Voynich theory roundup…
Even though the Internet would appear to be full of Voynich theories, Tardis-like there’s always room for just a few more: so here are some recent ones for you to feast upon. Today’s mission, should you choose to accept it, is simply to try to categorise them: satirical, apparently deranged, serious, April Foolery, brilliant, channeled, etc.
- Well-known Internet palaeographer (and Australian donkey-owning grandmother) Dianne Tillotson has a theory that the VMs was written by one Leonard of Quim.
- Online Shakespearean theorist Franz Gnaedinger has raised Richard SantaColoma’s theory to dizzying new heights: he believes the VMs “was written and drawn by Francis Bacon in 1622, as a private sequel to the highly successful Nova Atlantis, written in a pseudo-Polynesian idiom allowing page-filling automatic writing, and drawn in a deliberate retro-style honoring Francis Bacon’s ancestor Roger Bacon. The text is gibberish but makes allusions.“
- Sergey K suggests (by email) a new chronology for the Voynich Manuscripts, based on some dates apparently marked in blue paint in the SW rosette: “1441 dates of the making of the Voynich MS. 1574 JOHN DEE has bought the Voynich MS. 1597 (in this place my monitor very dirty) August. The Year and month when Edward Kelley has finished the painter (colouring) of the book and run out from the prison.“
- Chy Po, who has been studying the VMs for many decades, believes that “The sketches are Red Herrings & have nothing to do with the text, however they tell a tale of their own cautioning people not to be misled“, while the text is in “a Secret almost extinct language, perhaps impossible to crack as it is a variation of a One Time Pad.” However, “the name of this language is known to very few who guard it jealously, but even is was made public it would be of no help without those exact pages of the Pad which obviously cannot exist still. I have strong suspicions that it is a copy of an handwritten book called “v**z H******g’ very few copies of which exist to be passed on to the next worthy disciple, if no one is deemed to be worthy then that particular copy is destroyed.“
Here, the satirical is clearly (1) [Leonard of Quim is an Ankh-Morpork character], the April Foolery is (3) [thanks for that, Sergey], while (2) bravely outdoes his virtual mentor Rich SantaColoma by a whole order of magnitude. As for Chy Po, perhaps the answer to the VMs, when it eventually arrives, will indeed fit this kind of “concealed secret language” template, who knows? But as to whether the book in question is called “vuoz Habsburg” (or whatever), you’ll have to work out for yourself.
Really, who would be me? Some days, I have to admit that not even I would be me.
April 5th, 2010 at 3:06 am
Hi Nick. You write:
I would personally change that to “diverged drastically from Richard SantaColoma’s theory”. Mr. Gnaedinger was intrigued by various elements of my theories, but then went into an entirely different direction with them. Some of the players remain the same, but in different roles completely. Whether or not his ideas constitute “dizzying new heights”, or “abysmal new lows”, would be subjective. Of course since we are both about 180+ years past sheepacide, it’s probably a moot point how much or how little we differ in our ideas… but nonetheless, there is no similarity between our ideas at all. Rich.
April 5th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Hi Nick! Franz Gnaediger is a regular denizen of sci.lang. ISTR he discussed the VMs there, and you can see his many other interesting ideas there if you wish, as well as on the rest of his site.
April 6th, 2010 at 2:37 am
Rich: raised, lowered, advanced, regressed – ultimately it’s all evolution from what you originally proposed, and I didn’t really mean to imply any kind of value judgment beyond that.
Dennis: Franz Gnaedinger does indeed have too many interesting ideas for this small terabyte margin to satisfactorily contain.
April 6th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
The top line in blue paint in the picture above rather clearly says RZ to me…
April 10th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Well Rene, that’s because you can’t see the difference between “RZ” and “RSC”… but I forgive you.
April 14th, 2010 at 11:12 am
While Nick seems to be having a rest – take a look at this copy I made from a late 15th century herbal (MS 336 f.11) in the Wellcome Library –
[IMG]http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii112/tony59b/scan0002.jpg[/IMG]
What do you see?
