herself into the cocoon — to eventually emerge as a butterfly (a sericene butterfly). The cocoons were boiled before she could emerge.
Poor butterfly! Reminds me of the opera “Madame Butterfly”….
bdid1dr
Diane: I’d say that your defence here is a good example of the kind of circular reasoning that leads only back to itself. But still, please feel free to prove me wrong by showing everyone where your lead actually does lead: just because I don’t currently see that even remotely doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Diane: I’d add that the zodiac month names are very clearly in a different ink and hand to that of the drawings or labels.
Perhaps ‘dis-proving’ (which is of course proof) more theories (which of course have no proof) results in narrowing the field, thus it is a positive approach, providing the theories are not infinite.
Nick,
I take your point that the page as it was doesn’t present the argument well.
I’m re-ordering it accordingly; am about 2/3 through, and will finish the ‘renovation’ early in the New Year.
The page is still there, albeit obviously in progress.
Nick,
about the labels. Yes, the whole manuscript shows evidence of evolution and some ‘modernisation’. Mapping those strata has been a part of the task which I considered important.
Doesn’t imply more than that it is written in a darker ink, unless you have some great stats correlating times and regions with ink-composition and density? As a rule I’d say that after the mid thirteenth century or so, the Latins used darker ink than the Jews, and the Germans than the Spanish, but I wouldn’t make an argument about it without firm data. What sort of ink did people carry when they travelled? Did a merchant’s ink differ from that used in a monastic scriptorium? Most of the past …. years have been spent finding answers to such questions before writing a paragraph. 🙂
It took a little while, but I crept over to the window and peeked out. There are no TV crews hiding in the bushes. Your waiting will be long and fruitless – enjoy every minute.
I must say I am honored to be inducted into the humble order of uncracked pots. Our motto: An uncracked pot may hold something of substance.
While your reply is amusing, it is totally flippant and completely irrelevant to VMS investigation. Heraldry is relevant to VMs investigation. Look at the illustration of VMs White Aries. Consider the elements placed in the illustration. Why are they there and how did they get to be there? How is that this drawing accords with history like a political cartoon?
The current lack of progress in VMs investigation is due to a failure of perception. It is not, however, like Mr. Bianchi and others have suggested, a failure of visual perception. It is instead a failure of intellectual perception, a failure of recognition.
Consider the part of White Aries where the outer blue-striped insignia is directly connected to the patterned marker in the middle band of text. Is this a random concatenation of artistic doodling? I think not. It is heraldry that is grounded in verified, factual history and it is there to indicate that this marker is something of significance. Heraldry opens a path to further investigation. One that is not negated by the failure of prior inquiries to discover the wealth of historical elements included in the illustration. Neither is it quashed in some speculative dead end, when the path of pairing clearly leads beyond. I don’t claim to have the answer. I do believe this is something of sufficient import to serve as a starting point. I believe that there is a general failure to accept even the possibility that the author knows what he is doing with this subtle and sophisticated use of history and heraldry that goes beyond the recognition of past investigators, and the use of papelonny is a clear example of the author’s knowledge and the investigators’ perceptive deficiency.
The only thing I can suggest that you promote good work on the Voynich manuscript and ignore the bad. Crazy theories neither need you to disprove them to the world nor would their adherents listen were you to utterly demolish them. Yet good theories—even if wrong they may still be logically sound or at least sane—benefit from discussion and show other researchers the kind of standards they need to meet.
On the issue of proof and disproof I can only offer the heartening reminder that both Champollion’s decipherment of hieroglyphics and Ventris’s of Linear B were challenged for some years after they were established. Some folk simply like to argue the toss.
Emma May Smith: OK, but…
Let’s say you are an expert on the history of tarot cards (you might well be, I don’t know). And yet every few weeks you get contacted by TV documentary researchers planning a tarot card documentary based on some stupid theory – that tarot cards were used by the Priory of Sion to encrypt their secrets; or that the markings on tarot cards can be read as a melody that sounds hauntingly like a song by Little Mix featuring Jason Derulo; or that the hanging of the Pazzi conspirators was specifically staged to send a tarot-themed message to the conspiracy’s papal backers; and so on.
And then you learn that two of those last three theories appear on Google’s first search page for “tarot cards”. (Naturally, nobody believed the Pazzi theory at all.)
Yes, you would indeed try your best to ignore the bad stuff and promote the good. But at the same time you can see that the bad stuff is not only sucking the oxygen from the air around your subject but also making the entire thing something close to a laughing stock. It’s not a great scenario, not great at all. 🙁
Can I ask what you would like from Google, from television producers, and from the common person who reads incredible Voynich theories? and why it would matter to serious researchers?
Emma May Smith: given the date, I’d prefer to think about this in terms of what virtual Christmas presents I’d give them. 🙂
* For Google, I’d wish it better algorithms for winnowing semantic wheat from chaff, because it’s clearly doing a fairly poor job here.
* For television producers, I’d wish them documentaries which take a genuinely fascinating and engaging subject and then don’t select the most supercilious and stupid theory going to focus their programme on.
* For the common person who reads Voynich theories, I’d wish them some way to help them make even the remotest sense of the tidal wave of nonsense that is hurled their way by people who apparently have nothing better to do with their time than devise intellectually twisted and crooked ways of supporting their broken, sad, lamentable, foolish theories.
* For “serious researchers”, I’d wish each of them a pair of custom Voynich-noise cancelling headphones, plus the persistence and insight they need to get to their own personal end-line. 🙂
I quite enjoyed Little Mix’s take on the Pazzi Conspiracy, but does the Tarot count as Black Magic?
SirHubert: perhaps there’s a Tarot remix of it out there somewhere, who knows? “Take a sip from my secret potion”, ha! 😉
SirHubert,
I have a post en train which looks at the Pazzi, but not due to appear until about mid-January. Some very, very interesting connections to matters linked to the manuscript’s content and/or history.
Just so you know it’s real, I’ll happily send you a preview for criticism if you can be bothered emailing me at
voynichimagery gmail
Cheers.
Addendum to my discussion of the mulberry fruit: key words which appear in that VMS folio. Sericine blattae — I can’t find my file readily at hand but other words were referring to the Chinese, another word described the “porridge (chopped mulberry leaves) which were fed to the larvae.
The difference between the VMs loonies and their hypothetical alternates has to do with the reliance on facts.
I am a VMs investigator (and therefore a loony), who is interested in heraldry. Here is a brief summary of a part of that investigation.
The papelonny pattern is a part of traditional heraldry well prior to the VMs parchment dates. It is one of the heraldic tinctures and is included among the heraldic furs – if you happen to find a good reference source
I have found two good representations of this pattern in the VMs Zodiac. And I have brought this matter to the VMs discussion.
The VMs author made the choice to use these patterns and decided where they should be placed. As it happens, that placement corresponds, both in quadrant and in sphere, with a certain pair of blue-striped patterns found on VMs f71r. The description of their position is an objective statement of fact.
Where does this investigation depart from relevance to VMs research?? It is focused on internal positional relationships within the VMs and those positional relationships are objective.
