Darrell Huff’s (1954) “How to Lie With Statistics” is a twentieth century classic that’s well worth reading (I have a well-thumbed copy on my bookshelf that I bought back in the 1980s). It’s basically a breezy introduction to statistics, that concentrates largely on how people get things wrong in order to get across the general idea of how you might (possibly, hopefully) try to get things right in your own work.
A journalist rather than an academic statistician, Huff’s book ended up selling more than 1.5 million copies. You can hear echoes of his reversed-expectations presentation in numerous other book titles, such as Bill Hartston’s “How to Cheat at Chess”.
Sadly, The Truth Is Much, Much Worse
When later I did statistics modules at University, the awful truth slowly dawned on me: even though tools (such as Excel) make it easy to perform statistical procedures, stats really isn’t just a matter of “running the numbers”, cranking out an answer, and drawing some persuasive-looking graphs.
Even just conceiving a statistical experiment (e.g. something that’s based on good data, and that stands a chance of yielding meaningful results) is extraordinarily hard. Designing statistical experiments (e.g. understanding the sampling biases that are inevitably embedded in the data, and then working out how to work around them) is also hugely tricky. Executing them is no mean feat either: and then – finally – interpreting them is fraught with difficulty.
In general, my own experience of statistical experiments is that at least half are fatally misconceived; of the remainder, half are horribly misdesigned; of the remainder of that, at least half are sadly misexecuted; and of the remainder of that, at last half of the results are tragically misinterpreted. Note that the overall success rate (<5%) is for people who broadly know what they’re doing, never mind idiots playing with Excel.
A Story About Stats
Back when I was doing my MBA, one of the final marked pieces was for the statistics module. When I took a look at the data, it quickly became clear that while most of the columns were real, one in particular had been faked up. And so I wrote up my answer saying – in a meta kind of way – that because that (fake) column was basically synthetic, you couldn’t draw reliable conclusions from it. And so the best you could do in practice was to draw conclusions from the other non-synthetic columns.
I failed the module.
So, I made an appointment with the lecturer who marked it, who also happened to be the Dean of the Business School.
- I said: Why did you fail this piece?
- He said: Because you didn’t get the right answer.
- I said: But the column for the ‘right’ answer is fake.
- He said: I don’t think so.
- I said: Well, look at this [and showed him exactly how it had been faked]
- He said: Oh… OK. I didn’t know that. But… it doesn’t matter.
- I said: errrm… sorry?
- He said: you’ve got a Distinction anyway, so there’s no point me changing this mark
And so I still failed the statistics module.
The Voynich Manuscript and Stats
If you think Voynich Manuscript researchers who run statistical tests on Voynichese are somehow immune to these fundamental hazards, I don’t really think you’re paying enough attention.
Until you accept that the core problems inherent in Voynichese transcriptions – there are many, and they run deep – will inevitably permeate all your analyses, you really are just running the numbers for fun.
The main things that bother me (though doubtless there are others that I can’t think of right now):
- Transcription assumptions
- Transcription error rates
- Running tests on the whole Voynich Manuscript, rather than on sections (e.g. Q13, Q20, Herbal-A)
- How Voynichese should be parsed into tokens (this has bugged me for 20 years!)
- Copying errors and Voynichese “weirdoes”
- The bifolios being out of order
- Whether there is a uniform ‘system’ underlying both Currier A and Currier B
- The problems with top-line text
- The problems with line-initial letters
- The problems with line-final letters
- etc
With so many parallel things to consider, I honestly think it should be no surprise that most attempts at Voynich analysis fail to achieve anything of value.
Voynich Theories
I have no doubt that researchers do their best to be rational and sensible, but many Voynich theories – or, perhaps more accurately, Voynich ‘approaches’ – are built upon a fundamentally flawed statistical ‘take’, e.g. that Voynichese is just a simple (but highly obscure) text.
Unpopularly, this seems to be true of just about all ‘Baxian’ Voynich linguistic analyses. Statistically, nothing supports the basic assumption of a ‘flat’ (but obscure) language. In fact, Voynichese is full of confounding, arbitrary, difficult, unlanguagelike behaviours (see the incomplete list above), all of which you have to compensate for to get your data to a point where you even begin to have something remotely language-like to work with. But hardly anybody ever does that, because it’s too tricky, and they’re not genuinely invested enough to do the ‘hard yards’.
It’s also true of Gordon Rugg’s table ‘take’; and of just about all simple ciphers; and – also unpopularly – of hoax theories (why should meaningless text be so confounded?) And so forth.
The sad reality is that most researchers seem to approach Voynichese with a pre-existing emotional answer in mind, which they then true to justify using imperfect statistical experiments. More broadly, this is how a lot of flawed statistical studies also work, particularly in economics.
In fact, statistics has become a tool that a lot of people use to try to support the lies they tell themselves, as well as the lies their paymasters want to be told. This is every bit as true of Big Oil and alt.right politics as of Voynichology. Perhaps it’s time for an even more ironic 21st century update to Darrell Huff’s book – “How To Lie To Yourself With Statistics”?
