I can’t quite remember why it ended up like this…

Thanks very much for adding your notes on Dr Monnich’s article here: as a general rule, the pharma pages seem to have received the least amount of critical attention over the years, so it is at least a good nudge in our general direction to take a fresh look at them. Can you recall anyone making a concerted attempt to match up pharma pictures with the herbal pictures? While there are a handful of strikingly positive matches to be found, my own impression was that these were in the minority.

Cheers, …Nick Pelling…

Based on the overall consistent and elaborate construction of the MS, he
is not much in favour of the hoax theory.
He writes that more analysis of the plant illustrations (style) is
warranted. He considers them as not drawn from nature. He rejects the
identification of the Sunflower and Pepper. He finds the plant
drawings more reminiscent of some of the older herbal MSS kept in
UK libraries, although a clear correspondence with the various pseudo-
Apuleius MSS cannot be found. He notes that the root systems in the
Voynich MS appear quite consistent with those MSS.
He does not agree with the classification by Toresella as an alchemical
herbal, since there are far too few cases of faces and animals hidden
in the root systems.

He agrees that the phameceutical jars really do look like early
microscopes, but also that this is chronologically very difficult.
He sees pharmaceutical jars.

He also finds it significant, that many whole plants are found back
in the pharma section, occasionally repeated down to some detail.

As the Geschichte der Pharmazie article is from 2008, I’d guess that the chances of there being anything else of great substance in his 2007 paper are fairly slim. Ah well – all the same, I hope you found time to enjoy the Wellcome Library’s painting of John Dee exercising his allegedly necromantic mojo.

Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….

Though I’d be somewhat surprised if a pharmacy historian looking at the VMs’ pharma section ended up seeing microscopes , it has to be a good thing that he was looking across to current Voynich research – let’s hope René is able to get hold of his paper(s) and in due course lets us know what it says / they say.

Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….

I forgot about this until I read his name in your post. Of course I would be very interested in reading a summary if you can find a copy, and the time, to report back… Rich.

René