I wasn't specifically trying to suggest there were deadlines for the VMS, just trying to explain why several scribes working on a commissioned (professional level) tried to write as much the same as possible.
If the VMS were a family project (not saying that it is, it's only one possibility) and the purpose of the project were to teach skills like writing, illustrating, painting, organizing, observing, history, using a compass, creating patterns, or whatever else, then a useful skill would be to mimic writing.
Having said that, if one of the children (e.g., eldest son), were going to be taking along the finished product on his way to university or a place of apprenticeship, or ???, then there would be a time factor. Kids grow fast.
I don't know if this is the place to ask this. If one can distinguish between the handwriting of 1 scribe from another, would it be reasonably possible to identify the writing of a scribe if written in another script either similar or less similar.
So if I were to provide handwriting in a script with some commonalities to the Voynich would someone like Lisa Fagin Davis be able to tell if that handwriting is the same as one of the Voynich scribes? Or is that almost impossible?
Lisa's opinion may differ from mine, but it can be difficult to identify the same writer if the person is using a different style of calligraphy. If you can find some shapes that are the same, sometimes... but it's a challenge, and there's a certain level of uncertainty.
A person's cursive hand and book hand and note hand can be quite different. Look at John Dee's note hand (messy, hard to read) compared to his more attractive calligraphy hand—it would be difficult to know they were the same person unless there were other clues, or a lot of text, or a combination of the two styles in the same document.
Hang on a moment... I'll find an example...
Here's an example of Dee's note hand: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Here's an example of his more formal hand (and sometimes it's even nicer than this): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
If my theory of authorship is correct then there are within the Milan State Archives letters written by at least 2 of the "scribes". I know of one enciphered letter written by one of them that I have been keen to obtain a scan of. The other letters I know of are in latin.
If someone can tell me definitively whether the authors of these letters were amongst the Voynich scribes or whether they were not I think it should allow me to determine whether my theory is true or false.
Now I don't yet have scans of these letters and whilst I have obtained scans of some materials from the Milan State Archives I can't say how hard or easy it will be to obtain scans of the letters and whether I or someone I know will have to visit the archives in person. Nevertheless if having such scans will allow me to prove or disprove authorship then that will create an even greater incentive for me to track down those letters.
My focus on authorship has been particularly on one of a set of brothers, all closely associated with Milanese diplomacy in the early 15th century and three at least of whom I know were experienced in writing ciphers as part of their work. The bottom right rosette of the 9 rosette page is core to my identification of authorship, though other details fit well, I think. The brothers were from an aristocratic background and so relatively affluent and collected codices. I know one brother had a great interest in herbs. Various of the brothers were described as men of science, though I don't know quite what "science" meant in this historical context.
It's a challenge to find something to compare...
In the VMS main text, the shape that looks like an "a" might not even be "a", it might be a c-shape with a leaning stem, the same way the r and the i-shapes are leaning back. It might not be the normal way the person writes.
Leaning the shapes back might be deliberate... a way to combine VMS chars with regular chars so the two can be distinguished (note that both exist on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and they do stand out from each other). It isn't necessary to lean back the gallows chars because they are shaped differently from common letters, and thus are easier to distinguish.
The sweep of the tails can be compared, and maybe the "o", but it's not a lot to go on. The spacing isn't necessarily the person's normal spacing. If these are cipher shapes, then one often finds that cipher shapes are sometimes spaced differently from the person's normal writing (usually less connected and sometimes farther apart).
It might still be worth trying. You can't really know until they are laid out side by side.
For me, this new paper is an important improvement over the results of Currier, but I gather it is not intended to be the final word.
I found it interesting to make the comparison. Currier's hands 1 and 2 are well known, but he also used 3,4,5 and X,Y but only in very few cases. One significant difference is that Currier misses many pages, while Lisa Fagin Davis addresses all.
Hand 1 (Lisa's) is the most prolific one in terms of pages - scribe 1 did half of them - but probably not in terms of words.
