(12-04-2026, 02:52 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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.
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
Thanks Jorge, your creation is very funny. However, allow me a couple of thoughts: since I found the parchment, I've searched for various reproductions of the manuscript and have found several, some of highly professional craftsmanship (like the Spanish one, which is completely faithful to the original), others purely for entertainment, completely reinterpreted for pure entertainment or as a demonstration of style and artistic skill (I've never seen anything of Italian origin, anyway). But what I found, after seeing the images from the research, I perceived even more as something unique, beyond these intentions. For example, if you want to create a fake, for any purpose, you have to invent a missing sheet and pass it off as a find, or create a completely reinterpreted sheet and present it as artistic proof. But in this case, what fun would there be in making an improved copy of the plant with minor changes to the text, for what fun? The parchment shows a purpose of realization that is still unknown to us and labeling it as "fun" seems to me the most convenient solution to say "I don't know what it is, therefore it's a joke."
I found BessAgritianin's research on this forum, "Foil14v- Acanthus Mollis Moravian Interpretation," interesting, regardless of its validity. She found connections to the Moravian language, explaining her studies, thanks to my parchment. What I'm trying to say is that I've always mistakenly assumed that whoever wrote it had converted some glyphs into the Latin alphabet because that's how they were interpreted. However, if the writer had been of Czech, Romanian, Greek, Albanian, Ukrainian, Russian, and other origins, their native language would certainly have influenced their copying and interpretation of some glyphs. This is a hypothesis I've never considered and, I suppose, cannot be ruled out.
A warm greeting.
(12-04-2026, 09:54 PM)Fabrizio Salani Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But in this case, what fun would there be in making an improved copy of the plant with minor changes to the text, for what fun? The parchment shows a purpose of realization that is still unknown to us and labeling it as "fun" seems to me the most convenient solution to say "I don't know what it is, therefore it's a joke."
I don't think it was meant as a joke. I would compare it to the porcelain statuettes that Koen's wife made of the bathing nymphs and showed at the last Voynich Day conference. Again, I think that someone who was fascinated by the manuscript wanted to make a facsimile of a page as an art project; but cared more about the image than about the text, so he/she improved the former and did only a quick job on the latter.
We can see that the text is "crude" and "crooked", but to a "layman" it probably looks as good as the original.
Several years ago a student of mine went to a conference in Egypt and brought me this tourist souvenir (unframed):
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The support seems to be real papyrus, but of course made "industrially" in the present. From fifty yards away the artwork looks superficially ancient Egyptian style, but from ten yards one can already see that the details of line style and painting technique are totally modern. And besides it has the artist's signature at the bottom. And it is printed, not drawn, of course. The drawing must have been copied from some ancient original -- perhaps a mortuary mask on a sarcophagus -- but surely with plenty of "artistic liberties". The artist obviously did not intend to make an accurate reproduction of it, but only a good-looking picture with "ancient Egyptian look and feel".
I think it is very much like the way that VMS plant was "copied" in your page.
All the best, --stolfi
(12-04-2026, 11:03 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Again, I think that someone who was fascinated by the manuscript wanted to make a facsimile of a page as an art project; but cared more about the image than about the text, so he/she improved the former and did only a quick job on the latter. We can see that the text is "crude" and "crooked", but to a "layman" it probably looks as good as the original.
You are asuming that someone made a quick careless copy of the text for visual effect, but let us look into actual text evidence.
I will provide only three examples, since I have already published the whole interpretation elsewhere.
In Fabrizio's copy the first word differs systematically from the VM copy
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Mark how "cc" could be identified as "k" or as "n" and has its meaning in the language.
Then the one I value most is the :
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And the last difference, which could not be done from an awkward copier, but from knowing the text person is:
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Note how the whole word is different and while the VM word has no meaning or is unrecoghisable, Fabrizio's copy word has the meaning: bol udvanja- in old dialect- pains of the limbs.
So, no the text isn't "crude and crooked".
It is different. And those differences maybe the key to understand how someone before us read the Voynich.
However, you must grant me one further consideration: the parchment I found lends itself to many considerations (as does the original manuscript), while all the other reproductions I have seen have a single and indisputable interpretation.
I think that all the others were published one way or another.