It’s the cornerstone of my latest half baked theory which can be found here –
http://www.aerobushentertainment.com/crypto/index.php
Incidentally – when you’ve finished laughing – I came across another MS that passed through Voynich’s hands – MS 623 in the Wellcome Library – bound in thick wooden blocks, inside of which is written –
‘PATEARIUS (Johannes)
Practica brevis de cura egnitudium
TABULAE remedicorum Salunitanas
[Early 14th century}’
In the bottom corner is ‘Voynich 19/10/10 (the middle 10 has been altered from or to 11)
& the princely sum of ‘£38’ is in there as well!
April 15th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by JohnE. JohnE said: Voynich theory roundup… http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2010/04/04/voynich-theory-roundup #voynich #vms [...]
April 19th, 2010 at 9:21 am
Hello Tony,
well drawn! It is possible to see a small version of the page through the Wellcome library image gallery and search:
http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/
Rene
April 19th, 2010 at 9:28 am
By the way, here’s the same plant in the famous ‘Manfredus’ herbal preserved in Paris. It dates from the first half of the 14th C and originates from S. Italy:
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Mandragore&O=08008418&E=1&I=114302&M=imageseule
April 20th, 2010 at 8:09 am
Rene
Would you agree with my assumption that the root on VM f.2 must have been copied from MS 336 f.11 or that both were copied from the same image in some other herbal?
What did you type in to find it on the Wellcome images page – I can’t find it there.
Tony
April 20th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Also a middle 15th c. herbal without illustrations titled Platearius (Matthaeus) MS625 has an alphabet down the right hand margin just like VM f.1 – this appears on every page and it’s purpose in conjunction with a number inserted between the alphabets is to form an index for ‘recipes’ appearing on the last pages.
April 20th, 2010 at 9:05 am
Tony: there is no question in my mind that the VMs was created by someone consciously aware of (and probably even fully conversant with) medieval European herbals. And yes, it would seem to be almost certain that f2v is depicting nenufar[o] / the water lily. However, I’m really not sure that this gives you sufficient, ummm, ‘stemmatic leverage’ to connect the VMs to MS 336 (or to some mutual predecessor).
It might make a little more sense to find out what nenufar was actually used for: Galen thought it was a “cool” herb, so used it to counteract fevers. If you’re at the BL soon-ish, “nenufar” is also mentioned in a Lynn Thorndike article I have not seen: “Some minor medical works of the Florentine Renaissance”, Isis, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Feb., 1927), pp. 29-43. The JSTOR page is here: http://www.jstor.org/pss/224170 There may well be something of interest there, Thorndike is normally good value for money.
Nenufar also apparently appears in Arnaldus de Villa Nova’s (1499) Tractatus de virtutibus herbarum, etc.
Incidentally, the British Museum also sells a range of historically-inspired perfumes (The Scents of Time, “As Seen On Dragons Den”), one of which is called “Nenufar”. But I suspect this may owe more to the Ancient Egyptians’ floral palette than to anything from the Quattrocento. Just so you know!
April 20th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Tony, the search term on the Mandragora search page is ‘nuphar’. It will turn up quite large number of illustrations of this plant, mostly from copies of the ‘Livres des simples (medecines)’. This herbal tradition is one of two branches that originate from the South Italian ‘Tractatus de Herbis’, of which the Manfredus I quoted is one of the earliest.
You will see some variety in the way the root is drawn. I would also hesitate to link the Voynich MS to WMS 336, though there are some more pictorial similarities, especially in the roots.
If you have a chance to browse a facsimile of Egerton MS 747, do go for it. The Wellcome is likely to have a copy. It is the oldest surviving copy of the ‘Tractatus de Herbis’ tradition, the Manfredus being the second oldest. This was the main herbal tradition that flourished when the VMs was written, and the alchemical herbals are very closely associated with it.
April 20th, 2010 at 10:15 am
Oops, I answered the wrong question there.
On the Wellcome search page you should enter ‘WMS336′ as search term.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Nick
I do not believe the VM is in cipher or a lost language – as you say its author was aware of medieval herbals and has drawn on these for his fanciful illustrations – I think he probably drew upon the text as well and manipulated it in some simple, fanciful fashion which is why it looks like a language containing ‘notae communes’ etc. –
There are many images from other herbals which are very similar (particularly the roots) – but this Nenufar image looks the best for comparison ‘the ayes have it!’ for me – I think only by comparing the text accompanying a plant with the text he copied it from will we be able to see what he did. So if anyone can point out any other images of Nenufar (or Illioris/illiboris/illiodris the one with 2 faces in the root) with accompanying text it may help.