Two points that struck me (apart from the ones already mentioned):
- Folio 58 (both sides) that has text with a few marginal stars is in the same hand as the last quire, which is also text with marginal stars
- the folios 93, 94, 95, 96 are split between two scribes, in the same way by Currier and by Lisa, even though the numbers used are not the same. Currier had 4 and 5, Lisa 1 and 3.
It is possible to identify the same scribe writing in different languages - Peter Stokes has done several important studies on this. It isn't easy, but it's possible. See, for example, this blogpost: You are not allowed to view links.
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(10-05-2020, 11:55 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is possible to identify the same scribe writing in different languages - Peter Stokes has done several important studies on this. It isn't easy, but it's possible. See, for example, this blogpost: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Oh. That's wonderful. It would allow me to validate my theory or put it to bed.
There are letters that I know exist, but have not seen, in the Milan State Archives in the hands of 2 brothers, though there may or may not be writing in the hands of other brothers there. I have not been to the Milan State Archives, though they have scanned me and sent me documents from their archives that I found useful. I don't know if they will be willing to locate letters for me as I don't know precisely where they would be within the archive. There is an enciphered letter that I am very interested in, which Lydia Cerioni in "La diplomazia..." lists and I hope the archive might help me find. Other letters could only be in Latin unless a mixture of cipher and latin. Though this is all a moot point as I would assume the archives will be closed for some time, because of the coronavirus. To be honest I was for some time inclined to the view that the manuscript was a product of one of the brothers with assistance from those responsible to him, but my thinking was beginning to entertain the possibility that another brother might be involved before your article as they were clearly close and would have spent a significant time together and if one had produced such a work the others would have known about it.
Looks like the archive might still be open from what I see on google.
Appears to be closed to the public, but unclear if they are open to document enquiries.
Different languages isn't the problem, Mark...
It's the different scripts.
If the VMS is a cipher script, how do you compare that to a person's regular script? You can't match up the letters. People often write cipher characters in a way different from their regular handwriting. Backleaning letters were not common in the early 15th century. I have looked very hard to try to find them and have only found a few.
As I said in the previous message, the VMS "a" might not be the letter "a". The letters r a and i might be deliberately backleaning in order to create cipher characters. The scribes may not usually write like that, so you might not be able to compare the person's regular way of writing r and a and i to Voynichese r and a and i.
Look at folio You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. . Look at the differences in the way the VMS glyphs and the regular Latin characters are written. We do not know for sure that the Voynichese was written by the same person who wrote the other text. Just as the drawing may have been on the folio before the 116v text was written, the Voynichese may have been there too. He may have written around it. Or, since there are different scribes in the VMS, someone else may have written the Voynich characters. Imagine two people sitting side-by-side, one explaining Voynichese to the other. The VMS chars are not written like regular script. It IS possible that it was written by the same person, but look how DIFFERENT they are. How would you recognize the REGULAR writing of the scribes who wrote Voynichese text?
There's not much to go on. Maybe the shape of the o and the y can be compared but the [font=Eva]y in the VMS is highly variable, even within the same scribe's handwriting.[/font]
I wouldn't say anything to discourage you from trying. I would try to find them and compare them myself if I thought there was a chance they were the same people...
but it's not as simple as comparing shapes in different languages. A letter "a" in French is usually written the same as a letter "a" in German (if it's the same scribe) but the "a" shape in Voynichese might be quite different, even if written by the same person. When I write Voynichese, it doesn't look anything like my regular handwriting, it looks like the text in the VMS. You would never guess what my handwriting looks like if you saw only my Voynichese writing.
One easy question is: "who wrote the foldout folios"
There are 11 of them.
Five are astrological, cosmological and zodiac, all from scribe 4.
Two are cosmological (85+86) and were shared by scribes 2 and 4.
Three are pharmaceutical (89, 101, 102) and are from scribe 1.
Two are herbal (90, 95) where one is from scribe 1 and 1 from scribe 3.
So, scribe 5 has no contribution on foldout folios, but his contribution in general is very small.
Scribes 2 and 3 have very little.
Most interesting is scribe 4, because all of his writing is on fold-out bifolios.
(He wrote f71, which does not fold, but this is the same bifolio as f72, which does).