it should be fairly soon indeed. I haven’t heard any news since then…

By the way, there has not been any systematic combing of archives, at least to my
knowledge

Rene

I don’t know about the list, but you certainly mentioned it in a comment here in March. You said there “a couple of months”, so I presume this is due out (in German, at least) fairly soon?

Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….

the best collection of information about the “Prague circle” is at Philip
Neal’s Voynich page: http://voynichcentral.com/users/philipneal/
behind the first two links. The material of my old web site (also linked from there)
is partly superseded. The next publication by Smolka and myself will provide some
interesting new details. I don’t remember now if I mentioned this here or in the
mailing list…

Rene

My guess is that Rene is too close to the action to say: i.e., that the Austrian TV documentary makers whom he has been advising have had their own team of diligent archive raiders combing over all the relevant document streams, and have probably uncovered several fragments to fill in the VMs’ post-1600 history (or, perhaps more likely, have found out more about the various members of the VMs’ dramatis personae.

Of course, it’s the pre-1600 (if not the pre-1500) history I’m more concerned with… but each to their own, I suppose.

Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….

As far as f1r, f17r, f66r, f116v and all the other curious marginalia go, more (and better kinds of) scans are without doubt a must. But they need to be integrated within a research programme with very specific aims, much as I described in the post.

I’d say that there are many places where I would particularly like to see multispectral or Raman scans: not only the nine-rosette page, but also f57v, some Herbal-A aiiv family letters, etc. Again, these need to be integrated within la-di-da-di-da.

Incidentally, I think Glen Claston’s suggestion that the fold on the nine-rosette disintegrated when the ms was rebound has a great deal to commend it. But that’s another story!

Joscelyn Godwin’s books are always worth a read, even if I/you don’t always agree with his iconological spin: I have a review of his in the pipeline *sigh*.

Finally: as far as Voynich dating goes, I’ve only published partial stuff on the blog – I’ll try to get round to finishing the rather more comprehensive post I’ve had in draft for the last six months.

Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….

A minor addition I would make to Nick’s list would be a 2-part request for a bit of additional imaging work to be done on the manuscript itself.

A) I would have a series of UV and IR wavelength images done of the 2 pages (1R and 116V) that we know have faded text on them to reveal any remaining details. Surely technology that is 90 years removed from Wilfred Voynich’s 1st images and subsequent chemical erasure could provide a good image if anything at all remains there to be seen.

B) I would also carefully redo the MrSID images of the 9 Rosette folio, several of the Zodiac folios and both 67R2 and 67V2. The folds and creases on these pages have bothered me since they were released — hiding details of several labels and text strings. The creases on 9 Rosette hide this as well, including portions of the diagonal structures depending off 3 of the corner Rosettes.

During their visits to Yale, both Nick and Dana Scott transcribed a bit of the hidden material on the 9 Rosette folio. This helped some (thanks again, guys!), but a detailed scan would still be immensely better.

I understand that Yale may be reluctant to put much effort into this due to the condition of the vellum or the awkwardness of doing a flat scan of something like the Rosette folio. My view is that its not going to get any better than it is right now and waiting longer may result in additioal details being permanently lost — I’m told that one of the gutters has already partially disintegrated.

On the topic of Athanasius Kircher, I’ve noted that a new book is listed on Amazon for a mid-September release called: Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World. The author is listed as Joselyn Godwin, author of an earlier favorite of mine called Athanasius Kircher: A Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge.
I doubt if there will be any “smoking guns” unveiled RE: voynichology, but Godwin is a very capable author and the scholarship of his earlier works is excellent.

Thanks,

Ernest

PS: Nick — I must have slept through the discussions about the 1450 starting point for the Voynich window “because of the presence of parallel hatching in the nine-rosette page”.

Can you point me to where these took place?

“Ever since the Barschius letter was found, new bits and pieces of information have surfaced,
and there are still more in the pipeline.”

Where should I go for the most comprehensive synopsis of these surfaced bits of information?

Thanks,

Christopher

I would prioritise things that are ‘doable’ and/or more likely to bring some result. The second part,
inevitably, is related to one’s particular take on the MS.

A problem in this is, that it is entirely possible that an answer may come from a completely
unexpected direction. In fact, I’m essentially expecting this

The order in the following is not meant to indicate priority.

Nick’s (1): marginalia: this needs to be studied in some depth by a trained paleographer,
who has experience in German and Italian handwriting from several centuries.
I’ve spoken to two relevant experts who gave some opinions that can definitely be extended
upon. This is nothing for amateurs like me…

Nick’s (6): absolutely, but whoever does it has to keep a wider view than anything that has
been done in this area so far. Ideally no assumptions should be made at the start.
Examples of assumptions that should not be made are:
- the text is meaningful
- this is a cipher system
- the text relates to the pictures
Previously made observations should be taken into account, but previously drawn conclusions
should be forgotten.

I also would like someone with a background in Arabic and other near Eastern langauges
to take a serious interst in the MS. The whole idea of someone transcribing something like that
has been barely explored.

There are now techniques for computer analysis of handwriting that could be applied to the
Voynich MS. If one looks at what is the state of our knowledge (including theories) in this
area, it is lagging behind.

Last but not least: continued study of the environment of Rudolf II and following years.
Ever since the Barschius letter was found, new bits and pieces of information have surfaced,
and there are still more in the pipeline. So far, nothing that take us back further in
time, but I think that it is possible.

Cheers, Rene

I just don’t know – why wouldn’t a codicologist want to tackle the Mount Everest of manuscripts? As long as you take it one step at a time, it should be a safe ascent.

Thanks for the praise about The Curse – I didn’t get everything in it 100% right, but I think I was at least trying to answer the right kind of questions. If only everyone else was doing broadly the same…

Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….

So why don’t these people act? Either they are simply not interested, or they believe that their efforts to answer the questions will be in vain. The latter can again be split up into two groups: those that for some reason still believe that the entire thing is a hoax, and those that are not well enough informed to deem whether their skills are sufficient or their wisdom adequate to get workin’!

Can it really be, that all that is needed is an appetizer? A document with the goal of making people interested? I think that the websites and books* already out there do a fantastic job, so what is missing?

Enjoying your blog as always,

Christopher.

* – I just finished The Curse a couple of days ago while waiting for a flight at Heathrow. What a great read! I suggest that anyone with as much as a slight interest in 15th century Italy, codicology, ciphers or even Italian architecture buy and read it.