In my opinion, one characteristic of meaningful statistics is that they are open-ended. Thus, it should be possible that the result is different from what was hoped for. The “neutral” data should speak for themselves.
Of course, some statistics can already be constructed on the basis of one’s own (false) prior assumptions in such a way that they necessarily confirm one’s own hypothesis. There is no question that this cannot be the purpose. Such a thing is actually self-deception.
Then there is Measure Theory, which is statistics, but harder. Most of those who get statistics right, still do not get Measure Theory. Liars, damned liars and experts: the experts are those who can do statistics, but still fail at Measure Theory.
May I suggest that when Voynich researchers write up their statistical experiments, they provide an introduction which clearly states the experiment’s aims and the parameters within which it was conducted.
As in: “Assuming that… and further assuming that… and that.. and that… we then set out to test a range of data gathered within [stated] parameters, with the aim of discovering/testing if/whether….”
Nick:
I‘m looking for a paper on a deciphering approach similar to the methods used by Kober and Ventris‘ for the decipherment of Linear B (which might be called a statistical approach cum grano salis). Is there anything similar?
D.N.O’Donovan: how’s about us home schooled, types and drop outs what never advanced to the levels required to undertake “statistical experiments” let alone write the bastards up; just so’s snobish learned intellectuals can put their seals of disapproval on them.
One corruption of statistics in the UK is unemployment and economic inactivity. To lie to the ‘statistically unlearn-ed’ they put out the economic activity statistics in 1000s. They make it look like there are only 8,500 people economically inactive when in fact it is 8,500 x 1000. Then they differentiate between unemployment and inactivity based on whether you looked for a job in the last 2 weeks. If you didn’t look for a job you were not unemployed and then you become inactive.
Last week, the BBC muddied the waters telling the world that economic inactivity related to sickness and that there were 2.5 million people economically inactive due to sickness. Like they want people in hospital beds to get jobs or do paid work in hospital. But it cleverly lowers the public perception of the statistics for economic inactivity to 2.5 million from 8.5 million.
They also fail to explain it has always been around the 8+ milion mark since the 1970s. It will likely never change.
The government chooses to explain the problem with the UK economy on the economically inactive. If only they would get a job we could be a more productive country. Again another lie. The more people work the less productive the country becomes. Companies replace staff with machines and robots to improve productivity,
I can remember those old 11+ questions were always about ‘if it takes 5 men to dig a hole in 1 hour how long will it take 10 men’. It appears that 10 men are more productive than 5. But if you only want 1 hole dug then after 1/2 hour you have 10 men doing nothing for 1/2 hour.
John S.
Evidently you didn’t know that there have been dozens of statistical studies of Voynichese offered since the 1950s. They’re now regular part of the scene. For readers like me, a bit more detail in the ‘Aims and Methods’ part of the write-up helps put the latest effort into perspective.
Statistics is not the only “logical ” way to lie to yourself .
Most of us were raised in bivalent language cultures
that only accept yes and no by prefix and suffix, that lockout the “excluded middle”. Bivalent language translators relied on Esperanto until 30 years ago when Aymara , a Peru-Bolivia trivalent language was discovered .
Trivalent syntax requires the ” excluded middle” to attach yes, no and maybe to every root word, as a suffix. Maybe situations directly encode “excluded middle” situations that bivalent languages struggle to define, and translate, logically correcting most bivalent errors and omissions .
In the 1990s the European Union created an artificial trivalent translator to avoid paying royalties to HP (that had purchased the Aymara English -Spanish translator used by the organization of American states (OAS)).
Subtle, but true.
Milo Gardner
MIT requires complex number predicates discovered by reverse engineering Oragami shapes . Oragmi shapes all seem rational, yet often include irrational lines, discovered by reverse engineering each shape.
MIT offers its non-bivalent computer design class free online .
Best Regards
Milo Gardner
In the preface of his 2003 book “Dicing with Death: Chance, Risk and Health”, Stephen Senn states:
“Statisticians are second-class mathematicians, third rate scientists and fourth rate thinkers. They are the hyenas, jackals and vultures of the scientific ecology: picking over the bones and carcasses of the game that the big cats, the biologists, the physicists and the chemists, have brought down.”
True, he then whites that his book is there to persuade the reader that the stated view is wrong, and that statistics is wonderful, even if it is hard to do it right. Still, it’s an interesting quote.
Nick and all,
This may seem like a very basic question, so please be patient.
I’m not clear about ‘language-like’ behaviour implies.
Nick’s post of April 18th 2021 includes reference to “The higher the suffixity value, the more language-like the text.”
https://ciphermysteries.com/2021/04/18/introducing-the-suffixity-metric-perhaps
On the other hand, the article comparing the tackling of Voynichese with Alice Kober’s work on the Cretan Linear A and B scripts (still a great read), there’s mention of Linear A being “almost certainly a syllabary”.
There are other syllabaries known – the Byblos syllabary is one – and there are other scripts and languages which don’t add prefixes or suffixes to a root. Is it exclusively a characteristic of alphabetic and abjad scripts?
Lists of proper nouns together with quantities or with numerical values added also lack such modifiers.
So I wonder how ‘language-like’ is being defined, and what is excluded by the working definition – if anyone would care to explain.
