The Voynich Ninja

If his Greek grammar still exists

I think he just made a copy of the  Erotemata of Chrysoloras

Hello Rene,
thank you very much for sharing these amazing pages (and of course many thanks to Michelle Smith!).

I find the questions Koen asked in the split thread interesting:

(29-12-2017, 11:43 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I split this post off Rene's thread so the discussion about the humanist hand in the VM can be focused here. 
For starters, it would be interesting to know what exactly proponents meant when they said the VM script resembles humanist hand. Was this about actual Voynichese? Or marginalia? Or both? 

And perhaps most importantly, why did they come to this conclusion?

Do you have any additional information on Marcos' opinion? In particular, was he commenting about the Voynichese script or the marginal Latin-alphabet (but still unreadable) lines?

I don't think anyone would interpret the marginalia (which is Gothic script) for a humanist hand, so I must admit I simply assumed the humanist reference was to the VMS main text and I further assumed the reference was based on the spacing (which is wider and less connected in Italic and humanist handwriting than in Gothic handwriting).

Several of the VMS glyph forms are Gothic rather than humanist. The VMS main-text spacing, however, is closer to humanist than to Gothic but!!!...


...I don't think we can base any categorization of the VMS main-script on the spacing because more discrete letters are extremely common to invented scripts and cipher scripts (and some forms of Book-Hand scripts).

I mentioned Glagolitic and missionary-designed scripts upthread (before it was split) because they have these properties—they are more widely spaced and less connected (the glyphs are more discrete) than scripts that have evolved over time to have cursive properties (even humanist scripts soon turned into more connected and fluid cursive scripts).

Hi Marco,

from context and discussion with Jim Reeds, it was clear that Toresella's original comment referred to the main text of the MS, i.e. the Voynich writing.

I only know of Juan Jose Marcos' opinion indirectly, and have no information about the scope of his opinion.

In any case, I cannot see anything remotely humanist(ic) in the writing on f116v,
but that's just a qualitative statement. I have no expertise in the matter.

Thank you, Rene! I feel quite ignorant about this subject, but I do find it interesting.

Edited to add this excerpt I found You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
The first six lines in double quotes refer to  "what Toresella said".

Jim Reeds Wrote:From: "Jim Reeds"
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 10:51:40 -0400
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Toresella

On Sep 10,  9:16, Dennis wrote:
about what I wrote about what Toresella said:


>    ....  What you had: "The VMS is, with certainty, authentic;
> not a fake.  It was manufactured in the period 1450-1460.  It was in
> France for a while: the month names
> on the zodiac diagrams are in French in a French handwriting.  The book
> itself comes from Italy; the mysterious writing is done in a round
> humanistic style found only in Italy in the second half of the 1400's."  
>
>       It would be interesting to know what specific "humanistic style"
> he had in mind; does it have a name?  It always puzzled me how T. could
> specify such a narrow time range, given the uncertainties here.  
>

The shifting of the date range from 1450-60 to 1460-80 is a bit bothersome.

The "humanistic style" question is easy to answer. In about 1450 a new kind of handwriting arose in northern Italy, consiously associated at the time with the Humanist movement (Petrarch, the recovery & revival of classical MSS & learning; the literary aspect of the Italian Renaissance). This handwriting was based on classical Roman models (some MSS, I think, but also on samples seen on stone monuments) and was a model for our printed "Roman" typefaces. Unlike the "textura" (aka "bastarda" or "gothic") handwriting common througout Europe in the period 1100-1400, which can be seen in Stofi's web pages), humanist hand is easy for us to read. It fell out of popularity in a few decades, however, being supplanted by the "Italic" hand, which is still in use. This brief period of popularity is what allows Toresella's puzzling narrow range of dates. Unlike the slanted Italic hand, the humanist hand is upright. Round letters seem equally round on both sides. The book by Tradechino I mentioned earlier this year is written in this kind of handwriting; there are samples in Bischoff's "Latin Paleography". (Which I don't have at the office, so I cannot check any of the details above.) After Toresella pointed it out to me I am completely convinced that the VMS script was written by a user of the humanist hand.

About page layout: the page transcribed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is from Pistoia, Biblioteca Comunale Forteguerriana, A.33.

The ms is described You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as "the earliest surviving autograph, the copybook written at the school of Master Antonio di ser Salvi da San Gimignano" (il primo autografo pervenuto, il quaderno scritto alla scuola del maestro Antonio di ser Salvi da San Gimignano). Latin verbs are annotated with the implied subject ([ipsi] viverent, [ego] docebo, [tu] costodi) and some spelling have been corrected ("mutus", mute, into "mutuus", in return).  