Now, there is an odd linguistic coincidence, and albeit odd, or whatever, the existence of the coincidence is still a fact. There is a basic bit of linguistic similarity between the chosen pattern’s terminology, “papelonny” and the proposed identification of the paired, blue-striped, heraldic insignia of f71r, which is “pape”. It’s not my fault; it’s French. And there is a clear, factual, positional relationship already determined.
Do you think the VMs author is ignorant of these facts? Preposterous!!!!!!
This is the whole reason for the presence of this construction. Do you think it is all accidental?? Apparently, you do. Apparently you believe that I have woven unrelated items into some sort of fractured fairy tale. But the fact is that these positional, heraldic, historical, and linguistical relationships have been built into these three Zodiac pages. The relationships exist on their own, without my need to delineate them, for anyone in possession of the relevant facts, starting with papelonny.
And as you are so acutely aware, it is the the discovery and interpretation of facts existing in the manuscript that are the necessary foundation for relevant VMs investigation.
Please note: No broken, sad, lamentable, foolish theories were used in the course of this discussion. Certain facts may seem obscure, but that is a subjective interpretation from the reader’s perspective and in no way a means for their invalidation.
Out*of*the*Blue: thank you so much for the phrase “fractured fairy tale”, that has quite made my Christmas.
And for the New Year, best of luck with telling facts and observations apart in 2016! 🙂
Diane: oh, for [insert saint’s name]’s sake, are you honestly planning to argue that there is any slightly-greater-than-infinitesimal chance that the zodiac month names were added by someone who added text elsewhere to the Voynich? Go to the back of the class (and stay there) if your answer was (even a hedged version of) ‘yes’, because I don’t think you’re paying attention if so. 🙁
In re poverty of proof for VMS folio 56r :
First line begins with the loopy l l figure being stretched over four syllables and being re-inserted before the last syllable ‘geus’.
That entire line of script translates to:
ol ec ax ce geus ce cer el geus solencentes crassitudinus creberrimus ceos ce geus
Translation of the Nahuatl Latin phrase is: sweet-smelling fragrant crowded together thick Ceos geus.
I’m pretty certain they were referencing the Dianthus (carnation, sweet william) origins (line 7 discusses the Caria district of southwest Asia minor (Icarios?) To this day, I can dance the Icariotica/Ikariotika
Embroidery (from Greece and Cyprus) often portrays the carnation.
OOTB
A pattern’s being in the repertoire of medieval Latin heraldry does not mean it occurs no-where else, and in both cases (the ‘nebuly’ line and the ‘papelonny’ pattern), the Latin heraldic term is simply the technical term adopted by that one profession. Neither was first invented by European heralds, and those terms are never used outside the formal description of a coat of arms.
You are certainly not at all the first Voynich researcher, attempting to talk about imagery, to have confused “motif A occurs in situation x” with “motif A ONLY occurs in situation x”.
With all due, and genuine respect to Nick, it was years before he stopped insisting that the use of more-or-less parallel lines defined the manuscript as Renaissance Italian, or before the argument ceased to be offered so frequently that the presence of the cloud band pattern was proof that the VMS was a unique expression of ‘central European’ – actually, of German, culture.
In each case, the same fallacy informed those ideas: that if a technique or motif occurred in one place and time, it could have occurred no-where else. Though any dictionary of art, or of ornament, would have set people straight about the ‘cloud-band’ pattern’s wider range in time and place, such is the idea of the VMS as an entirely unique object, that it seems no-one even thought to see if the art-world knew anything about these motifs.
The terms “pinecone repeat” [papelonny] and ‘cloud-ish’ [nebuly] are terms only used when giving a formal description of a registered coat of arms.
Applying the term ‘nebuly line’ to the VMS begs the issue of provenance and mis-uses a technical vocabulary. Rather like calling a horse a ‘carburettor’ just because it too helps move a vehicle.
The VMS ladies are depicted on that sort of line to indicate that they inhabit the margins. This is what the pattern has always been: the marker of the limit of the human domain.
Always. That’s why it is called a ‘cloud’ pattern, even if it is sometimes used as boundary line between the known and unknowable parts of the world, or between the lands and the sea. In the vast majority of cases, it simply refers to the higher parts of the sky.
Not that I think this will persuade you. Happy hols.
Diane: to be precise, my position is that parallel hatching was a technique strongly associated with a tiny group of German artists in the early-to-mid-15th century and then with a larger group of Italian artists (such as Leonardo) in the mid-to-late-15th century. It is only weakly associated anywhere else. But of course, if anyone desperately wants to go out of their way to dig up weak associations, they no doubt – with enough persistence – can do so.
And similarly for the wolkenbanden: if you want to haul up buckets from the deep well of cultural time and space that vaguely resemble them, then no doubt you will. But for everyone else, wolkenbanden seem to have originated as a technical trend or fashion (for that is all art historical analysis boils down to) in Germany in the 14th century, before spreading through France and Italy in the 15th century. Form may be eternal, but trends are temporary.
Nick
Your postion I can agree with, with two qualification, viz
“parallel hatching [as a graphic technique in late medieval Latin art] was associated with a tiny group of German artists in the early-to-mid-15th century and then with a larger group of Italian artists (such as Leonardo) in the mid-to-late-15th century.
That’s a valid, if slightly inaccurate, comment about the evolution of a certain graphic technique in the history of western art.
It is not quite accurate. Even within the narrow definition “Latin manuscript art”, hatching occurs much earlier and I’ve illustrated examples from Latin manuscripts made centuries earlier.
When and where the object was made is one thing: c.1405-1438 (or so) but we don’t have a codicological assignment yet.
Where and when *the content* was first enunciated, or whether all in the same time and place is a separate question altogether.
You don’t get far with the second, by simply assuming that the first enunciation of all content is contemporaneous with manufacture of the current volume.
And to work out where the *content* came from, and when that was first created, the thing to is address the hard bits; the things which are most difficult to explain in terms of fifteenth century Latin manuscript tradition, including habits of mind as well as habits of drawing.
The presumption of fifteenth-century origins for the content is counter-productive; first the question has to be asked, genuinely explored and, hopefully, one day answered. King David may appear in a robe embroidered with fleur-de-lys, on a throne in fifteenth-century European style, but that still doesn’t make the Book of Psalms a work written in France, by a French king, does it? Are we looking for the actual origins of the content, or just a nice-sounding theory about it?
So this means, one has to look at where else – and at what other times – sort-of parallel lines were used to suggest depth, or volume, or curve. And the answer is … plenty.
BD: I am at a loss to understand why anyone writing in “Latin-Nahuatl”, whatever that is, would be discussing a district in Anatolia.
Diane: I know roughly the same amount about the Pazzi Conspiracy as I do about Little Mix – some familiarity but no expertise. I don’t mind looking at anything you’re working on, but others would be better able to give specialist criticism.
