For me, there’s something wonderfully apposite about the “Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian” exhibition currently downstairs at the Sainsbury wing of the National Gallery in London. Having just read and reviewed the revised (2006) edition of David Hockney’s “Secret Knowledge” book, the opportunity of looking really up close at some of the key pictures on Hockney’s [...] Read more »
Peter Marshall’s (2006) “The Mercurial Emperor: The Magic Circle of Rudolf II in Renaissance Prague” takes a sideways look at everyone’s favourite mad Holy Roman Emperor, by using those around him as a kind of slightly wonky mirror. The choice of who makes the cut is a bit arbitrary in places: John Dee (who never came close to [...] Read more »
I recently stumbled across a forum discussion comparing the Voynich Manuscript to the “Maybrick Diary” (oh, and the Vinland Map, too) inasmuch as they are all high profile documents that have been dubbed fakes or hoaxes. James Maybrick was a Victorian cotton merchant from Liverpool high up the ludicrously long list of people variously accused of being Jack the Ripper, as well [...] Read more »
People don’t generally know a lot about Tycho Brahe, which is a shame. In most accounts of the history of astronomy, his bright star tends to get eclipsed by the twin 17th century supernovae of Kepler and Galileo. But scratch the surface of the story, and it’s really not that simple…
Brahe was a Danish nobleman with a [...] Read more »
Alchemy arguably dates back to Alexandria, and there are many alchemical manuscripts dating through to the 13th and 14th century (though Lynn Thorndike noted that the 15th century was something of a fallow period). However, the modern organization The International Alchemy Guild traces its practical roots back to what was going in 16th century Bohemia, [...] Read more »
Google only finds about ten pages where Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501-1577) is linked with the Voynich Manuscript. Here’s a short research note to fill that gap…
If you look at Mattioli’s CV, you’ll see plenty of echoes with other people linked to the VMs. Though a renowned herbal compiler & writer in his spare time, he [...] Read more »
While writing my MBA dissertation a few years ago, I spun off a short paper called “Justified True Belief: Three Words, Three Lies?“, where the abstract explained its title:-
Cornelius Castoriadis once famously described the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as “four words, four lies”: here, I examine each of the three words of “justified true [...] Read more »
Well, you can’t say I’m not looking ahead. News reaches my ears of a lavish Voynich documentary being made by the ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) “Universum” Natural History Unit and Pro Omnia Film & Video Promotion GmbH, in association with “ARTE, ZDF and the Smithsonian Network“.
Now we’ve got past the broadcasting acronym jungle, what is [...] Read more »
Would having “Expert on the Voynich Manuscript” on your CV significantly raise your perceived intellectuality (i.e. an extra ten grand per year on your salary)? It would? Then read on, and I’ll reveal the secret two-stage process that They don’t want you to find out…
Stage One. You start out by pretending to be a Voynich [...] Read more »
My fellow Voynich old-timer Jan Hurych has long been interested in various Prague-linked research strands: after all, Prague was home to the first three properly-documented owners of the Voynich Manuscript (Jacobus de Tepenecz, Georg Baresch, and Johannes Marcus Marci), as well as its most illustrious claimed owner (Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II).
It is certainly true [...] Read more »
