Hello everyone
I am new here and I would like to ask you
who were the first palaeographers to assert that the Ms is written in a humanist script. Does any member from this forum know something about that? Is there any paper about it?
I have been re-reading An Elegant Enigma by Mary D'Imperio as well as Zandbergen's site. But I have not found any palaeographer's name or an expert on Historiography and its techniques. Only Helmut Lehmann-Haupt, Consultant to H.P. Kraus, suggested that "[...] palaeographically speaking, Italy is a likely country of origin" (p.7)
Nothing else. Thanks.
(25-12-2018, 08:20 PM)Beatrice Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hello everyone
I am new here and I would like to ask you
who were the first palaeographers to assert that the Ms is written in a humanist script. Does any member from this forum know something about that? Is there any paper about it?
Hello Beatrice,
I would be very surprised if any paleographer ever gave credence to this piece of nonsense.
The source is on page 9 of
An Elegant Enigma, by Mary D'Imperio, quoting Jeffrey Krischer:
"The date of the manuscript was again placed in the sixteenth century by Mr Rodney Dennis (curator of manuscripts in Houghton Library of the Harvard College library). Mr Dennis identified the script to be in the style of the sixteenth century humanist script."
It's difficult to make this kind of judgment about text that is in some way invented or ciphered.
If you look at alphabets that have been invented (in contrast to those that evolve slowly), you frequently find that they are more disconnected and widely spaced than evolved scripts. I noticed this when investigating cipher alphabets, and also the many alphabets that have been invented by missionaries working in areas where there was no written text.
The various shapes in the VMS that are based on Latin abbreviation shapes lean more toward Gothic than Humanist styles, but the spacing is more similar to Humanist (but... this might be a coincidence, for the reasons given above).
There was extensive correspondence in the original mailing list about this topic, as the result of a report from Sergio Toresella, who may not be a palaeographer, but certainly has a vast knowledge of medieval herbals.
He spent some time with the original MS in or just before December 1995:
"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.
There are similarities between the organization of the VMS (including
the balneological section!) and that of other Italian herbals of the 1400s."
(There was quite a bit more).
In summary: the date of 1450-1460 follows from his identification of a humanistic style.
There are scripts that combine both Gothic and Humanist elements. Script is like language—there are gray areas where cultures merge.
I have sampled text from about 1450s, 1460s that have all the Gothic abbreviations and loops on most of the letters (not all), but which use the sparse "t" and more open spacing of Humanist-style text. It's slightly more Gothic than Humanist. You're more likely to find this in southern Germany, Lombardy, and Bohemia than in northern Germany, for obvious reasons.
There's another reason to be careful about categorizing Voynich text...
Note how the stem of the "a", "r" and "i" shapes all lean back. This may be deliberate, they may have been designed this way rather than being the scribe's natural direction, and makes the shapes difficult to compare to regular texts.
When I search "a" shapes that are similar, the dates range from the 10th century to the 16th century and are in manuscripts from many different regions, some of which are are in Gothic scripts, some in Caroline or early humanistic scripts.
Tails that indicate abbreviations, whose shapes are mimicked in the VMS text, are very common in Gothic texts, but are also found, to some extent, in humanistic texts (but are more prevalent in Gothic texts)
Here are two examples. One set is from Basel, Switzerland (c. 1400). The other is from southern Italy (c. 1440). I have similar examples from Germany and Austria. Notice how they use the same scribal conventions:
[
attachment=2603]
FYI, the 9 abbreviation is not always superscripted, often it is written in line with the rest of the text, as in the VMS.
Quote:Hello Beatrice,
I would be very surprised if any paleographer ever gave credence to this piece of nonsense.
The source is on page 9 of An Elegant Enigma, by Mary D'Imperio, quoting Jeffrey Krischer:
"The date of the manuscript was again placed in the sixteenth century by Mr Rodney Dennis (curator of manuscripts in Houghton Library of the Harvard College library). Mr Dennis identified the script to be in the style of the sixteenth century humanist script."
So do you really think it is a piece of nonsense? If so, how would you explain the hammering-like pattern behind?
(25-12-2018, 10:12 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's difficult to make this kind of judgment about text that is in some way invented or ciphered.
If you look at alphabets that have been invented (in contrast to those that evolve slowly), you frequently find that they are more disconnected and widely spaced than evolved scripts. I noticed this when investigating cipher alphabets, and also the many alphabets that have been invented by missionaries working in areas where there was no written text
The various shapes in the VMS that are based on Latin abbreviation shapes lean more toward Gothic than Humanist styles, but the spacing is more similar to Humanist (but... this might be a coincidence, for the reasons given above).
Thanks for your valuable explanations! I completely agree with you. I mean, the various shapes tend to be more Gothic (
ducti, angles in graphs, the thick strokes and so on). The similarity with a humanist script can be easily explained since palaeographers do know and identify the differences between an official decretal, let's say, and a private paper for the author's personal use. In fact, we do not write the same way for our receiver/recipient as for ourselves. Our private handwriting conveys much more valuable information than our "public" hand.
(26-12-2018, 09:49 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There was extensive correspondence in the original mailing list about this topic, as the result of a report from Sergio Toresella, who may not be a palaeographer, but certainly has a vast knowledge of medieval herbals.
He spent some time with the original MS in or just before December 1995:
"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.
There are similarities between the organization of the VMS (including
the balneological section!) and that of other Italian herbals of the 1400s."
(There was quite a bit more).
In summary: the date of 1450-1460 follows from his identification of a humanistic style.
Do you know how Toresella could explain the angular and thick strokes of some graphs? The roundness of "o" or "a", for instance, is irregular throughout the ms. That is, it is not a continuous feature.
The script seems to me that of a craftman or someone who was used to writing lively and quickly.