Nick: the reasons that Bax and Rugg get attention which others don’t stem to a large extent from the fact that both appear to have relevant professional qualifications for studying the manuscript’s text. Is it really surprising that a newcomer to the field might place more trust in the arguments of Bax, who is a professor of linguistics, than in anything I might write? You cannot r4easonably blame them for that, nor can you blame Google and its algorithms. If you really want to counter this effectively, I would respectfully suggest that you stop calling Bax and Rugg stupid, idiots, lamentable, sad, broken and pathetic, because that is not the language one expects from a professional with cogent arguments, which is what you are and what you have. You risk weakening the force of your arguments by doing so. For anyone with the interest and capacity to understand the arguments involved, something like Emma’s rejoinder is, in my opinion, far more effective. Otherwise you risk people suspecting that you have a personal interest involved, and that your frustration stems in part from a belief that you yourself should in fact be the face of Voynich studies -and I think (and hope) that would be unfair on you.
Diane: I made a fairly matter-of-fact comment on how the parallel hatching technical drawing style trend developed, and all you do is cite scattered examples that resemble that trend without actually being that trend. Your by-now-well-entrenched ideological position requires you to cast doubt on anything that points towards the fifteenth century, so this just a tad boring.
SirHubert: cogent arguments (let alone radiocarbon dating) shifted Rugg not one jot, and I think the same will prove true about ‘Slippery’ Steve Bax. Like it or not, these are the acceptable public face of Voynich research – and yet their positions and arguments hold less water than a sieve.
I actually reserve my efforts for real research, and scorn for them.
Nick,
I don’t know, any more than anyone else does, where the content originated.
Finding out, I’d suggest, requires actually investigating where and when the motif first appears (a) within the Mediterranean generally (b) outside the latin tradition in mainland Europe (c) within the Latin tradition.
– you know, the assumption of the manuscript’s art belonging in the tradition of Christian European manuscript painting is not anything which has ever been a conclusion reached after genuinely open comparative study. It’s just an idea. Sadly, it tends to be an idea held so fiercely that even to show interest in investigating the question, let alone to find evidence of the contrary, is to be dismissed as perverse.
Just as example of how crazy Voynich theorists can become, I chose almost at random a manuscript which wasn’t fifteenth century, but thirteenth century, not from Italy or Germany, but from Spain. And not from the Latin manuscript tradition, but the Jewish.
Guess what? Even in one with very Unvoynich presentation, layout and script – so plainly not from the same locus of production – I found very close matches for features such as : faces with beard but apparently no moustache (f.73v); roots to a tree very like f.28r; ‘roses’ in the cheeks of men as well as women; and a crossbowman pointing at a bird – like so many of the fifteenth century German ones which are being taken as ‘proof’ for.. whatever.
and thanks to a nice correspondent, an earlier example of the crossbowman Sagittarius type (from France) turns out to be possibly another example of a bow of the same type which reasonably explains why the Voynich archer’s right hand is positioned as it is.
When there’s so much sludge as this subject has accumulated, dredging is the dull preliminary. Done that, pretty much. Now the finds are solid and – I think – worth the effort.
Nick: that’s not what I said. You probably can’t convince Rugg and Bax, but cogent arguments can still convince others that Bax and Rugg are wrong. Unfortunately, if you think insulting Bax by calling him Slippery Steve will help convince the wider public that he’s wrong and you’re right, that’s not an opinion I share. But maybe I’m wrong and Diane’s right: personal attacks are the way things are done in Voynich land.
Nick,
I really have no idea what you mean – what you imagine to be – my “by-now-well-entrenched ideological position”.
My principle is simply not to accept other people’s assertions without investigating them in some depth myself, especially when some assertions are plainly wrong: the ‘wolkenband’ idea being one, but only one among the many.
I read that – for example – you think the manuscript was the work of a fifteen century Italian architect, or that Rene thinks it was (or wasn’t) made for the library of Corvinus. In most cases, I’ve found that even the most ground-in assertions have no basis in fact, or even in the histories of art (which is not the same thing, of course).
In referring to the ink, I’m merely saying that it is clear the month-names were added later than the drawings they appear on, we have no evidence that the manuscript had travelled far, or that the inscriptions were added nearer or further from the time the rest was made. Have we?
So then, some explanation is required for the different quality of the ink. Isn’t it?
When one begins with nothing but the manuscript and scholarly sources – ignoring all theories and arguments designed only to urge a theory – the approach is dictated by traditional methods for provenancing.
If I were interested in the written part of the text, I should use the same approach; I’d read Bax’s views, and Rugg’s and yours and whoever else’s. Giving a fellow scholar your opinion on worthwhile sources is one thing; trying to prevent their reading, and thinking about, whatever they choose is quite another, I’d submit.
SirHubert: if what Rugg and Bax have done is what you would need to do to be considered the “face of Voynich studies”, please consider me counted out a hundredfold from that particular honour.
So let me put it simply, and without any trace of personal attack: the positions they continue to put forward are inconsistent with what we now know to be the history of the manuscript (particularly in Rugg’s case) and with the behaviour of Voynichese (particularly in Bax’s case). In both cases, their stated position fails to stand up to what I would consider even superficial scrutiny: and by continuing to hold such plainly untenable positions, my opinion is that these academics are poisoning the collective well of our knowledge.
I think that studying the Voynich Manuscript is one of the genuinely hardest challenges anyone can take on: and in both cases I judge that the net contribution of their theorizing has been to make that challenge harder rather than easier for everyone else.
Diane: your well-entrenched ideological position would appear to be that anyone whose reading of the Voynich Manuscript somehow overlaps with fifteenth century Europe is making a gross error, because its content is plainly centuries older, speaking of cultures and places well outside of the European cultural milieu.
This seems to be both complementary and yet of a piece with Rich SantaColoma’s well-entrenched ideological position, which would seem to be that anyone whose reading of the Voynich Manuscript somehow assumes that it is anywhere near as old as something that came from fifteenth century Europe is making a gross error, because it is plainly more modern than that.
Much as it is inconvenient to your carefully focused annoyance, I have spent the last nine years not trying to justify my “Filarete” theory, but rather trying to get access to better evidence so that we can all make better and more reliable inferences, and so that we can all think more clearly about this fascinating (if vexing) object.
Friends and enemies.
Why do you keep argving. Nick colleague is right. Bax and Rugg manuscript has never been settled and therefore they write crap. Diana also of course not solve. Neither Hubert. Why ?? Because they have so much know ledge needed. Which are very necessary to decrypt the text. Only one of you who has a chance to succeed Here’s Nick. My friend. Because he know how difficult it is homophonic substitution. So do not be sad and not friendly.
Marry Christmas to all of you . ***** Champollion *****
Nick,
at last we are at one, fairly well:
“Much as it is inconvenient to your carefully focused annoyance, I have spent the last seven years not trying to justify any original storyline, but rather trying to get better evidence and share it so that we can all make better and more reliable inferences, and so that we can all think more clearly about this fascinating object”.
Any opinion which is not developed from detailed research, and derived from that research is not a theory; its a scenario. Since it cannot be argued on the basis of evidence, so it remains unamenable to disproof.
Every opinion of mine is the end-result of research, a proportion of which I have included in the blogposts. I’d be delighted to see some informed comment on (e.g.) my exposition of f.86v; my identification of similar forms to the ‘pharma’ vessels so-called; the recent identification of the archer’s bow as one proper to the southern Mediterranean (and perhaps France); Don of Tallahassee’s identifying the orthography of the month-names as closely similar to forms known from 13thC France; or anything which is about provenancing the Voynich imagery, rather about imagining unpleasant motives for my interest in doing so.
