It’s a “cock-eyed” world from my point of view. I don’t remember who taught me to read. The same person who taught me to read probably also taught me to write. Today, I suspect it was my left-handed half-sister. What’s my point, you ask? I had surgery on my “wandering” left eye when I was 6 years old. In the meantime, I was reading at the level of a 10-12 year old. I was writing in the “typical” left-hander’s “upside-down” grip on the pen. Southpaw’s usually do this to avoid smearing the freshly-written letters. When my 5-th grade teacher realized my difficulties with writing in ink, she did a VERY KIND act rather than force me into writing right-handed. She very loosely tied a sash around my waist and the crook of my left elbow. She also put Webster’s Dictionary on my desk-seat. (I was tiny–still am.)

What’s my point? Wal, I just got finished reproducing some of the Voynich botanical captioning/writings. I had no difficulty writing the VMs letters once I figured out the starting point and direction of the first stroke or loop. Now, if I can just figure out WHAT I’m writing!

Happy New Year y’all!

But more to the point, I’d like to use this as a tag on a page about the Vms. May I?

“Even though the VMs world is full of people who seem to think that one in a million is an acceptable level of probability to be working with, please excuse me if I hold a different view”

I totally agree that anagrams should make sense, with no spare letters: but who is to say what the correct spelling of an Italian word was circa 1500? Yet historically, so many attempted Voynich decipherers have relied upon precisely this kind of uncertainty to prop up their creaky hypotheses – and it seems likely that Edith Sherwood’s recent attempt falls into this category.

I would also agree that her grasp of Italian etymology and plant history may not be quite strong enough to support her claims: your example of “Rotocalco” seems, like the example of “soia”, to be but one of many.

Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….

From the VMs’ handwriting and at history, Northern Italy circa 1450-1500 is a pretty safe bet, which is consistent with it being by Leonardo.

But that’s only reduced the odds on Leonardo’s being the author to (say) 1 in 100,000. And given that it was apparently written by a right-hander, you’d have to say that the odds are increased to (say) 1 in 1,000,000.

I would happily flag anything in Edith Sherwood’s presentation that would reduce these odds to a more manageable level of probability. But I couldn’t find any detail or argument there that did this.

Even though the VMs world is full of people who seem to think that one in a million is an acceptable level of probability to be working with, please excuse me if I hold a different view.

Fact: the VMs is written in a sophisticated, unbreakable cipher. Fact: when Leonardo wanted to encipher words, he simply transposed their syllables. A different thing entirely.

Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….

I am not a handwriting expert nor for that matter an expert on ciphers, nor 2nd century Gnosticism. I did burn several hours reading thru Edith Sherwood’s website, (it does have a poor design which does not lead you to the meat of her thesis). But she does make many valid points, more than other sites regarding alternative explanations that I have encountered.

Granted, VM is not my cup of tea, as I was looking for the Heptarchia Mystica when I came across it.

I fail to comprehend why the no one thinks LD would have used his right hand for writing as a child. As recently as 1940, my left handed father was forced to use his right hand for penmanship under threat of broken knuckles, so was my left handed mother-in-law.

As to the comment that these childish drawings are nothing like the Mona Lisa, I would agree. My original computer program produced “Hello World” and my daughter’s 8 years old art definitely lacks sophistication.

The only bit of writing Edith Sherwood really flags as Leonardo-esque (his supposed “lionardo” signature) is demonstrably not part of the original document, but was added by a later owner. The main Voynichese writing itself was done in a brisk, well-organized left-to-right manner, with pronounced and very obvious top-left-to-bottom-right downstrokes, which any palaeographer would tell you is a convincing indication of right-handedness.

There is also little or no visual continuity between any of the pictures in the VMs and any of the drawings in Leonardo’s extensive and well-documented corpus, nor between any of the subject matter to a significant degree. The nymphs are not Mona Lisa, not even close.

I’m sure Edith Sherwood is a lovely person, but my calling her theory a “load of rubbish” is somewhat overgenerous, as it allows people to think I might just be being flippant, and that it’s actually OK. It’s not OK – it’s nonsense.

I have absolutely nothing against lefties. It’s just that, for all the brilliant and interesting left-handers out there now and in history, it clearly wasn’t one who wrote the VMs.

Cheers, …..Nick Pelling…..