The marginal illustrations could well be the product of a smart schoolboy. The author was clearly familiar with the layout of luxury illuminated manuscripts (such as the Marginal psalters discussed by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and mentioned by Koen above, or more common, but still luxury, Latin Psalters). What we have here appears to be a low-quality reproduction of a high-end layout. In this respect, these pages are amazing parallels for Quire 13.

Thank you Marco, that sheds some light on the matter. So it seems like the "humanist hand" theory was a promising lead for the VM's main text. But since it seems to have been a script characteristic of the second half of the 15th century, the carbon dating has closed that avenue.

This discussion stands separate from the figure of Sozomeno, but since Rene insists on keeping it to one thread, we shall keep treating both subjects in parallel.
When I first saw the drawings I was rather enthusiastic. I believe that the VM drawings are based on "discovered" older sources, so an Italian scholar who seemed to have been exposed to Voynich-like drawings seemed like a promising lead. 

However, I think you hit the nail on the head when you say that this appears to be an unpolished reproduction of illuminations we are used to seeing in expensive manuscripts. The unpolished look combined with the naked figures is what really strikes one as VM-like, since we're not used to seeing these types of drawings often.

Upon closer inspection, though, I think the resemblance is only superficial. Sozomeno's drawing style is kind of "all over the place", for example switching freely between frontal, three quarters and profile view. Additionally, as you indicate, he is clearly influenced by standard illumination practices. There's kings, angels, humorous man-bird combinations and even scatological humor...

[attachment=1879]

(05-01-2018, 01:12 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thank you Marco, that sheds some light on the matter. So it seems like the "humanist hand" theory was a promising lead for the VM's main text. But since it seems to have been a script characteristic of the second half of the 15th century, the carbon dating has closed that avenue.

For a change, things could be more complex. I read another passage by Reeds in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Apparently, it is not a closed avenue, but I feel too ignorant to go into the details.

Quote:From: "Jim Reeds"
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 10:50:09 -0400
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Humanist hand, 1400's dating, and so on.

I took a look at Bischoff's Latin Paleography book after posting my blurb about Toresella's
round humanist hand dating of the VMS, and it is clear that I oversimplified and overstated
things. The humanist hand dates from the earliest years of the 1400's, and was not instantly
supplanted on the invention of the Italic hand, so the time bracket for the VMS (if you believe the
VMS scribe was used to the humanist hand) is wider than the decade or 2 I suggested in my
earlier letter. Unfortunately Bischoff does not say very much about the h.h. (it is at the very end
of his time period) so I cannot give more info here. He does cite several books about the h.h.,
so there is clearly a lot more to know.

(05-01-2018, 01:12 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.However, I think you hit the nail on the head when you say that this appears to be an unpolished reproduction of illuminations we are used to seeing in expensive manuscripts. The unpolished look combined with the naked figures is what really strikes one as VM-like, since we're not used to seeing these types of drawings often.

Upon closer inspection, though, I think the resemblance is only superficial. Sozomeno's drawing style is kind of "all over the place", for example switching freely between frontal, three quarters and profile view. Additionally, as you indicate, he is clearly influenced by standard illumination practices. There's kings, angels, humorous man-bird combinations and even scatological humor...

I believe the resemblance to be highly meaningful. Both Sozomeno and the VMS reproduce high-level manuscript layouts with poor artistic skills and basic materials: both manuscripts show complex page layout that appears to have been influenced by standard illuminations practices.
I can also see the differences: VMS illustrations are in part labelled and are quite consistent in their subjects. They do not appear to be purely decorative.
It seems to me that the two authors used similar inspiration sources and technical means to produce similar results for their different goals. Given the excellent matching of the dates (Sozomeno's ms is dated 1402), I believe there is some kind of proximity in the cultural environments that produced the two works.

Illuminations like these are probably what inspired Sozomeno's doodles, from a 13thC Italian MS:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

There's a continuous column of interwoven men and birds. As a bonus, there's a nude crossbowman shooting a violin-playing monkey in the neck.

I think Michelle Smith's find is absolutely brilliant and I'd like to thank her directly for finding it.


Can she be contacted?   Actually I'd like her to write a guest post for me describing how she came to think of looking where she did... it should offer an interesting model for well-directed research.


All credit, and admiration to Michelle.