Stumbled upon this while looking at 15th century pharmacopaeas.
The portion in question is in folios 63v-68r and is the 16th century addition (as the description says), annotated as follows (emphasis mine):
Quote:16. Jh. Anweisungen zur Herstellung von Geheimtinte, eines Bienenlockmittels, dauerhaftem Schuhleder, Elfenbeinersatz, Zauberlampen, von Mitteln gegen Trunkenheit und anderen. Einzelne Wörter in Geheimschrift.
Nice specimen for Klaus's collection (if not known to him already).
Any decryptions?
Note also the kinda "watermarked" goat (?) snout in folio 65 (best viewed in 65r, directly below the text, to the left)
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"Mitteln gegen Trunkenheit", I need this
(05-01-2020, 12:25 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."Mitteln gegen Trunkenheit", I need this
If it works, you are a made man!
Thank you, Anton! This stuff is fun.
It is a simple substitution cipher, with a few different variants for T (the last cipher letter 'v' also appears to be used for T, so there are three possibilities: long and short-s and 'v'). It mostly seems that the alphabet has been shifted by a single position (Caesar's code) - the cipher characters I transcribed as '3' and '2' likely are 'z' and 'r'.
The two recipes at You are not allowed to view links.
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Contra ebrietatem
Si HIRVNDINEM ACCIPIAS [yhqtmrhmdl 3bbhoh32] eamque deplu-/ matam in olla nova vitreata, super carbo-/ nes posita in pulverem redigas totam cum / sanguine et intestinis dederisque alicui in cibo, vel in potu eo mesciente, non inebriabitur in eternum.
Aliud
Sunt qui PVLMONEM OVIS [otklnmdl nth2] pulverisatum / ante potum [...] dant bibituro in cibo et / dicunt quod si quis comederis eos pulveres / inebriari non possint, quantum liber biberit.
Against drunkenness:
TAKE A SWALLOW, remove its feathers, put it in a new jar upon embers. Make it into a powder, with its blood and entrails. If you give it to anyone to eat together with food, or in his drink when he pours it, he will not get drunk evermore.
Another one:
Some give pulverised SHEEP LUNG to the drinker, before he drinks [...] in his food. They say that if they eat those powders, they cannot get drunk, however freely they drink.
Thanks Marco!
I wonder what they mean by pulverised, is that "burned to ashes"?
The "3" and "2" are actually just the shapes of "z" and "r" indeed.
Revealable ink, durable shoe leather, stuff against drunkenness... - looks like a case-box of a secret agent!
But note how only the most secret portion of the whole recipe is enciphered - that of the main ingredient. I guess that's also the case in VMS f116v. Here we have a ready example.
pulverize is when you break, smash or grind something down to a powder. Maybe the instruction to heat it is so it can be dried out and more easily be mashed into a powder.
(05-01-2020, 07:13 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thanks Marco!
...
But note how only the most secret portion of the whole recipe is enciphered - that of the main ingredient. I guess that's also the case in VMS f116v. Here we have a ready example.
That's also true of the encoded alchemical manuscript. Not all of it is encoded. Often the ingredients, like sulphur, salt, etc. are encoded.
One really can't pulverize a sheep's lung unless it's dried in advance indeed, but in a jar upon embers you'll not dry it but rather burn it altogether.
Not that I'm heading to follow the secret agent's practice, just out of common interest.
Putting it in a jar is like putting it in a pot. As long as the temperature is not too high, it would cook it down into a thick mash. So maybe they are talking about simmering it?
Embers can be pretty hot, but they are not as hot as an open fire. Usually some rocks are put in with embers and the jar placed on the rock. That helps modulate the cooking temperature.
I'm just guessing as to what they meant, but it sounds like cooking it down to remove moisture would not only cook out the bacteria, but would make it easier to powder it.
I couldn't understand why I hadn't seen this manuscript. Six years ago, four years ago, and again a couple of years ago, I went through pretty much every scan on the e-codices and Beinecke sites from the middle ages (and the later ones related to W. Voynich) (plus hundreds of other sites). But now I see it was put online in March 2019 which explains why I missed it.