Good grief! Why does every offering on Nick’s recent blog entries turn into argumentation? My recent comments are translations of various illustrated discussions or identifications of various plants, trees, leaves, fruit: their origins, their uses — as described and illustrated by Nahuatl assistants to Fray Sahagun.
Item 331 (illustration of a tree branch’s leaves being eaten by ‘worms’/caterpillars):
Ca-po-lo-cui-li
Item 333a is a cocoon, 333b is a butterfly/moth: Aua-te-co-lo-tl
I have hyphenated the Nahua-tl dialogues so as to make each specimen/illustration a little more clear and understandable.
I’ve been picking up a little more spoken Spanish and Nahuatl as I pore through some 45-50 reference books (quite a few of the books are gifts from my husband).
Bless his heart!
bdid1dr: crazy men fly down from ivory tower with bad theories, make Nick angry. But Nick get over it, he go enjoy Christmas now. 😉
ps: Don’t get me started (this close to Christmas) with my latest reading:
“Gospel Truth” — by Russell Shorto – Fascinating!
Dear Boyfriend,
Happy Christmas to you too.
The Voynich manuscript is just a manuscript.
If it had come down to us without any text, its provenance would have been sorted and the ‘problem’ laid to rest in the 1930s. An archaeologist will provenance quite small items, without any inscriptions, from as little as 20mm of border ornament, and whether or not the artefact’s find place is known.
Not such a big deal, really.
… With a star on top.
Jesus, said to you I’m blue eye, forgotten. You do not solve it , too. I am sorry. Nahuati not.
Champollion.
Diane,
I thank you sincerely for your reply and for your attempt to make a bit of relevant commentary. It is a courtesy that seems to otherwise have vanished in this venue. Unfortunately, however, I am not Don of Tallahassee, in pseudonym or otherwise.
I will take the blame for introducing the term ‘nebuly line’ into recent discussions of certain illustrations by Oresme, de Pizan, and some examples in the VMs. It was done, not with any intention of suggested provenance or chronology, but simply as a way to clarify the difference between nebuly, wavy and other possibilities. I certainly have had a few exchanges with Don and find his investigations quite interesting.
Nevertheless, the discussion of nebuly lines has absolutely nothing to do with my investigations of heraldic imagery in the first three pages of the VMs Zodiac. I’d be happy to discuss it further, if you are interested, though probably not here, as there is steam coming out of Nick’s ears already and I’m worried what happens next.
Briefly, however, I agree that papelonny is a term exclusive to heraldic matters. It cannot be applied to VMs illustrations of roof tiles, for example. The origin of the term, etymologically, from what I’ve seen, has to do with butterflies and the pattern of scales on a butterfly’s wing.
Having identified two strong candidates as examples of papelonny, along with other heraldic patterns that are also found in the VMs Zodiac, my investigation is merely an attempt to determine whether these illustrations are only superficial or whether there is something of greater consequence to be found here. I believe the presence of objective positional relationships in the illustrations speaks very strongly in favor of intentional construction that is unique to the VMs.
I am currently reading two books written by Russell Shorto; both are somewhat related to Christian books/Bibles:
‘Saints and Madmen’
‘Gospel Truth’
May all of your holiday celebrations be serene and peaceful — and New Year’s Eve be loud and full of fun!
beady-eyed wonder-er
Ootb:
You’re getting closer to the “papellony” discussion. However, papillon (butterfly) in Nahuatl language is pa-pa-lo-tl. Illustrations 331 (mulberry leaves and fruit) and 333 (a and b) refer to the silkworm butterfly/moth and its cocoon. This offering, from me, can be found in the Florentine Codex section: “Earthly Things” (Fray Sahagun )
bd
ps: A very often used botanical item (poinsettia) which appears on several aspects of celebrating Christmas: on other websites (mostly Mexican “Mexicolore?) there is discussion of the poinsettia’s origins. They also claim the Easter Lily as evolving from that area of “New Spain”. So, I shall do some more digging for references….
Merry Christmas!
As far as discussion of the carnation/sweet william/dianthus: the story is the worship of Diana and her handmaidens. The porticos of many large buildings in Europe, South America, and North America are designed with the pillars being Latin or Doric columns (women) holding the roof in place. Take a look at an American (USA) copper penney. The story being told in the VMS (B-408) is about the geographical origins of the stories as well as the building designs.
Compare the Collegio de Santa Cruz de Santiago de Tl-a-tl-o-co (Mexico City) with European buildings of the same time period. You may find similar discussion in the Florentine Manuscript.
ps: the botanical item, which neither Brigadier Tiltman nor the Voynich team of husband and wife were able to identify, much less decrypt the ‘code’ (there was no code) was very easily identified by me: Dianthus/Carnation/Sweet William. The dialogue which accompanies the very well drawn flower has been identifying and discussing the origin of that flower. (Basically, the Dianthus blossom honors the goddess Diana.
For a while, I had a half-barrel (wooden) full of the larger specimen “Carnation”, which was surrounded by the smaller Dianthae family members “Sweet William”.
So, I wonder how the smaller dianthae have more vividly colored stripes and stronger fragrance.
bd
BD,
I’m not sure if I’m following your comments. I believe that I originated the papelonny discussion in the summer 2014. How do you mean that I am ‘getting closer’? Papelonny is a standard, but somewhat obscure, heraldic pattern with a history prior to 1250 CE. The two VMs replicas are in Pisces, roughly 10 o’clock in the outer ring of patterned tubs, and in Dark Aries, same quadrant, inner ring.
As I understand it, the term is exclusive to heraldry. And it derives from the French word for butterfly, which is ‘papillon’.
According to my brief bit of investigation, the Spanish equivalent to the heraldic term is ‘papellonado’. But the Spanish term for butterfly is ‘mariposa’, according to ‘The Oxford Color Spanish Dictionary’.
Are you saying that there is some sort of linguistic similarity or connection between Nahuatl and French? How can that be?
OOTB
and thank you for the courteous response to my commment.
Nick,
Permit me to correct a misapprehension.
You say,
“anyone whose reading of the Voynich Manuscript somehow overlaps with fifteenth century Europe is making a gross error, because its content is plainly centuries older, speaking of cultures and places well outside of the European cultural milieu.”
I first heard this badly-distorted version of my work on Santacoloma’s mailing list. It has evidently become a sort of rote-comment – a wikipedia sort of comment.
I approached the manuscript fully expecting to find its imagery was that of the medieval Latin Christian tradition.
After an hour or so, I noticed (no experienced analyst could not) that not only did the imagery not conform to any period of mainland Christian European (i.e. Latin) style, its world-view did not accord with the medieval Latin. The subject-matter central to all Latin imagery is absent; stylistic habits are absent; the obsessions with hierarchy, both social and spiritual are absent.
So – here’s common sense in my world – if it doesn’t reflect medieval Latin mores, yet first turns up in Europe – one has to establish (a) where the manuscript as object was made (b) the origin and (c) the lineage of the imagery.