Diane: syllabaries necessarily use a lot of unique shapes, something we don’t see in Voynichese. There’s often a lot of symmetry and stroke reuse – a syllabary where every glyph was strikingly unique would be hard to use. (Think of pre-Pitman shorthands, and cipher nomenclators.)
So I think language-like behaviour would yield recognisable syllabaries, if that’s a help here.
Distinguish between syllable and combination.
Thus, in a combination, a compound of two signs becomes a new symbol.
This combination can thus become a syllable, but it is not obligatory.
Since the character “c” sticks to many other symbols, but can also be seen separately, one can rather assume a combination than a syllable.
Nick,
Thanks for the reply. I guess that even if the formal, written, version of a language used a syllabary, the spoken version might still use prefixes and suffixes and so be ‘language-like’. I guess I should ask a specialist in comparative linguistics about whether any exceptions are known – and will next time I meet one. 🙂
Count me among those who do not believe the Voynich statistics are the reason it hasn’t been solved. I guess that more about it is probably known (by someone) and they just aren’t talking or cooperating. If this is so, maybe they just need another 3 or 400 years of non solution to reveal something? The Copiale cipher was supposedly solved though I am not sure I know much more about it than when it was a mystery. My intuition is this will happen if and when the Voynich is ever “solved”.as well.
Hans P Kraus who bought and gifted it Yale made honest note of the suspicious fact that the head Vatican librarian thought the manuscript was still in the churches possession, in his autobioghy. Sooooo cringe. Nobody knows how Wilfred Voynich even obtained rhe manuscript from the Vatican to give to Kraus to give to Yale. Really really crinnnge. The whole thing doesnt just smell. It literally reeks.
I am in the process of getting a new copy of Hans Kraus’s A Rare Book Saga, so that I can look again at what he wrote regarding his visit to Mgr Ruysschaert, as my first copy is currently misplaced. The exact wording of the entry is important in interpreting intent. My memory is the wording conveyed astonishment at the fact that the good Monsignor could possibly even believe the manuscript was still in the Libraries possession(in the 60s!) and that he might have had some institutional familiarity with it. In other words, it wasn’t to him just “in some box somewhere with a bunch of others”. Rene Zandbergen covers it on his Voynich.nu sight. He emphasizes Russychaert’s (a personally hard to remember name) memory loss, though I don’t feel that is what Kraus was getting at; more to perhaps an “out of touchness” with the popular history of the MS.
My own opinion is based on conversation with friends, and that the Vms is kind of a personal treasure, that people are unreasonably grabby with. Like hahaha, we have it and you do not. Childish, though that’s how all humans, even scholars and religious officials, can be.
I am somewhat interested in the fact that the MSes provenance can be so affected
Jesuit suppression, that it took 100 years to rectify and we are still for the most part in the dark. Rene’s quite geeky summation of things, make me wonder how it got this way, and what else there might be to find.
Anyway, I will post Kraus’s comments, verbatim, about the event, if I may, when I get the book.
From A Rare Book Saga, The Autobiography of H.P. Kraus:
“In 1963 we were in Rome and I visited Monsignor Jose Ruysschaert at
the Vatican Library. I knew that he had published the catalogue of the
Mondragone Library and I hoped to get information about the Cipher
Manuscript. To my great surprise he thought the manuscript was
still in the Library. I asked him: “Can you show it to me?”
“Yes,” he replied and headed for the stacks.
Soon he returned without it. I had to tell him I owned the codex
and how it came to me.”
Matt,
It has always bewildered me that no-one asked if the volume had been catalogued – whether it had a shelf-number – and if it had been catalogued, why no-one looked for the catalogue entry to see what it might have to say. For myself, I accept what Wilfrid said – that it hadn’t been among manuscripts transferred to the Vatican with others from Mondragone, but was still in Fr.Beckx’ trunk which, so far as the best account we have of his last months, is more likely to have been deposited, after Beckx’ return after the years in Fiesole , either in the trunk-room of San Andrea (less likely; it would have been emptied before demolition) or that of the Castel Gandolfo or of the German students’ residential college, where Beckx’ died. He never went back to any other after leaving Rome in the 1880s, and certainly not to Mondragone. It seems to me that Kraus himself had presumed the trunk found in Mondragone, and so it was to the Mondragone section that he was taken. That’s speculation on my part, of course, but in this case, I’m inclined to believe Wilfrid’s account of his finding the manuscript, and its being associated with Beckx. I don’t believe it had ever gone to the Vatican library, though of course many mss from Mondragone did.
Here’s the relevant passage:
The remaining years of [Beckx’] life were spent in Rome. Fr. Anderledy wishing to meet his unexpressed desire, sent him to pass his last days in the quiet and solitude of San Andrea, near the tomb of St. Stanislaus and in the midst of the cherished memories of the old Novitiate of the Society. But even this consolation was to be denied him. The Roman municipality had determined to carry a new street through the Novitiate, and Fr. Beckx was obliged, on the 29th of October, 1886, to leave San Andrea.
