Comments on: Italian Voynich talks…

By: nickpelling

nickpelling — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:33:19 +0000

What I meant by the “myriad of [non-fitting] details” was the way that apparently every aspect of it you can mention (such as the drawings, the handwriting, the nymphs, the astronomy, the astrology, even the marginalia) only tangentially touches existing art historical topics. In fact, one might usefully say that the VMs seems to have been constructed orthogonally to the multiple streams recognized by art historians – which is why it so resembles outsider art.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:42:12 +0000

Hi René! On your

1) the cipher doesn’t fit anywhere historically,

Nick has given a fairly good answer: a combination of the substitution and transposition ciphers available in his time frame.

As to 2) I tend to agree with you. Or you could call it outsider art.

Cheers,
Dennis

By: Rene Zandbergen

Rene Zandbergen — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:15:38 +0000

On: “why don’t any of the myriad of details fit together, either individually or when taken
as a whole?” I have a slightly different view. For me, there are essentially two grand mysteries
in the VMs, that is, two things that just don’t fit.

These are:
1) the cipher does not fit anywhere historically
2) the herbal drawings don’t fit anywhere

All other ‘myriad of details that don’t fit’ are secondary to me, and not such big mysteries.

For (1), I would accept that we are just looking in the wrong direction, but for (2), the tempting
explanation would be that someone did something truly original at a time when everyone was doing
something else, and it wasn’t followed by anyone.

(And I still think that the MS has a provenance )

Cheers, Rene

By: Rene Zandbergen

Rene Zandbergen — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:24:17 +0000

Ah!
Some people imagine having a Voynich meeting in the Mondragone, and others just go and
do it. Good for Marcelo dos Santos! (Respect).

A pity I don’t live anywhere near it
(Also a pity I didn’t find out about it beforehand…)