Also, back when I was on the VMs mailing list, I logged my observations on there (for example, on maiolica and countless other things): and have tried to include most of my VMs art history research post-Curse on this blog. And so there _is_ a lot of VMs art history to draw on out there, but given that it’s all very fragmentary, I understand your frustration.

Really, I’d love to write a book (or film a documentary) on the Secret Art History of the Voynich Manuscript. But given (a) that I have a family [and a mortgage] to support; and (b) that I’m still cash-negative from publishing The Curse, for which (c) I received a lot of negativity from people who very probably ought to know better, it should be reasonably clear why I’m not hurling myself into repeating the whole experience at speed.

With the honourable exception of John Grove, few Voynich researchers seem particularly interested in the page ordering (for if you happen to think it’s a hoax, why would you?): but if you try forensically de-layering the ms (as I did), you’d surely agree with me that there’s an awful lot going on.

I’d go further than that, though. I contend that any capable art historian looking at the Beinecke scans with page ordering in mind would concur with my basic conclusion: that the VMS had several owners prior to 1500, nearly all of whom were very probably unable to read a single word of it. And if you accept that argument, then you can discard 90% of the Renaissance hoax nonsense that has been written, and we can all get on with doing some proper art history, and seeing where that leads us.

My feeling is this: that until the VMs can jettison some of the “experts” who support positions that are inconsistent with the basic codicology, it will continue to be academically marginalized (wrongly, I think). Perhaps I should have stated this more emphatically in the post…

Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….

This is what interests me the most– is there one location where I can see for myself all of these “basic art historical facts and observations” that point to a specific (if broad) location and time? I would love to have a starting point from which to jump off from (even if there is only circumstantial proof for them), but everything I read in books and web sites for the Voynich Manuscript doesn’t have a section about that– it all seems too random. I have your book and have read it– is that where all the ‘relevant’ information occurs? It just seems to me that so many experts (medieval history, manuscript studies, etc.) have come up with different interpretations that I don’t see your comment to actually make sense, but if you can even just list this broad location and time and the information that points to that then that would be great.