After a few days passed at Castel Gandolfo, he took up his residence at the Hotel Costanzi, shortly before acquired as a residence for the pupils of the German College. On entering the building the venerable old man yielding to fatigue and emotion said to his companion, “Is it not a strange thing that the Father General of the Society of Jesus should be obliged in the city of Rome, within a few yards of the Gesu, of the Roman College and San Andrea, to go and seek in a hotel a lodging where he may die in peace.
from the very long obituary and biography in [the Jesuit journal]..Woodstock Letters, Volume XVI, Number 2, 1 July 1887 pp.180-189.
At the time I reprinted the whole of that article at voynichrevisionist, it was not mentioned on any other Voynich site, though such things may change without notice. 🙂
The whole obit/biog at:
https://voynichrevisionist.com/fr-peter-beckx-biography/
Matt – I see I’ve written 1880s as when Beckx left Rome, rather than when he returned – sorry. But as you’ll have seen from the biography, if you’ve read it, he left Rome for Fiesole near the end of October 1873, and though It’s a little vague about when he returned – that is, initially to San Andrea – a return in March ’84 seems to be implied.
Matt, what is the meaning of your ‘geeky’? Honest question.
You will be able to see that your quote of Kraus is the same as what I have on my site.
On related matters:
There was no manuscript catalogue of the Collegium Romanum collection by the time that it was to be confiscated by the state (say:1870 – 1873). Alternatively, if such a catalogue existed, it was hidden or destroyed without any trace, Either way, this worked in the favour of the Jesuits, as it provided no clue to the government what they should have been able to confiscate, but were not.
An authoritative source: Carini Dainotti, Virginia: La Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele al Collegio Romano. Olschki, Firenze, 1956.
Also:
Diamond, J.: A Catalogue of the Old Roman College Library and a Reference to Another. Gregorianum 32 (1951), pp.103-114.
Matt,
As I understand it – though I may have this wrong – Dr. Zandbergen’s theory is that the manuscript was in Mondragone library, then went along with other books from that library to the Vatican library and from the Vatican library or from Mondragone itself was taken and sold to Wilfrid.
It is clear that it was Kraus who imagined/presumed that the manuscript had come from Mondragone, and who asserted as much when he visited Ruysschaert.. as Kraus says:
“In 1963 ..I visited Monsignor Jose Ruysschaert at the Vatican Library. I knew that he had published the catalogue of the Mondragone Library and I hoped to get information about the Cipher Manuscript”. He approached Ruysschaert simply because the latter had made a catalogue of the Mondragone mss in the Vatican library. Taking that assertion by Kraus on faith, Ruysschaert went to that section – and found no such mss there.
I don’t think it had ever been taken to the Vatican, and accept that it came to Rome in Beckx’ trunk in ’84.
It would be the normal practice to unpack things as needed, leaving the rest in their trunks in the trunk-room (usually an attic, but sometimes a basement) which all such houses had.
Since Ruysschaert HAD catalogued the Mondragone-Vatican mss, then there should have been a record of the ‘cipher manuscript’ there – but there isn’t.
I think Kraus was mistaken, not realising that Beckx’ had never returned to Mondragone at all. There’s no mention of the manuscript before Beckx’ left for Fiesole – though that mightn’t matter. The problem is that to discard the long-accepted connection to Beckz, to ignore the whole of Wilfrid’s story of first seeing the manuscript, as well as that mention of a ‘noble family (which last two items were long included in Dr.Zndbergen’s site..), it is necessary to posit for almost every one of the Jesuits concerned characters that are dishonest, lying and so on. There’s no room for the ‘noble family’, no workable explanation for the association with Beckx, his trunk, or the other books and his labels … and so on.
I think, on the contrary that Kraus presumed Beckx had returned and died in Mondragone, and so futher assumed the trunk’s contents had been forgotten in a basement there.. only going to the Vatican after Beckx’ death… or something.
There is a more elegant solution: that the manuscript had indeed been in/near a ‘noble house’ because the religious house where Beckx’ resided in Fiesole had an historical connection to the nearby Villa Medici. I think it very likely the mss came into Beckx’ possession while he was in Fiesole.. and knowing that is why Wilfrid included that passage and speculation about Kircher’s giving or willing his mss to ‘a noble family’. Whether that speculation was right, I don’t know. The point is that if we date the mss’ second arrival in Rome (the first having been in 1666/7) to Beckx’ return from Fiesole and accept that, as Wilfrid said, the contents of the trunk had laid forgotten for a considerable time before he was asked to take a look at them, most of the difficulties are resolved and Kraus’ error becomes understandable – without having to say. or imply that almost everyone involved was corrupt. The opposite is so – one of the Jesuits made a point of saying they were only ‘taking care’ of the manuscripts, and did not own them.
It is my view – I won’t bother you with all the details – that some, at least, of the manuscripts in that trunk had owners whose families had died out or could not be identified, and were part of the unholy mess made of Italy’s noble libraries by the Napoleonic confiscations, some large number of volumes then doubly scattered by the predatory behaviour of certain bibliophile-thieves, one of the most notable of whom had died in Fiesole not long before Beckx’ arrival there. For a Catholic, any hope of being shriven of his sins – even on his deathbed – was always conditional on genuine repentance for sin, and all effort made at restitution to those he or she had harmed. It is difficult to convey just what an important matter such restitution would be for a Catholic on the verge of death. It wasn’t enough to say ‘sorry’ or be blessed. If the letter from Marci had been in the ms then, it would have been especially attractive to that bookthief, who was not a bad mathematician and was very keen on stealing works by older mathematicians (as Marci was).
