The Voynich Ninja

They are clearly the same original photo, but with different aspect ratios. Not to mention quality.

Looks like greyscale vs true black & white?

It is not just the aspect ratio. I see no way to introduce the tilt by low-level digital processing. It must be a photo of a photo or another analog reproduction like a photographic print from a negative with an enlarger. A very badly adjusted enlarger. Speaking of which - wouldn't an enlarger and a film negative of the VM be the easiest 20th century way to make a reproduction like Fabrizio's?

(31-03-2026, 10:15 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is not just the aspect ratio. I see no way to introduce the tilt by low-level digital processing. It must be a photo of a photo or another analog reproduction like a photographic print from a negative with an enlarger. A very badly adjusted enlarger. Speaking of which - wouldn't an enlarger and a film negative of the VM be the easiest 20th century way to make a reproduction like Fabrizio's?

But really, has anyone ever seen a freehand drawing faithfully copied with identical proportions? If you come to Italy, I recommend a visit to the Accademia Albertina in Turin or the Accademia di Brera in Milan, and ask some average student artists, and you'll see that it's absolutely possible (especially for simple drawings like those in the Voynich Map). It's a classic school exercise. Using any kind of instrument comes later, but "an eye with pencil and ruler" is the foundation. Not only that, but the use of any instrument must ensure absolute fidelity to the image being copied. You can interpret the plan, but the text must be faithful if you're copying it mechanically.

I do not doubt this is possible to some very talented people, the question is - how likely is it?

The issue with your reproduction is the following:
The plant image is very closely copied from the original. The artist improved it, but the overlap is crazily accurate. Some scans / photographs of the VM have a worse overlap with each other due to not being absolutely parallel to the source than your image matches with some scans. That means your reproduction matches key points better than a sloppy photo. Why did the artist put such emphasis on this accuracy if he wasn't interested in doing a faithful copy to begin with?

The text on the other hand is not only inaccurate glyph-wise, it also varies in alignment, some parts matching perfectly while others are curved differently from all the known scans. I therefore do not believe that your reproduction was copied from one of the scans or phptographs we examined. All scans have some sort of distortion. And because it is a book and not a scan of a single page, it hass some curvature. How much depends on a lot of factors.

In my opinion, the text inaccuracies are the effect of either an imperfect source (like a bad b&W scan), or an inaccurate projection method (convex mirror). The chance that this is a free-hand copy? If you ask me, zero. Not only due the required skill, it also makes no sense from an artistic perspective. Furthermore, the projection method must have been fairly accurate.

From voynich.nu
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Are images of these reproductions accessible?

The British Library (formerly British Museum)
MS Facs 461 - Positive photocopies of ff. 1-56 of the Voynich MS.

The George C. Marshall Library in Lexington (Va.)
Item 1600 - William F. Friedman's photostatic copy of the Voynich MS
Item 1610 - Photostat positive of pages of the Voynich MS

The New York Public Library
The NY Public Library used to own a complete photostatic copy of the Voynich MS. It should still be there

There clearly were a number of copies made from the original photostats, all probably with their own distortion.

(01-04-2026, 08:51 AM)Fabrizio Salani Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But really, has anyone ever seen a freehand drawing faithfully copied with identical proportions?

What is the upper limit for the date of creation of that page?

Again, I see that page as a work of art by someone who was fascinated by the Voynich Manuscript and its story, but not enough to learn the alphabet.  He or she cared only about the looks (which explains the "beautification" of the plant), but saw the text as just "some unreadable text".

If I wanted to make that thing, I would print an image of the page on office paper, with a laser printer, making sure that the size was correct.  

Then I would rub the back of the print with a pencil, creating an improvised carbon paper.  Then I would place the paper over the vellum, and trace the outline of the plant the the characters with a pencil or ballpoint, pressing hard enough to transfer the graphite from the back side of the paper onto the vellum.

That would leave a faint reproduction of the thing on the vellum,  which I would use as a pencil sketch. I would do the plant and the text with paint and ink over that faint sketch.  Once the paint and ink were dry , I would remove any traces of the sketch with a soft eraser.

(And yes, I used this method several times in my "budding artist" years...)

This sketch would be faint and, by itself, would not be very accurate.  On the plant, that would not matter, because any artist would draw the correct shape, down to the small details.  Even more accurately than the VMS Scribe did himself. But on the characters the artist had no idea of what were the right shapes, and checking the original image at every character was too much boring work.  

Moreover, he or she did not have a quill or calligraphy pen, so he or she used a brush to draw the characters.  Which contributed to their distortions.

I think this scenario is consistent with product. In particular, with  the text block being on the right place, but individual characters being crooked.

All the best, --stolfi

(01-04-2026, 10:50 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(01-04-2026, 08:51 AM)Fabrizio Salani Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But really, has anyone ever seen a freehand drawing faithfully copied with identical proportions?

What is the upper limit for the date of creation of that page?

Again, I see that page as a work of art by someone who was fascinated by the Voynich Manuscript and its story, but not enough to learn the alphabet.  He or she cared only about the looks (which explains the "beautification" of the plant), but saw the text as just "some unreadable text".

If I wanted to make that thing, I would print an image of the page on office paper, with a laser printer, making sure that the size was correct.  