So then you start with the items which constitute the greatest objection: where, for example, would be not so remarkable to find the picture of a sun which was given a false beard? How about those side-locks which look like horns?
… and my conclusion was that the first enunciation of most imagery in the VMS occurred in the Hellenistic period; that a good deal of its subsequent evolution occurred out of mainland Europe, some along the upper roads of the ‘silk route’ and some along the lower, maritime routes. The last include chiefly the botanical and lading (or ‘pharma’) sections.
Some details in some sections strongly suggest that the matter came into mainland Europe – not necessarily the Latin Christian purview – by the twelfth century or thereabouts. The indications are ‘Spain or somewhere southern’ just as Panofsky originally said when he, like so many others, judged the appearance of the ms as late thirteenth century.
By the early fifteenth, in some part of Europe, our copy was made and some details ‘modernised’. However, the orthography of the month-names and possibly even that unusual form for the crossbow occur in 13thC France.
Since the whole appears to me a handbook for the traveller-and-trader (or the missionary) who needed to know the east-west routes and their goods, and the ms is plainly not a product of the formal Latin scriptorium, but could be a Jewish or a Franciscan work, I’m now looking more carefully at the fourteenth century, and events of the regions within which Papal Avignon served as a sort of ‘magnetic centre’. There is no doubt whatever that travellers to and from the far east came to that court, nor that this region included Mallorca with its cartes marine.. and so forth.
The internal evidence of the manuscript need explanation, and with luck when it is sufficiently well understood, I may be in a position to create some theory to explain it all. What I object to, when people assume that the work is thus-or-so: authorial, German, … whatever… is that they don’t bother establishing those ideas on any firm basis, and if initial premises were subject to rigorous scrutiny before adoption, Voynich studies would be far less a mess than it is, I think.
btw – your comparing my research method to Santacoloma’s was very funny and hugely ironic because when he repeated the usual nonsense, he compared my explanation of the structure informing the botanical folios to your idea that the plants encoded machines. 🙂
D
Nick, I think that a lot of people just go to Bax’s site because it’s got a very open comments policy, where people can post images, links etc… The site’s rather pleasant to look at, and there’s always something new and Voynich-related to read with lots of pictures and links and banter.
Personally I go to his site solely for the comments and to see the what the latest contributions and finds by others are, not for Bax’s stuff… and I feel like many others also use his site almost like a forum and don’t necessarily give any credence to Bax’s theories.
Diane: your reasoning here seems particularly shabby. There are a number of classes of illustrated book prevalent in the fifteenth century that are not “Christianized” in the way you seem so eager to use as a reason for dismissal – in particular herbals, books of architecture, books of secrets, and balneology. As such, I think that your objection to the Voynich Manuscript’s putative 15th century dating – i.e. that this cannot possibly be the case, because of its manifest absence of Christianized imagery – would seem to be greatly misplaced, given that the classes of books the Voynich Manuscript most obviously resembles are herbals, books of architecture, books of secrets, and balneology.
But your comment further seems to explain why this is so. You say that you “approached the manuscript fully expecting to find its imagery was that of the medieval Latin Christian tradition”, and were presumably surprised when it was not. But this precise set of preconceptions / prejudices was only ever your own, and certainly not mine, and very probably not anybody else’s in the last few decades.
Goose: I certainly applaud Bax for allowing those pages to be used as ad hoc Voynich fora. Personally, I find them (as with the Voynich mailing list) far too noisy waters to warrant panning for flecks of gold dust: though I do have one interesting image from there (which Don of Tallahassee passed to me as part of a set a few weeks ago) which I plan to post about very soon.
All the same, if you do happen to find anything genuinely good there, please let me know about it! 🙂
Nick, Diane, Out of the Blue,
The “Voynich’ section of Fray Sahagun’s written and illustrated manuscript (Florentine Codex) was separated from the ‘rest of the story” when all of his writings and correspondence were confiscated by the Spanish Inquisition. I’m not sure if Fray Sahagun was still alive when the Pope reviewed the Inquisitioners’ findings, and found no fault in Sahagun’s writings. Apparently, B-408 (aka “Voynich”) was not returned to him. A century or so later, B-408 was retrieved from Suleiman’s holdings by Busbecque (diplomatic envoy of the Hapsburg Empire). Busbecque returned to Europe with some 200 manuscripts, of which one of the shabbiest Busbecque signed off with a brief note of his departure location: Ankara — with mention of Ancyranum Augustus.
You may find Busbecq’s “Letters” of some help in translating the contents of B-408, aka the “Voynich” manuscript.
Nick,
Having just read about the floods, this seems a fairly trivial subject to be arguing, but anyway.
First of all, the distinction I’m making is equivalent to that one makes in speaking about the territories of Islam or of Byzantium: that is, that the dominant culture defines the whole, and its language of education and diplomacy: Byzantine means ‘Greek speaking, Christian.. ‘ even though many other languages were more often spoken in different parts of Byzantine territory and not everyone was Christian.
Similarly, Islamic implies the language of Arabic and the Muslim faith – though with the same provisos.
In each region, the dominant culture’s style of imagery – Greek, Christian etc. is expected by default, because as a rule it influences even the works of minorities: Christians in Islam, Jews in Latin (Christian) Europe and so on.
I didn’t refer to “Christianized” imagery, but the imagery of Latin Europe, which implies a Christian culture, not that every genre of imagery will include religious elements. though as it happens these are found in Latin herbals. Plants are named ‘trinity herb’ or ‘st.john’s wort’ or the like, or are associated with one or another figure as their emblem, and so alluded to in the herbals.
I’m sure you realise that it is possible to distinguish fairly easily between Coptic, Byzantine, Persian and, say, Russian imagery. It is also possible to distinguish imagery produced in the Latin sphere from these others.
What I am telling you is that it was clear from the first that the imagery was not a product of the Latin medieval type, though more precisely, not of the dominant Latin Christian type.
I realise that many individuals, whose theories required the whole to have been a Latin Christian work have invested a great deal of time and energy into trying to find some parallels from within the Latin (-Christian) corpus and have satisfied themselves that they have done so.
I also realise that for some reason which I do not attempt to understand, there has developed an idea that I should need the definition of such basics as “parallel hatching” explained to me, or that when I say that my initial assessment soon showed that the manuscript’s imagery was not a product of Latin Christian culture, that you should imagine this an idea reached only by reference to an abstract exercise of (as you think ‘faulty’) logic.
My dear Nick, I no more rely only on theoretical constructs to evaluate and provenance imagery that I do to drive a car. Practice is needed, and some preliminary study.
While reason certainly helps one weigh various finer alternatives, logic is nothing more than a tool. When a logical argument depends on ill-considered and ill-informed premises, and these so confidently adopted that not even reason or experience can improve them, then logical arguments about the manuscript’s content, just like theories about its content, can become positive obstructions to a better understanding of the object and its intended meaning.
Unfortunately, Voynich studies seems to attract people of great self-confidence, keen on research perhaps – especially research into their own ideas – but not always quite so willing to learn, or to acknowledge.