So I think that is a reasonable possibility too; that because Marci and the Jesuit, Kircher had their names mentioned, the volume was given to the head of the Jesuit order, in lieu of any closer knowledge of whom it should be returned to. And so it returned, with Beckx, was in the trunk at Castel Gandolfo or the German college, and when later discovered.. seemed to be a collection that might be sold and the money used to refurnish Mondragone with desperately-needed teaching materials. Never went to the Vatican; never among the works catalogued. Offered on the q.t. to avoid income tax.. And hence, too, Wilfrid’s extreme discretion. If someone turned up claiming it had been in the library of their own noble family before the Napoleonic, or the Italian, confiscations, Wilfrid wouldn’t be dragging the Jesuits into it.
Anyway, that’s the timeline which seems most reasonable to me. Kraus made a wrong, though understandable, assumption is all.
It is not my theory that the manuscript was in Mondragone library, then went along with other books from that library to the Vatican library and from the Vatican library or from Mondragone itself taken and sold to Wilfrid.
Voynich never mentioned Villa Mondragone, and there is no evidence that any of the books and manuscripts acquired by the Vatican or by Voynich were ever in Villa Mondragone. That was exclusively Kraus’ story.
The close to 40 manuscripts that Voynich acquired were also never in the Vatican. New evidence shows that Voynich acquired his selection before the remainder was sold to the Vatican.
Another important point is that Ruysschaert’s 1959 catalogue describes only the Latin Manuscripts among the material that the Vatican obtained from the Jesuits. Printed books, and manuscripts in other languages were not included. What Kraus called the “Mondragone catalogue” was in reality a pair of lists of books stored in the Villa Torlonia in Castel Gandolfo.
Also, Beckx had nothing to do with all this. He died decades before the hidden collection were offered for sale, and this sale was out of financial necessity.
Coming back to what this was about: Kraus’ strange remark; already more than 20 years ago, Jim Reeds lamented that Kraus did not find anything better than to brag about his possession, rather than use the occasion to obtain some useful information from Ruysschaert.
Diane, yes, I share your bewilderderment at the lack of a catalog or shelf number on the Ms. Thank you for that history, and for replying to me. Very interesting stuff.
Rene, by “geeky”, I meant thorough in the knowledge of a subject, and expositive in its display. It can be expressed as a bad thing. Not in your case. That Kraus exchange is on your website? I did not see it. i will look.
A question. I am reading about this ex-libris bookplate supposedly from Beckx. New to me and I have been studying it a long time. Never seen it, and I have been studying it a long time. As far as I know, no such thing exists, yet it’s on the Voynich Wikipedia page.
Thanks for replying guys. I was feeling lonesome here.
I am guessing the bookplate in question is one that might be on the manuscript from the examples here on Rene’s site, though none exists on the VMs. It could be on a missing page, though that is certainly conjecture. I think the passage on the wikipedia page could be better written to express this as it seemss unclear.
http://Voynich.nu/extra/socjesu.html#escape
Also, Rene does have the text I posted in a footnote. He believes Ruysschaert had a failing memory. Not impossible. It se3ms to me to be a curiously short passage for an astonishing bit of forgetfulness.
So where would the Voynich be now if it wasn’t sold to an outside buyer?
Matt, the problem is that we don’t know exactly what Kraus asked him, nor what Ruysschaert answered exactly.
We don’t even know which language they used to talk to each other and how well they would have understood each other. I think that German could be more likely than English.
Kraus was certainly having memory problems when writing about it in 1967, because he got the year wrong. Also, one of his co-travellers had a very different version of the event.
Mark: we can only guess. I am not so sure that this MS would have ended up in the Vatican, because they might not be interested in buying it. It does not seem to fit in any of their collections. In that case, it would have gone back to the Jesuit archives in the Gregorian, and we might not have known of its existence.
Mark Knowles: my best guess would be, with a close decendant relative on the matriarchal side of the Boole family that created it; and in whose possession it might have remained if Anne Nill hadn’t have fobbed it off to a gullible patsy in Herr Krause (no self respecting dealer would touch it) be my biased opinion.
Hey Rene, very interesting indeed. I’ve been around as you know almost as long as you, so this thing has been a thing for that long. Jim Reeds was the first person I know who called attention to it, as he was with so many things. Not trying to hinder your very good work at all. i think we are probably in agreement about most things; you know a lot that I obviously don’t. I know your website enough, though you update fairly often. That Kraus passage obviously has room for interpretation, though kind of a bombshell for those that have never heard about it.
John Sanders here and I are bros in the idea that an alternate theory might be found with our friends Ethel, Wilfred, and Sidney Reilly perhaps maybe being involved in something potentially unscrupulous, though John can obviously speak for himself. Your own research has hit an impasse.