I have read many wild theories surrounding the VM (I even saw someone on video once doing a bit of origami looking for a solution!) but as much as some may wish it to be a comprehensive encyclopedia of all lost knowledge I see no evidence of it – merely someone copying bits from here & there.
As for what Nenufar was actually used for – one of its applications was as a cure for alopecia!!
Rene
I’ve seen Egerton 747 and the ‘herbal family tree’ given in ‘The Illustrated Herbal’ and another work on herbals in Italian who’s name eludes me at the moment – the first only gives MS’s up to 1300, the latter goes up to 1500 but only gives 15 MS’s for the 15th century – The Wellcome Library alone has over 30 herbals (a few of a very poor standard, one even managed to draw a plant upside down!), there must be many more in other libraries – it is amongst these lesser known ones that the answer may lie.
Quote – “This was the main herbal tradition that flourished when the VMs was written” –
I thought we still didn’t know when the VM was written – only when the vellum was made?
Tony
April 20th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Through my eyes, Voynichese looks the diametric opposite of “fanciful”, in that it is spare, logical and highly ordered – one might even say “stripped-down”. I don’t doubt that some aspects of it will prove to be based around simple steganographic manipulation (for example, “4o” might well turn out to be a stego’ed version of “lo”), but I think the stats point very much towards an actual cipher, regardless of whether or not we can read it.
But still, you know all this already, and you don’t need anyone’s permission to carry on just as you are, so… keep on trucking, I guess.
April 21st, 2010 at 8:07 am
Tony,
Minta Collins also does not really go into the 15th Century, and she makes the following statement:
“The number and variety of herbal manuscripts surviving from the 15th Century precludes detailed individual description. Toresella counted 193 surviving 15th century herbals, i.e. 67 more than the 136 enoumerated for the whole of the preceding nine centuries.”
I also believe that the Voynich artist must have seen examples of herbal manuscripts. The coincidence of him drawing elements which also appear in these, by chance, is simply too great. The Voynich plants really look like composites, where the individual elements are quite ‘normal’ but they just don’t belong together.
A very typical example is f15v. The four leaves point towards Herba Paris (also one of the alchemical herbs – No. 22) while the elements on the top of the flower are found with other plants (see e.g. Sloane 4016 f77v).
W.r.t. “writing of the VMs” I was lazy and left out the words “most probably”.
My pet theory of the year is the ‘ignorant scribe’ theory – that the MS was copied from a draft by someone who could actually not understand it. I’ve found a remarkable piece of evidence for this (not proof
) which I will soon present on my web site.
April 21st, 2010 at 8:18 am
Rene: as you know, I’ve long suspected that the VMs was first enciphered on wax tablets and passed off to a scribe to write down, and I recently posted an estimate here of how often that (presumably very bored) scribe made copying mistakes. Any more evidence relating to this part of the process would hence be particularly interesting, looking forward to seeing it!
April 21st, 2010 at 8:57 am
Rene
thanks for that -
for ‘ignorant scribe’ I would substitute ‘child’
April 21st, 2010 at 9:02 am
Tony: people can be so ignorant scribeish, can’t they?
April 21st, 2010 at 11:02 am
I can’t believe that this is the work of a child. The penmanship is simply too expert. The writing is occasionally very tiny, and this requires a lot of training. This is not my opinion, but I got this straight from a Yale conservator.
Jorge Stolfi also proposed that the colouring (which is indeed very clumsy) could have been done by a child (or partly), but also here I have my doubts, because there are other MSS where the painting has been done rather clumsily. At least that has been written by two authors, referring to two of the alchemical herbals namely Paris BN Lat 17844 and Florence MS 106.
Both are exceedingly interesting MSS, by the way, especially the Forence MS. Once you have seen these, you are no longer impressed by supposed similarities of Asian plant drawings with the VMs, as was recently suggested in the mailing list…
The Florence MS is on parchment, which has the same size and quality as the Voynich MS. Essentially all other herbals are larger.
On this hint about the ‘ignorant scribe’ theory, I might as well summarise it here. It appears from the pharma section, with the exception of fol. 101 (r and v) which appears to be incomplete.