PS – Here’s an acid test. If I were to hand a Voynichero an unprovenanced manuscript being offered me for sale for a fair sum – say a quarter million pounds – which of them would be willing to stake their ability to correctly provenance that manuscript against a penalty of like amount?
The Voynich manuscript isn’t a virtual toy. It’s an early fifteenth century artefact, which means by definition that its imagery is intended to communicate meaning, and that its forms and style have precedents – a lineage. The only real advice I can offer people interested in the thing is to take it seriously.
Diane: I stake my reputation on every unsolved cipher that arrives here in Cipher Mysteries Towers, so it’s all in a day’s (normally unpaid) work for me. But I’m not sure I count as a “Voynichero” any more. 🙂
Perhaps the heart of all this is that you and I have somewhat different concepts of what constitutes “lineage” as well as what “communicate meaning” entails. Also, it beats me why you keep referring to it in terms of “Latin” and “medieval” (the Voynich Manuscript has always seemed rooted in the early modern to me, and I don’t see any obvious religious or Latin influence), so that’s a set of drums that presumably sounds louder in your head than in anyone else’s.
Deer Diana.
Eve before many ,many years, Nick wrote me. Probably it turns out that the manuscript is Czech. Which is of course true.
The same also writes Habdank Michal Vojnič, in his letter.
Otherwise, it can see that you are learning, and this is obviously good.
Plant drawn in the manuscript, not the plant. The plant is a thougt about that at the page he writes. It also depends on mathematics. And therefore, the number of such flowers, or sheets. Of which I wrote many , many years.
Very carefully stepping around Prague and Crown Czech lands. Ever since Charles IV., Prague was the capital of the entire Roman Empire. So what are still only a German. Germany is a big fart.
Champollion.
Nick,
Latin was the dominant language for mainstream European culture, as Arabic was in Islam or Greek for the Byzantines.
not hard, really.
And the ‘medieval’ period is generally taken to end only in about the mid-16th century, though quibbles are perfectly ok. Some like to begin the modern period only with the seventeenth century, others with the discovery of the Americas.
But MS Beinecke 408, albeit manufactured early in the fifteenth century, very obviously derives from earlier works, and so its imagery and that content is of the medieval period, and so are its nearest comparisons – mostly thirteenth or fourteenth century.. Its ancestry is more venerable.
Not that it matters when the latest dictum from above is that only imagery from Latin (mainstream culture) 15th century manuscripts (no other media) is relevant.
Sort of like asking people to decide which of two non-identical twins is the father.
Voynichland is officially mad; utterly and completely out of touch with manuscript studies, art history studies, history of culture studies and every other reasonable and relevant science.
Diane: yes, Latin was the dominant language, but where is the evidence – outside of your presumptions and preconceptions – that anything in the Voynich is necessarily or even probably Latin?
The European medieval period is widely taken to end between 1450 and 1500 (depending on who you ask, and whether they’re feeling grumpy that day), so your dating is up to a century off there. The “early modern” period (not the “modern” period, *face palm*) starts (similarly) between 1450 and 1500, though in the Italian states there are solid arguments that it can be reasonably said to have started a little before 1450 (again depending on who you ask etc). So your comment would seem to be betraying a basic lack of historic knowledge of this general period.
Not having ever seen a clear definition of the word “Voynichero”, I had always assumed that Diane included herself in this category, just like everyone else here. Now it seems that Nick isn’t, or isn’t anymore, or doesn’t want to be.
Really confused……
Rene: Diane’s working definition of a “Voynichero” seems very much to be along the lines of ‘spoilt-brat dilettante wannabe-historian eager to mouth off at the slightest opportunity about anything vaguely to do with the Voynich Manuscript but without the faintest whiff of actual substance or skills to back it up‘.
Of course, like all putdowns this is semantically asymmetric insofar as it could never possibly be applied to the putdowner herself, only to her putdownees.
Nick,
Your categories are pretty old-fashioned but if they suit you, they do.
It has always been convenient for encyclopaedias and publishers to have a neat cut-off, and 1500 is the usual mark for Oxford publications.
As I said, many take the mark from the time the Americas were discovered – rounding off to the nearest century.
You have developed a bit of a habit of greeting any difference between our points of view by asserting that either I don’t know what I’m talking about, or that my education has been neglected. Witness the ‘hatching’ issue, and then our differing readings of the opinions of Tiltman and Friedman, just for two.
As host, you are entitled of course to due deference towards your views, but I always believed such obligations were reciprocal.
I learned the term ‘Voynichero’ here, and understood that Nick had coined it. His definition must stand, I suppose, though I should have preferred a milder one.
My point stands. It can be fun to argue, theoretically, about definitions of ‘lineage’ and have the pleasure of suggesting that as an intellectual historian you are by definition of a higher sort of mind than a merely intelligent iconographic analyst.
But I do not think it unreasonable to believe that if you took your evaluation of the manuscript’s imagery to potential buyer – one who also had access to my opinion – that you would be much quicker to back off, and could be expected to disclaim any professional expertise in this area.
That, at least, would be fair.
Nick,
You’ve become a little confused by all this.
I’m the one who *disputes* the fairly thoughtless assumption that the manuscript’s imagery may be understood by reference only to Latin manuscripts (that is, to be clear, manuscripts produced from the part of Europe whose common culture – defined by language of education, public discourse, religion and diplomacy etc. – was Latin).
Somehow, it doesn’t help to resolve my confusion.
Anyway, it sounds like fun and I am happy to be one. (Reminds me of the lumberjack song.)
Nick,
I’m somewhat taken aback with this latest (somewhat contentious?) dialogue. Why is the definition of a “Voynichero” so important to solving the so-called “Voynich” manuscript? The year 2016 is fast approaching.
More and more, I am seeing more and more DEBATE about the so-called “Voynich” manuscriipt; rather than translations of the document itself. I am not criticising the efforts of the many decipherers (which eventually lead to an undeciphered dead end).
Very rarely have I seen agreement between various contributors to your most intriguing blog. They most often seem to be comparing the contents of B-408 with various other documents of the same time period, rather than translating the contents of B-408 itself.
I don’t really give a hoot about provenance, or spelling, or quality of the artwork. It is what the document is saying that is important to me. As far as “poverty of proof”; have I not been giving you full translations AND the provenance of my proofs?
I do wish Sally Cave would re-appear right about now.
Beady-eyed-wonderer
Instead of the ongoing sniping, perhaps we could start the year with a discussion about something that can actually seen in the VMs. Since hatching lines have been mentioned, I recommend the VMs Zodiac and the use of what appear to be hatching lines on some of the patterns seen on the tubs in the Pisces and Aries pages. The first examples are at the top of Pisces’ outer ring.
Stolfi used the term ‘hatching’ in his descriptions of these patterns, from Rene’s pages.
Also consider that many of the patterns with hatching lines have certain similarities of design in comparison with standard heraldic patterns like the paly, barry or bendy and others. In addition to which the use of hatching lines is a long established*, standard method of heraldic tincture designation (Petra Sancta, 1638 CE). [* Not long enough?]