I have always wondered about maybe the “sexual” nature of the manuscript. People have passed it off as innocent, or you know, “well that’s not what they mean”. I am not so sure. Maybe there is some perversion there. Maybe a lot. Whatever one thinks about the Kraus meeting, it did happen, and its not out of line to wonder about it.
Then again, it could be some other less prurient thing, like “women’s issues”.
In the beginning, I seriously wondered about such an alternative theory with Wilfrid. It was one of the reasons why I wanted to know more about the details of his acquisition, but also the earlier history of the MS. If the thing is a modern fake, no such history exists and one should not be able to find anything. Indeed, when D’Imperio represented the state of our knowledge, there was basically nothing.
Fortunately, there was a lot to be discovered, for both episodes. Especially for the more recent events, a great amount of independent evidence could be found, and my research into this has not reached an impasse – it has reached a dead end. The research into the “Wilfrid did it”, that is.
There will remain people who still believe it, but then there are people who believe lots of other things that can be equally excluded. And believing does not require knowledge or facts. That is the whole point about believing.
No problem with that.
And yes, I had lots of outstanding changes to several web pages, which I have been fixing in recent days. Especially the ‘Mondragone’ page basically needed a complete re-write, which is now largely fnished (until there is more news).
Matt,
The thing is, when you come down to it that there’s no incontrovertible evidence at all. The evidence-trail ends with the manuscript’s presumably reaching Kircher in the late 1660s, and picks up again when Voynich buys the manuscript.
Rene has offered various possible chains of events over the years – I haven’t kept up to date and apologise for that. The first version I saw involved the book being stolen by Jesuits from Rudolf’s library the most recent version that it had been stored by the Vatican, but both involved Beckx, I think. So, if I have it right, this last revision of the hypothesis omits both Beckx and the Vatican?
Anyway, I do recall that at some stage, very early in my own involvement in the study (so about 13 yrs ago), I saw some photos of the trunk and/or Beckx’ labels.
I think Rene’s latest revised hypothesis leaves too many factors unaddressed. No doubt he thinks the same of mine. But before 1912 it’s all best-guess stuff really, and whether expressed with an air of last-and-final-opinion or not, the bottom line is that unless or until some hard and relevant evidence turns up, we don’t know. Btw – I dont’ agree that there’s much in the manuscript that’s intended to titillate. Only some late, dark-ink additions that make those images unpleasant – otherwise, it’s all in the mind of the beholder whether one sees a
poor form of unclothed figures after the classical style or ‘images of naked women’.
This: “The first version I saw involved the book being stolen by Jesuits from Rudolf’s library the most recent version that it had been stored by the Vatican, but both involved Beckx, I think.” is again completely wrong.
People who are interested in evidence-based information rather than “thoughts” should visit my web site. No need for me to copy that information here. There’s a search page, so one could search for “Mondragone”, “Beckx” etc. etc.
Matt is right in implying that there is perhaps more information than strictly needed…
Rene,
When I first read the bit in Kraus, about the “Cipher Manuscript” , I thought that this exchange was not just a bureaucratic one. R. had seen it and knew what it looked like, and somehow just thought it was still there. Kraus was kind of saying “whoops, I guess not buddy, how about that?”. I thought Krauses commentary was more pointed in this regard. This is an opinion from someone who is very un connnected to the whole religio-manuscript antiquity “scene”. I thought he was kind of needling them a little. Kraus really never had to say anything about it at all. He just decided to. I think it would have benefitted everyone if he was more verbose. His brevity spoke volumes. Ruysschaert here is presented as an out of touch fool. How could he not know about it having been in multiple papers and articles? Whether he had poor memory, or poor English. Even then the manuscript was probably the one of most recognized things in that business. Do you guys disagree?
That aside, does anyone at the Vatican know anything about it _now_, that has not previously come to light? tick tick tick. There are only so many summers, and so many springs.
Matt: “does anyone at the Vatican know anything about it _now_, that has not previously come to light?”
Yes indeed, and quite recently too. The paper written end 2022 appeared in April 2023 and features quite prominently at the relevant sections at my web site. This can be found using the above-mentioned search.
Executive summary: correspondence between the Jesuits, the prefect of the Vatican library and the secretary of the Pope detailing what, where, when and for how much. And that it had to remain a secret.
Diane, I missed this when you said it, but I guess I don’t think Kraus was bragging.
Your info on Brother Beckx was well received by me, as it speaks to the potential scope of the possible research, as well as addressing the fact we are talking about human beings, who even in high office face life’s viccitudes, and can have their feelings hurt, dilemmas about where they will live, everything.
Also, the nature of the Ms, which we are told in a very valuable letter for histories sake, that it may have been created by Roger Bacon. Bacon was a Franciscan, and I can well believe it could be stored by the Jesuits if they sensed that whoever wrote it might be a Franciscan somehow.
This idea spans both the history of the orders, and their squabbling over territory in the East. There is still the idea that it might have a Chinese base text that it was encrypted from or some similar intermediate. It is not impossible it could have modern nation state implications.
Everyone should remember it is very easy to talk past each other when one is actively calculating their own ideas, while trying to keep up with the conversation.