All ‘containers’ are labelled. The label is sometimes written inside, sometimes below or above. But what about fol. 88 (esp. 88r)? Here the containers are not labelled, it seems. At the same time, near the plant parts there is one label too many. The container label has been misplaced. I cannot imagine the page designer or original author making such a mistake. A scribe making a copy could have easily done this, though. Fol.100r needs another close look as well…
To what extent this shows that the scribe could not understand the text is a different question…
April 21st, 2010 at 11:58 am
Here’s a nice sample page from BN Lat 17844, showing the sloppy painting. Note that it is a paper MS. The MS is from the 2nd half of the 15th C and from Northern Italy.
There are various annotations in Hebrew, the scribble in the upper left corner is a Hebrew folio number. The plant name is translated in Hebrew and there are Hebrew colour annotations as well.
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Mandragore&O=08101768&E=50&I=123769&M=imageseule
April 21st, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Rene: nice find! The right-shifted label at the top left of f88r is indeed a subtle anomaly that would be consistent with the copyist’s being a different person from the author/encipherer. f100r does also (as you flagged) appear to be mislabelled, but the labelling pattern does rather break down around there, so we need to tread carefully.
Also, I just noticed that the “8″ at the top left of the page facing f88r has its heavy down-stroke mirrored from the folio number on f88r, which suggests to me that it might be a contact transfer. Perhaps the foliator reinked his/her quill between the two eights, causing one to be dry and the other wet?
April 21st, 2010 at 2:29 pm
When you spoke to the Yale conservator, was he wearing a monocle? – “expert penmanship”! – more like the excellent eyesight of a child – consider also the minute detail in some of the drawings.
I would not call the painting in the VM clumsy by any means – admittedly it is not that of an artist – but I have seen far worse in other herbals.
I agree the misplaced labels show the child/scribe was not familiar with the subject.
April 21st, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Tony: I believe it was Jorge Stolfi who first suggested the involvement of a neat & tidy “light painter” and a sloppy-handed “heavy painter”. For example, the pale yellow roots and green leaves on f6r seems to have been painted by quite different people, using quite different paint ingredients (I’d suggest organic and inorganic respectively), and very possibly at different times and for quite different reasons.
April 21st, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Nick
Maybe he tried a different brush here – maybe the mix was too thick – maybe both
but I think he regretted letting his younger sibling have a go on this page!!
April 21st, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Tony: I’d say it was more likely to be a great-great-grandchild than a sibling.
April 21st, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Tony, to clarify, the excellent penmanship refers to the writing of the text with a quill pen on parchment. The McCrone expert fully agreed with the Yale expert and I am just an amateur but what they said makes full sense for me.
The Yale conservator was not a ‘he’ and there was no monocle
The plant drawing outlines really aren’t too bad if you ask me. What makes the plants look bad is the sloppy colouring (painting).
April 21st, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Rene, no clarification needed – contact lenses then?
May 2nd, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Dear Nick,
sorry to butt in here, but seems the appropriate topic matter to jump in on.
I am feeling most neglected that you have not torn apart my theory yet. I trust you are one of the most unbiased people looking at the VM and as such actually value your feedback – good or bad. Any areas you consider may be worth me pursuing further if I decide to continue would also be appreciated. Don’t worry about upsetting me, it has been an achievement for me to get as far as I have and produce the website, being right or wrong is secondary to the ride.
P. Han,
(Bunny)
May 2nd, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Bunny: sorry for the delay, I’ve had a whole load of irritating web infrastructure issues that have been absorbing my time over the last few days, the post on your theory is part of the backlog I’ll be working through immediately once everything is straight again…
May 13th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
thanks Nick, looking for feedback constructive or otherwise.
Debating whether any of it is worth persuing further or not, ATM retired from further research.
Sometimes I drop into London on a weekend (to persue my main interest – ancient history), so if you ever want to meet up and look at future ideas I could persue in relation to the VM, I am up for that. If my work is all junk, it would still be nice to chat in real life with a VM fan!
May 14th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Thanks for the reply Nick, I look forward to meeting lots of other Voynicians (is that the correct term?) in the summer.
July 14th, 2010 at 3:26 am
Is it possible that the scribe was expert, but ignorant of the language he was copying?