The apparent combination of hatching lines and heraldic designs in these Zodiac illustrations offers a valid and interesting field for investigation. What seems to be clear in these VMs illustrations poses some provocative questions regarding chronology, interpretation and more.
Rene,
May I help resolve your confusion?
It’s really quite simple. In Voynich studies today, one either supports the theory which you first promoted about german cultural provenance, but which you have never allowed to be debated, or else or one of two things happens.
1. The research and the researcher are ignored.
2. The research is ignored and the researcher is abused. Not directly by you – your remarks are more snide than direct (vide supra). No, the nasty bits are done by friends or would-be ‘friends of Rene’. Of course, one never sees you protest or try publicly to restrain friends who are putting the boot in (as we say in Australia). That’s when you dissassociate. After seven years, I can predict the pattern.
(will it be Nick or Goose or perhaps Elmar again this time?)
No genuine discussion is permitted. No debate is permitted. You absolutely refuse to engage in any reasonable and informed academic debate, or to accept that your position is not yet unfalsifiable.
However, I will grant that you’re well on the way with the catch-all “Lake Constance/four year council” scenario.
Everything from Hellenistic works, to those in Bobbio, to the matter relating to the eastern trade, to Armenia, Italians, Renaissance works, Nick’s newly-caved Milan theory, Russia, the heretics, the Jews … all of it can be subsumed into this version of the German theory.. even the Italian chap’s Poggio Bracciolini theory.
Bdid1dr’s Nahuatl translation… never mind, just pay no attention.
Diane: oh, come on. This paranoid tosh is an all-time low for you, and I sincerely hope that the New Year brings you a new resolve to stop seeing things so foolishly conspiratorially.
Diane,
you seem to be very confused about what I think about the Voynich MS. That is a pity for several reasons:
1) I have a dedicated page dealing with exactly that question at my web site
2) You always stress that it is important to distinguish when and where the MS was produced, and what its contents refers to, yet you are confusing these issues completely.
I don’t know who is Goose. I do know who is Elmar. Both are speaking for themselves.
Ah yes I do know Nick reasonably well, and nobody here doubts that he speaks for himself, I am sure.
I wonder how I would be able to stop certain discussions from taking place, as I seem to be doing according to you. It would be useful…..
Zandbergen .
I would certainly like to know what you think about the manuscript. Of course I know your site. So I’d like your opinion.
Do you have any chance of successfully resolve the manuscript.
For how long ?
Thank you , Champollion 🙂
Actually….
it could be more constructive to clarify a couple of things.
1. The creation of the MS is certainly to be dated somewhere in the 15th Century.
2. It is also almost certainly to be located roughly in Central to Southern Europe.
Neither of these are my opinion, let alone my dogma. The first clearly follows from forensics and is supported by many other observations.
The second follows from everything that has been written about the MS since the beginning of the 20th Century.
It is worth pointing out that a German origin (i.e., the area where the MS was put together – nothing to do with sources that may or may not have been used) was most strongly supported by Richard Salomon. Not much is generally known about him, but he was one of the most active correspondents of Anne Nill and E.L.Voynich ever since 1937. There are many of his letters in the Beinecke library. He had a great influence on Erwin Panofsky, who also adopted the German origin. Any statements that Panofsky specifically said the MS had a Jewish origin is false. In the one recorded statement where he mentioned Jewish and Kabbala, he mentioned three or four different opions and influences, including Flanders. And he changed his opinion on that. This is all documented.
So much for my “first promoting German cultural provenance”.
In line with the topic of the present thread, I do not feel that it is my duty to comment on all possible theories that are proposed about the Voynich MS. Nor is it my calling in life. In fact, there are too many even if I wanted to.
I am quite happy to let all discussions take place and will stay out of them. When clearly false statements are made, I may be tempted to chip in. (Recent example: that supposedly little attention was paid to the preparation of the parchment).
When something useful comes out of a discussion, so much the better. The language of the MS could be Hebrew, Arabic, Teochew Chinese. I would not be in the least surprised.
The MS was surely not prepared in central or east Asia though. And even more certainly, Yale is not suppressing people, opinions or research to that effect. This suggestion is so unrealistic that I can’t believe it can come from someone who is at the same time advocating that these are academic discussions.
As regards the contents of the MS, for me we are still in the data gathering stage. There was a thread on that as well, in which I fully agreed with Nick’s view that we don’t even properly understand our ‘data’. All discussions are interesting, but rarely conclusive. Valuable new points will prove themselves. They don’t require me, Nick or anyone else to cheer for them.
So, let all discussions go on.
Let the discussions in other fora go on as well.
In addition to that, people should be aware that there’s a great deal happening outside the three better known public discussion fora. Fortunately, here in Cipher Mysteries these are usually announced or addressed.
Well, in the very recent months and years, I have (several times) asked why no one seems to want to go on Nick’s written record/blog for the purpose of offering a word-for-word TRANSLATION of all of the folios in Boenicke Manuscript 408.
I just don’t understand how discussions of heraldry, history, dates of vellum/parchment manufacture, inks and dyes, ‘secret letters/alphabet’ in the botanical items… keep interfering with anyone’s possibly correct identification or understanding of ANY item in the so-called ‘Voynich’ manuscript. Even the ‘Brig’ was not able to identify the dianthus, nor the ranunculus. Both specimens had identifying dialogue. It was the supposedly ‘coded’ dialogues which threw all of the various ‘decoding specialists’ off onto the well-beaten paths to ‘nowhere’.
@Sally Caves: Puh-leeze help us out !!
Don’t get me started on the gigantic ‘balloon’ the ladies in the bath-house were observing : The entire discussion was the use of the diluted juice from that fruit to sedate the women before painful conditions were to occur.
Once you locate that particular “Voynich” folio, you should be able to translate the written dialogue into whichever language you speak or read.
Thank you for the answer. I would like to ask you one thing. Some time ago, I showed you all. That on page 116 is written in the key of translation MS. The instructions are written in the Czech language. There are 3 pictires. Key, fox, woman. Importante : Instructions, name , author.
Why not admict that the manuscript is Czech ?
Why are you still thinking about German ?
I translated a lot, so I could write what I write all of you. The entire MS is written inthe old Czech language. When writing is used Jewish substitution, homophonic. Instruction is obviously written on the first page of MS. A very similar style, is written several manuscript and books from the era.
On the side 2r image . ( no plant ). Root demonstrates the use of substitution.
Root is letter , C,G,S,L. Basic is the letter of each word. It shows you the author at the beginning of the manuscript. Why ? So it is probably clear to everyone. It indicates substitution, numbers 3. So why not devote to page 116, where the written instructions ? The key is given. And surely many of you will understand.
Champollion.
To bdid1dr:
I should say that I have never ever seen a link to a web page, or anything similar, where I would be able to find an explanation of your method, or example translations of pages.
As regards the history vs. the translation of the MS: whatever the MS text says could be of some interest, but really there is much more to it. That should be clear especially in case it doesn’t say anything meaningful. It was still created, but where, when, and especially why? For those primarily interested in the text, knowing the precise location, time, group of people involved would be an enormous help in figuring out how it was done.