I should take time to point out our friend HP Kraus had a biographical documentary made of him on CSPAN here in the states.
Rene,
In what sense you mean ‘bogus’ is not clear. If one sense, I’d agree with you.
I can even quote the sentence – it came after a lovely if fantastic tale about the wars, and the devastation of Rudolf’s palace, described the manucript, tattered, with its pages riffled (that may not have been the word) by the smoke-filled air of battle. And part of the same story said.. and I quote “Jesuits probably stole it.” That was the phase where you still put Horckicky front and centre – it was the first version I read at your site.. so about 2010-12, I guess.
The sentence struck me so forcibly, I actually quoted it in one of my own posts – but to be charitable, I’m not sure I could remember every sentence of every post I’ve ever written, so let’s put it down to failing memory – cheers.
Rene, very interesting. I think I will look at it when I am more attentive. It clearly opens my eyes to why Yale might have made such an effort to convey Ethel’s thoughts and words so prominently on their facsimile.
I was and am however curious if anyone can explain why the Jesuits felt the need to pass the manuscript on through the centuries, so quietly, when perhaps more important looking things probably got thrown out. Why wouldn’t Kircher, or anyone, leave notes… or an outline… or a book, explaining what they felt was it’s importance? It was obviously very valuable to Rudolf, though that value seems to have diminished vastly and increased vastly over time. Bacon was (and still technically is) (to some) an outcast! I think at some point somebody did a big fat “Oops!”. I am just curious when this happened and why. And what the darn thing is.
One day my wife came home from work telling me an employee was sacked in her company due to Benford’s law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law
The company ran an Excel application to perform a Benford check on the till takings. When they found anomalies they put a camera above the till to watch the takings being counted and found the culprit.
“In 1972, Hal Varian suggested that the law could be used to detect possible fraud in lists of socio-economic data submitted in support of public planning decisions. Based on the plausible assumption that people who fabricate figures tend to distribute their digits fairly uniformly, a simple comparison of first-digit frequency distribution from the data with the expected distribution according to Benford’s law ought to show up any anomalous results”.
” … a lovely if fantastic tale about the wars, and the devastation of Rudolf’s palace, described the manucript, tattered, with its pages riffled (that may not have been the word) by the smoke-filled air of battle. And part of the same story said.. and I quote “Jesuits probably stole it.” That was the phase where you still put Horckicky front and centre … ”
It took me a while to place this in some context.
Interestingly, perhaps the single aspect of Voynich’s account of the history of the MS that has not changed, as there is no new evidence that I am aware of, is the ownership transition from Rudolf to Jacobus Horcicky / de Tepenec. It was either given to him, or he took it. If he took it, this would have been after Rudolf’s death.
Both options have always been open to me, and still are.
Now Horcicky was no Jesuit. The first Jesuit that ever owned the MS was Kircher, from 1665 onwards. That any Jesuit stole it from Rudolf was never part of the storyline, mine or anybody else’s.
What you are describing looks most like a scene from the Austrian documentary of 2009.
By the way, Diane has now, in three successive posts, made statements about what I have supposedly said, written, or thought in the past. I never asked her to speak on my behalf, and I can only recommend people to ignore such statements. I will do so too.
I think that the orginal question related to Kraus has been looked at from various angles, and we cannot really understand what either he or Mgr. Ruysschaert were thinking…
I had hoped to learn more from the published account of this trip, printed the next year, but while it was an interesting read and taught me a few things, it did not really help. An option that is still open is the archive holding Ruysschaerts personal archive, which is not the Vatican, but the “Fondazione Ezio Franceschini” in Florence.
Looking there is probably a long shot and it hardly seems worth doing, for what we are trying to learn. Of course, it undoubtedly contains highly interesting material on more deserving topics.
Rene,
Voynich studies, Rudolf/no Rudolf isn’t about your self-esteem – it’s about an old manuscript and about historical evidence.
Being quoted – being argued with – is meat-and-drink to most scholars. It’s half the fun of the thing.
Besides, it’s so helpful to have people help refine ideas in that way.
Of course, if you can’t defend the material you’ve produced, you can back off. But not by ‘playing deaf’, being plain ill-mannered and… what’s worse – presuming to instruct other people – independent minds – to do the same. That’s really not done.
Diane, what you say sounds does sound juicy for sure, not that I believe any of it! I am guessing where it comes from might be the idea that one of the potential sources of the manuscript going (back?) to Rudolf might have been Sweden. Swedish forces plundered his castle during the Battle of Prague and took the spoils back home. Now Rene lists this (I am pretty sure) as one, along with several others, of the potential source to Rudolf with the 600 ducats mentioned in the Marci letter.
So to summarize, the Vms may have been with Rudolf originally (where he got it from, unclear) plundered by Swedish forces during the 30 years war, and then returned via courier. Maybe. Rene lists other sources here not involved in this theory on his site. It is very convoluted. Keep in mind this all would have happened before it ever got to Kircher.
The documentary is called in America “The Voynich Code”. I own it on Amazon. There is nothing in it about the castle theory that I recall.