Then I would rub the back of the print with a pencil, creating an improvised carbon paper.  Then I would place the paper over the vellum, and trace the outline of the plant the the characters with a pencil or ballpoint, pressing hard enough to transfer the graphite from the back side of the paper onto the vellum.

That would leave a faint reproduction of the thing on the vellum,  which I would use as a pencil sketch. I would do the plant and the text with paint and ink over that faint sketch.  Once the paint and ink were dry , I would remove any traces of the sketch with a soft eraser.

(And yes, I used this method several times in my "budding artist" years...)

This sketch would be faint and, by itself, would not be very accurate.  On the plant, that would not matter, because any artist would draw the correct shape, down to the small details.  Even more accurately than the VMS Scribe did himself. But on the characters the artist had no idea of what were the right shapes, and checking the original image at every character was too much boring work.  

Moreover, he or she did not have a quill or calligraphy pen, so he or she used a brush to draw the characters.  Which contributed to their distortions.

I think this scenario is consistent with product. In particular, with  the text block being on the right place, but individual characters being crooked.

All the best, --stolfi

Correct, the problem is that on the parchment treated with lime, there is no trace of charcoal, graphite, or silver, and there are no grooves in the characters or the drawing (the grooves are visible on the back of the horizontal lines). The fact that the characters are not precise to the original is that, if you look carefully, for some glyphs, the writer interpreted them as characters from the Western alphabet. This happened in ancient times (so they explained to me) with copyists (both church and lay craftsmen) who, when copying manuscripts, for ease or for the sake of translation (aside from the expressly desired change of meaning—see the various secular Bibles), transformed some characters in Ancient Greek, Amharic, Coptic, Aramaic, Byzantine, or other languages into the characters they were familiar with. When I asked the reason for these differences, I was told that more than one person was involved in composing the manuscripts: some had a talent for drawing (even differentiating between copyists who were skilled at drawing people and those who were only skilled at drawing animals, vegetation, structures, and text - see the "Bible of Borso D'Este"), others for writing, and the rubricators who traced the red lines for titles or individual words. But it's not a given (especially if they were lay craftsmen, it becomes very likely) that they understood the text they were writing.
However, the theory of a fantasy, created for pure entertainment, cannot be ruled out, as can many others;
after all, this is the most fascinating aspect of the world of the Voynich manuscript.
I send you details at 600 DPI
Best.
[attachment=14986][attachment=14987][attachment=14988]

(02-04-2026, 09:09 AM)Fabrizio Salani Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Correct, the problem is that on the parchment treated with lime, there is no trace of charcoal, graphite, or silver

The residues left by that "poor man's carbon copy" method would be very faint, and in the end they would be either covered by the paint of completely erased.  I doubt very much that they could be detected by routine lab methods.  

Assuming that the piece is modern, the "graphite" of the pencil would be very fine graphite powder mixed with clay and some wax.  The few particles that might remain after erasure would be hard to distinguish form ordinary dust.   

Moreover, if the sample is cleaned of dust before the analysis (like the samples used in the C14 dating were), the cleaning would probably remove most of the remaining "graphite" partticles, since they would not be bound to the vellum (like ink and paint are).

Quote:there are no grooves in the characters or the drawing (the grooves are visible on the back of the horizontal lines).

So this item has scribed guide lines - on the back?  

Quote:I was told that more than one person was involved in composing the manuscripts: some had a talent for drawing (even differentiating between copyists who were skilled at drawing people and those who were only skilled at drawing animals, vegetation, structures, and text - see the "Bible of Borso D'Este"), others for writing, and the rubricators who traced the red lines for titles or individual words. But it's not a given (especially if they were lay craftsmen, it becomes very likely) that they understood the text they were writing.

.

Yep.  The Rubricator of this manuscript clearly did not know a word of Latin.  The Proofreader had to fix his mistakes.
[attachment=15010]

All the best, --stolfi

(04-04-2026, 05:42 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[quote="Fabrizio Salani" pid='82307' dateline='1775117384']
Correct, the problem is that on the parchment treated with lime, there is no trace of charcoal, graphite, or silver

The residues left by that "poor man's carbon copy" method would be very faint, and in the end they would be either covered by the paint of completely erased.  I doubt very much that they could be detected by routine lab methods.  

Assuming that the piece is modern, the "graphite" of the pencil would be very fine graphite powder mixed with clay and some wax.  The few particles that might remain after erasure would be hard to distinguish form ordinary dust.   

Moreover, if the sample is cleaned of dust before the analysis (like the samples used in the C14 dating were), the cleaning would probably remove most of the remaining "graphite" partticles, since they would not be bound to the vellum (like ink and paint are).

Quote:there are no grooves in the characters or the drawing (the grooves are visible on the back of the horizontal lines).

So this item has scribed guide lines - on the back?

Yes, there are some lines called "fillet" during the analysis (XRF spectrum: Calcium, Potassium, Iron). They are only on the back and do not match the design on the front. They are the remains of a fillet covered after the parchment was treated with calcium.
[attachment=15011][attachment=15012]

Fabrizio, that replica of yours reminded me that, some 25 years ago, I too created a facsimile of a VMS page.   I am posting it here as an example of VMS-inspired "fan art", which is what I think your replica is.  Although yours was apparently made for aesthetic pleasure, while mine was for laughs.  

[attachment=15068]

Thanks a million to Dana Scott for finding this file among my own files, after I had long searched in vain for it 

All the best, --stolfi