To boyfriend/Champollion:
if referring to the location where it was created, then Bohemia should be considered part of Germany. Even if the language used by the author/scribe is German, he could still be Bohemian.
What’s more important is, that statistical analyses of the text say something about the language of the MS.
1) Either there isn’t any, i.e. the text is really meaningless
2) Or it is in a language converted using a simple substitution. In that case, Indo-European languages are basically excluded.
3) Or it is in one of the ‘obvious’ languages: Latin or any of the common vernaculars. In that case, the language has been thoroughly modified during the process of generating the text, to the extent that it can no longer be identified from the text as we have it.
Consequently, any statement that the text is in language ‘X’ is an assumption. It is not deduced or derived from what we see in the MS. Assumptions are not forbidden, but then there should be some kind of demonstration or reasoning that this assumption is reasonable.
F116v remains of great interest. Whether or not it is by the original author/scribe, or anyone who knew how the MS text has been produced, is not settled. I tend to favour the idea that it is from the original MS creator(s) but thats just my opinion. I don’t see any similarity of the animal in the left margin with a fox.
As far as I can see, there is quite a lot known about Richard Salomon (I wish we knew as much about Wilfred), among other things he was a fully qualified historian and medievalist, working at some time for the MGH Constitutiones and later as professor in Hamburg and the USA, the only one of his kind looking at the VMs in his time and the only one whose opinion I would accept without much argument, even if I think he was wrong with his f. 66v musdel reading and interpretation.
Rene,
In the past two years, I have tried to gain your interest in f-86 (all the foldouts) and the last short paragraph on f-116, which accompanying artwork shows a sheep and a woman……
I don’t have the image in front of me, because I didn’t think it was worth translating. I MAY have misread the two or three lines of script as referring to Busbecq’s sign-off from Suleiman’s court, through the monument in Turkey (Ancyranum Augustus) — on the last page of a badly battered manuscript (B-408) before returning to Austria.
Hello Helmut,
Salomon was certainly known and respected in his own circles, and those like me who are not familiar with his work can find quite a bit about him on the Web. What is scarcely known are his ideas about the Voynich MS, as these are primarily contained in letters kept in the Beinecke, which have not been edited. D’Imperio, who has clearly gone through the whole collection in the Beinecke, only mentions him briefly.
With hindsight, his guess about the age of the MS (1450 or possibly earlier) is spot on.
My favourite quote in his letters is in 1953, when he had just reviewed the Voynich MS theory of Feely, which is again based on Bacon, and which he consideres nonsensical. He writes:
“If Athanasius Kircher’s correspondent – the name escapes me – could have foreseen what nonsense his mentioning Roger Bacon’s name would produce, he would never have sent the letter.”
To Zandbergen .
You write that you do not see any similarity with Fox. And what would that be for that animal. When he expresses name Eliška.
In English and German language course it does not make logical meaning.
By blue eye and Diana, he is a Sheep.
The name is therefore a sheep ? So it may come just a hollow head.
The manuscript wrote Elizabeth of Rosenberg. ( Czech language – Eliška z Rožmberka).
In a word Eliška, it is a hidden word ” Liška “. 🙂
Therefore, it is logically over woman image whom ? camel or kangaroo ? Also finally begin to think normally.
1. Above is the – Key.
2. Middle name is.
3. Below is woman.
A woman named Eliška ( English – Elizabeth ).
Therefore, the animal is a Liška ( fox ). ( Eliška — E,,, Liška )
It’s difficult to understand ?
Here it is write sheep. Have you ever seen anyone look sheep ? Sheep have ears down. Also really see how the long tail.
Champollione .
Rene, Over the past two years I have fully translated B-408 folio 55v and posted the translation (word-for-word) on Nick’s beautiful blog: I have also translated any so-called Voynich syllable: ( ceas) q — such as the word ‘quote’ : q-o-tl 9 (geus)
With just three “Nahuatl” characters one can translate into Spanish/Latin the word
Aqua- tl e geus …… From that one word, I was able to translate and differentiate the Water Lily from the Water Lotus (Folio 55v).
At least four times in the past two years, I have laid out the syllabic translations of some twenty “Voynich” folios (mushroom, Alcyone and Ceyx legend, saffron crocus,
mulberry (fruit-which identifies the tree, which leaves were eaten by the silkworm.
All of my translations are verified by referring to the “Florentine Codex”. The Florentine Codex is the end-product of some 60 years research and teaching by Fray Sahagun. Sahagun first began teaching his Nahuatl-speaking students (at the Colegio) how to translate his Spanish/Latin into Nahuatl — (and vice-versa).
NOTE TO: Diane, Ootb, and ProfZ: Perhaps you mean well. But you are seriously interfering with my efforts to coherently identify and prove my identifications of some of the most difficult discussions in Boenicke manuscript 408.
Nick, You may want to follow-up with some very interesting books written by:
Miguel Leon-Portilla (Bernardino de Sahagun-The First Anthropologist) and by
Diana Magaloni Kerpel – The Colors of the New World-Artists, Materials, and the Creation of the Florentine Codex
PS: Kerpel’s small book (lecture) was published by The Getty Research Council
@Rene: Nearly all of B-408’s contents, are Fray Sahagun’s memoir of his parentage, birthplace, his becoming a ‘cord-wearing’ Franciscan, his education at Salamanca, his travel by ship to “New Spain”, his notes on the biology of his new home, and his learning to speak Nahuatl. It was only when he began teaching at the Colegio, was he able to have at least two of his students translate his Spanish into Nahuatl — and proceed to compose, illustrate, and identify every item . Fray Sahagun attempted to write a “Psalmodia” in both Spanish or Church Latin and Nahuatl.
Today, anyone whose base language is Latin can read the bi-lingual Nahuatl.
I reiterate that the entire “Voynich/Boenicke Ms is coherent and easily translated and read by anyone who is interested in its contents rather than constantly trying to prove ‘provenance’ and/or similarity to other manuscripts. The only similarity is going to be found in the “Florentine Codex”.
Earlier, I responded to another post in re the ‘ink’ and ‘colors’ found in the Florentine Codex (a discussion by Diana Magaloni Kerpel): Excerpts: a white mineral tizatl (calcium sulfate) — a red mineral tlahuitl — hematite . However, cinnabar ….both share the same telluric associations. Other pigments she mentions are nocheztli and achiotl (an insect that feeds on prickly pear pads and seeds of a fruit).
Diane, feel free to expound/compare — but only on Nick’s pages.
Ootb, I’m hoping you will go online to read the bi-lingual contents of Fray Sahagun’s “Florentine Manuscript”. It is not ‘all’ about birds and the bees, there is much fully illustrated discussions of the different caterpillars and butterflies and moths. This is a very good way to learn to read and write about ‘papellony’ , ‘papillon’, ‘sericine’, wasps, termites, ants, and other insects and larvae native to “New Spain”.
Several years ago, someone challenged me to interpret some of those circular diagrams (in the VMS). One very interesting ‘diagram’ was of several people holding hands in circle. There was not a lot of dialogue — but enough to indicate that “Mom and Dad” were discussing the suitability of the marriage for their children.