I realized just now my timeline of the last comment doesn’t make much sense. I was trying to puzzle out what Diane said and drifted into the abyss. I do recall reading on Rene’s site (I thought)something about the Battle of Prague and plunders being a source of the Ms at some point. According to Wikipedia, Marci distinguished himself there. My timeline however is just screwy, and I apologize.
Though my knowledge of European history may be a little wanting, my understanding of its ownership is I think fairly good.
What is your guys favorite appellation of that Jacobus fellow? Is it Horcicky as is the current trend? Or Tepenez like I first learned? What about Sinapius? Any fans there?
I doubt, but do wonder if Jacob was ever put in the quite unenviable position of saying… “like he—-lllllllllllllooo” this is *mine*. Or ourrrrrrrs man!
Or what about that name Athanasius Kircher. The man has *five* syllables in his first name.
What could his nickname possibly have been? I vote annie. Though it’s a girl’s name.
If anyone thinks it has been smooth sailing on this side of the Atlantic with this thing, it has not been. I can’t ever forget when asking Robert Babcock(I believe) over the phone, this is when we still had the crap photocopy, “What is this thing….Causes Dericci??” “Census Dericci”, his voice oozing with annoyance. Maybe they have someone there for this now. I still would not call them.
Maybe Kraus experienced this same kind of arrogance. I am not saying you should be loud and aggressive, ever. But you know when teachers say “there’s no such thing as a bad question”. Don’t believe them.
I’m bring my issues up now on this thread, because you know, Statistically, I think Nick just said he was throwing in the towel. Is that right Nick?
Diane, my ego bows to yours.
Matt,
For mine – no need for apology. I’m still waiting for some evidence that anyone ever believed the Mnishovsky rumour before Wilfrid did. And that reported rumour, unsupported by the man who spoke of it, finds no reflection that I’ve yet heard of in any of the surviving records of that time. Not in the letter Kircher wrote after receiving the copies sent to him; not during all the years when Baresch was studying it, and mutual friends were trying to encourage Kircher to ‘solve it’ (he plainly couldn’t), and nothing in the remaining records from Rudolf’s library or accounts – I say the last with due respect to the chap who delivered a paper at the 2022 zoom conference. If you’re trying to create a fantasy time-line, well.. knock yourself out. The impression I recall receiving at the time was that Rene and possibly Rafal were keen to imagine the manuscript had belonged to the Hapsburgs already.. or had always been a possession of western emperors or something.. and the ‘tattered, fluttering pages’ scenario was set against the backdrop of the Thirty Years’ War.
It’s perfectly true that Rudolf’s palace was invaded and his treasures rifled during those turbulent years. The hard nut is that there’s no historical evidence worth a bean that Rudolf ever owned the ms. At best that rumour deserves a footnote as record of an odd moment, and I daresay if Wilfrid hadn’t made it the final peak of his story of social ascent, that’s all we’d find said today. Not even Newbold (who was a trained historian and a good researcher) believed it. He went along with the other parts of Wilfrid’s tale – Bacon, Dee carrying it to Prague.. but he imagined it taken as present for Rudolf’s gardener… or someone of that class. I think Horcicky either bought it, was given it by the pharmacist to whom he was apprenticed, or found it in the library of the Jesuit community among whom he grew up, by whom he was provided with a ‘laboratory’ and so on. But that’s speculation to. Bottom line is that history doesn’t relate.
That’s my take on the question. Obviously there are other points of view.
Matt: I’m not throwing in the towel any time soon, but to be fair I’m also not jumping up and down with excitement at any of the hemi-demi-semi-leads currently in play.
Currently, most of what I’m doing Voynich-wise is trying to formulate better & more revealing questions. For example, I have a hundred working theories about how certain aspects of Voynichese work, but how can any of these be tested, and how could a positive test result be framed to yield any response from other Voynich researchers beyond merely ‘meh’?
Diane, next time how about trying “I’m sorry, it was a long time ago and I must have misunderstood” ?
Tavi – if I should think so, I should say so. I have no difficulty course-correcting when it’s needed. My blog isn’t called ‘Voynich revisionist’ for nothing. 😀
About Voynichese. For what it’s worth, and that’s not much since I’m no cryptanalyst, palaeographer or specialist in comparative historical linguistics, but I’m coming to an idea that the script is (as many have suspected) one created for a purpose, and while I think the purpose of using it in the Vms could be to conceal technical-commercial or even perhaps diplomatic secrets as others have suggested, I’m more inclined to think it a conventional ‘alphabet’ designed to record the sounds of language(s) whose formal script(s) and orthographies the person(s) who used it would not have the time, or the opportunity to learn. An effort at a universal phonetic alphabet, used much as we use romanisation today, but with more allowance made for sounds not in the users’ primary alphabet. I’m quite certain I cannot be the first person to think about that possibility. Friedman suggested something not too dissimilar and I think Tiltman seemed to agree, sort of. But then you come back to Nick’s problem – how could you test it? Just look what happened when Latins (for example) tried to render what they heard as proper names in Arabic, or what happens if you try to process a strong Scots accent to English subtitles in a youtube video. Or, for a really extreme example, look at the difference between spoken and written Irish 🙂