Quote:How someone would have interpreted it in the 15th century, I don't know, but the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in the right margin of folio 1r suggests that SOMEONE thought it was a substitution cipher. I have posted a timeline on my You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of when I think the column text might have been written, but because the column text is so faint and because it is not full words, I cannot be absolutely sure. I think the estimate is reasonable, however, and should be given at least some credence.
It just occurred to me that that is a valuable observation: it gives us understanding that in that time period the VMS was in possession of some learned person. It was not simply lost somewhere.
@ David
You are quite right, of course. What most people overlook is that the only reason for believung the ms. is a ciphre is the sayso of Voynich. And guys like Friedman fell for it, it is a question of self-assessment. When I, the genius who solved the Purple code is not able to read it it must be something very special.
Just a side remark: I am wondering for a long time if Kircher could read the ms.
(19-09-2019, 11:34 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I've already answered this question a couple of times.
We don't have to guess at the medieval mindset, we just have to listen. When a daughter of a medieval physician asked her father why a manuscript had to be encrypted, he said that it protected the contents and gave it more value. I posted a more complete and accurate version of this a couple of years ago.
I'm new around here. If you have link for a fuller explanations, I'd appreciate it. But yeah, some kind of trade secret is a good reason to encrypt, and the appearance of encryption would suggest to an observer the presence of secrets.
That's all assuming the creator of the VM had secrets to protect.
(20-09-2019, 12:03 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (19-09-2019, 11:45 PM)Stephen Carlson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Would the VM be perceived (in the 15th cen.) as an encrypted text or an exotic language text?
It depends who's doing the perceiving, I guess. An experienced reader in the 15th century would recognize most of the characters as common ligatures, abbreviations, numbers... So my guess is that they would think someone's been messing around rather than it being some genuine foreign script.
I guess that depends on people's awareness of other foreign scripts, and of encrypted texts? If one only knew Latin, would the familiar-yet-strange nature of the script suggest another language or a code? And the embellishments, like the first letters of the paragraphs? I kind of assumed that it was meant to look like an exotic language, but now I'm less sure.
(20-09-2019, 08:44 AM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What most people overlook is that the only reason for believung the ms. is a ciphre is the sayso of Voynich. And guys like Friedman fell for it, it is a question of self-assessment. When I, the genius who solved the Purple code is not able to read it it must be something very special.
Just a side remark: I am wondering for a long time if Kircher could read the ms.
I'm sorry, but that is too much of a simplification.
It is not just Voynich's sayso. The majority of modern people think it is a cipher, and this opinion was also fully shared by many of Voynich's contemporaries (Newbold, Manly, Friedman) and later researchers.
While Friedman probably had a high opinion of himself, he also had the capability of self-assessment and humour.
He did try for over 40 years.
When, towards the end, he started the second study group, during the opening speech of the first meeting he said: "others have failed, so why not I".
And at the end he came to the conclusion that it does not look like a cipher.
For what concerns Kircher, he was far from being a genius. He was primarily very busy and very productive, with more imagination than talent.
(20-09-2019, 09:13 AM)Stephen Carlson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I guess that depends on people's awareness of other foreign scripts, and of encrypted texts? If one only knew Latin, would the familiar-yet-strange nature of the script suggest another language or a code? And the embellishments, like the first letters of the paragraphs? I kind of assumed that it was meant to look like an exotic language, but now I'm less sure.
I've also never thought about it like this before, but there's a certain paradox here.
On the one hand, people on this forum who have studied paleography are in some degree of agreement that the glyphs are not that uncommon for Latin manuscripts. The tall glyphs are an exception, but even some of those appear as ligatures.
The paradox is: why did nobody in the early correspondences mention this? Why did Baresch see it as exotic (maybe to entice Kircher?) Were the gallow glyphs and their placement so disorienting?
Anyway, my opinion therefore is that the script was not designed to create the appearance if a foreign script. It looks more like an intellectual experiment or game among scribes.
Perhaps it was because they knew Latin so well that it looked strange to them (despite the commonalities in glyphs). They couldn't read it.
To me it looks like real effort was put into designing the VMS script. I don't mean just the glyphs, mainly I mean the way the whole thing was put together. When you really study it, there is just enough complexity and variation from line to line and folio to folio to suggest there is SOMETHING there (what that something is, I don't know).
Personally, I don't think it is a cipher in the more common medieval sense.
Monica's take on it is that it's a Romanized alphabet, which is not a cipher.
Why write a whole manuscript pretending to be something it is not? With regard to most of the illustrations, one could assume at first glance that the content contains little that would have to be kept secret. Unless, for example, it is a manuscript for the production of Theriac or something like that (secret herbal ingredients, secret manufacturing process, recipes). In any case, the encryption of such a large amount of text requires a high degree of motivation. The vanity of the author(s) would certainly have been satisfied with a few lines.
Personal safety is a good motivator. I've read that Paracelsus' skull was crushed because he was a successful competitor.