I can't seem to find a thread devoted to this topic, though it has been briefly broached recently, but here it is:
Is the VM an autograph or a copy?
By "autograph" I mean that the VM embodied the first, finished instantiation of a literary work (or whatever it is). (It is of course possible that it was composed on some scratch medium and transferred to the codex.) By "copy" I mean that some earlier MS instantiates the work and what we have is a scribal copy of it.
I'm curious what evidence exists for determining whether it's an autograph or a copy?
Brainstorming, I would suggest that possible evidence for it being a autograph / against it being a copy are:
- No known exemplar of the work
- No known exemplar(s) of the drawings
- No known exemplar of the text
- No known exemplar of the script
- Various page-layout (formatting) effects at end of lines, at beginning of lines, at first lines of "paragraphs," similar "words" in the vertical direction, more? (These suggest that the text was made to fit the medium.)
Possible evidence against autograph / for copy:
- Scribal corrections
- Script / vord-structure seems well planned and sophisticated
Am I missing anything, beside an ability to play devil's advocate?
The zodiac figures, I believe, are copies (maybe a few details have been changed and maybe the sources were not strictly other zodiacs, but other drawings that are similar to zodiac figures at the time, but that was not unusual as long as the general form was retained).
I've been researching this for quite a long time. The VMS figures follow the same basic patterns as a subgroup of zodiacs that I've been trying to track and map temporally and geographically. From what I have found so far, this subgroup appears to have originated in France/Flanders and made its way gradually south and east into the Holy Roman Empire. I have pins on maps to chart it and gradually the picture is filling in.
There are holes in the record (lost manuscripts), so I can't be completely sure of the sequence in a couple of places, but there is enough information now to suggest this is what happened.
Also, I've given a lot of attention to which details matter and which ones appear to be personal preference on the part of the illustrator. I had to collect and study more than 500 zodiac sequences for several years to sort this out...
For example, does it matter that it's a crossbow rather than a longbow or shortbow? It took a lot of research to determine that the kind of bow is probably not significant. What does appear to be significant is whether the archer is a centaur (traditional) or two-legged figure. The same kinds of details apply to the other figures.
Some of the traits that stand out might not to be as important as some other aspect. The main criterion (this is an over-simplification, but it generally seems to follow this convention) appears to be whether or not it follows the traditional forms (classical goat-fish, centaur, etc.) or whether it respects the alternate forms within this subgroup. I'm the one who's calling it a subgroup, by the way. This is my own determination, so it can, of course, be challenged, but I believe it exists.
(20-12-2019, 04:51 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The zodiac figures, I believe, are copies (maybe a few details have been changed and maybe the sources were not strictly other zodiacs, but other drawings that are similar to zodiac figures at the time, but that was not unusual as long as the general form was retained).
Good point on the zodiac figures. Models or sources may exist for them. Do these have text/labels?
I think it's hard to determine because copies were rarely exact. So a MS can be a version of another MS without "photocopying" it completely.
A problem with the arguments against copying is of course that so many MSS have been destroyed, due to re-use if the materials, neglect or disaster. With a MS like the VM, I guess that the chance of deliberate destruction is also a bit greater than in general, be it for its occult text or liberal nudity.
Taking everything we know about the imagery into consideration, I would personally think that it is a unique work adapting numerous sources.
About the text, we simply don't know. The difficulty here is that all arguments against or in favor can be easily countered. Any copying effect might be the result of planning on a scrap medium. Other works in this script might be lost.
Only indirectly related, but I would not exclude that the MS originally was a set of individual and separately bound works, that only got bound together at a later date.
(20-12-2019, 09:01 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Taking everything we know about the imagery into consideration, I would personally think that it is a unique work adapting numerous sources.
This is close to my point of view, maybe with the difference that I find "adapting" too strong. Overall, we have been unable to find any single source that we can reliably say was "adapted" into the VMS. Possibly, the closest we get is the oak-and-ivy illustration in Manfredus BNF Lat 6823. Is that enough to say that the Tractatus De Herbis was adapted into the Voynich herbal?
Art historians like Toresella and Touwaide have pointed out that the author was aware of the visual tradition of Western herbals.
Ewa Sniezynska-Stolot first pointed out that the zodiac shows a connection with zodiac cycles produced in Central Europe.
We can be sure that the author had seen herbal manuscripts and zodiac cycles; familiarity with illustrated balneological treaties like De Balneis Puteolanis is also likely. He was certainly inspired by other works, but this is true for all manuscripts, autographs included. For instance, some of the illustrations in Fontana's Secretum de Thesauro (You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view., Padua, Ms. D.39). Dondi's autograph is in turn dependent on Campanus of Novara and Eastern sources and so on.
(20-12-2019, 08:41 AM)Stephen Carlson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (20-12-2019, 04:51 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The zodiac figures, I believe, are copies (maybe a few details have been changed and maybe the sources were not strictly other zodiacs, but other drawings that are similar to zodiac figures at the time, but that was not unusual as long as the general form was retained).
Good point on the zodiac figures. Models or sources may exist for them. Do these have text/labels?
Yes, they usually do have labels or labels within the main text (often at the beginning of the paragraph about the sign).
I have tried to record them as I find them (also the way the month names are written), but there is nothing unusual about them. They are all mostly the same, with the usual medieval spelling variations, and mostly in Latin. There are some in the vernacular, but they are usually similar to Latin, and there are a few that use the old German names for months rather than the ones derived from Latin (e.g., Herbstmonat).