The Voynich Ninja

A number of texts of interest to VMs investigation have been shown to have been commissioned by or in the possession of the Valois Duke, Jean de Berry. Primary is the Oresme cosmos, along with the Berry Apocalypse; secondarily, the 'Romance of Melusine', along with the dragon in the book of hours.

This is the man: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

But what about the library? Apparently there once were 300 books, but only 100 survive. So there's two-thirds knocked off for starters. When the duke died in Paris in 1416, what happened to his library?

The situation in Paris was civil war. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
The Paris residence of the Duke of Berry were plundered in 1412, so earlier books (Oresme and Melusine) were probably somewhere else.

Most likely would seem to be the castle at Mehun-sur-Yevre. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

When Jean de Berry died in 1416, his widow was his second wife Joan. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
She would certainly have retained some property, potentially books.

Joan was in turn soon married to Georges de La Tremoille. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

And Georges was in service to the Burgundian court for a period of time, possibly ending near the time of Joan's death in 1424. Meanwhile in Burgundy, with the murder of John the Fearless in 1419, marked by a major (+ library) inventory, there is ample time after that for the exchange of gifts, such as books, which would not be inventoried at that time.

No particular details yet, but a strong circumstantial case for the widow (and heiress) of the Duke of Berry to be in contact with the dukes of Burgundy.

The current position on the early history of the duke's library post 1416 seems to be: 'Hard to say.'

(10-07-2020, 06:37 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The current position on the early history of the duke's library post 1416 seems to be: 'Hard to say.'

Here's what I posted about this back in 2017 (if you haven't already seen this):
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Yes i had read before too that it went to his daughter Marie. Here is google translated info.

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It is, however, likely that ms. French 565 entered, at the death of the duke of Berry, in the collections of his daughter Marie de Berry, duchesse de Bourbonnais (Delisle 1907, t. II, p. 248-249, n ° 154). He remained in the Bourbon library until 1523, when François I confiscated the property of Constable Charles III of Bourbon for the benefit of the Crown. The manuscript appears, in fact, on the state of the proofing done on November 19 of the same year, in Moulins: "The book of Aristotle, containing the Book of hope, and troys (sic) books of celo and mundo, in françoys, has two gilt silver fermaus ”(Le Roux de Lincy,“ Catalog of the Library of the Dukes of Bourbon ”, p. 75, n ° 12). The manuscript is listed in the inventories of the King's library: inventory of Nicolas Rigault (1622), n ° 371; inventory of Pierre and Jacques Dupuy (1645), n ° 453; inventory by Nicolas Clément (1682), n ° 7065. Old dimensions listed in f. 1: [Rigault II] "three hundred seventy one"; [Dupuy II] 453, [Regius] 7065....

I figure you have already seen this
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I do believe I had read it a while back, but as it didn't apply to my investigations at the time, it didn't stick. Perhaps it is more relevant now, but what does it really say? It says that the Oresme text (BNF Fr. 565) made in Paris c. 1410, owned by Jean de Berry, d. 1416, was found in the Bourbon library in 1523. And it was presumed that it had been inherited? / came into the possession of his daughter, Marie de Berry, married 1401 to Jean de Bourbon,and he was captured in 1415 at Agincourt, and died in London in 1434.

But when her father died in 1416, did she really get the whole libraary? According to her biography, she got 40 books in lieu of 70,000 francs as dowery for husband #2.
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So if there were 300 texts to chose from, would the 'Oresme' text be among the top 40? Of the 300, only 100 have survived. Of 15 different 'Books of Hours', only 6 are known. And two of those: 'Tres Riches Heures" and the 'Turin Hours' both have unusual histories. They did not sit safely on the shelves of the Bourbon library.

You've got to have a fondness for Aristotle if you want to read Oresme's translation.

When Jean de Berry died in 1416, where was the library? Mehun-sur-Yevre?? Where did it go then?  Was there an inventory? If Marie took 40 books, that leaves some for others. Forty books to 70K, they need to that the most expensive ones. Does 'Oresme' really qualify?

When Marie died in 1434, she was in Lyon, but both she and the duke were buried in Souvigny. Was that her primary residence? Is that where their books were kept? Was there an inventory in 1434?

And in the end it really is not the text itself that matters to this investigation. It is the set of ideas that the text contains. In this case it is the structure of the inverted T-O cosmos, which can be carried by human agents or by illustrated text  - - with 43 undulations.

A second example of a similar cosmic structure also comes out of Paris somewhat later (Harley 334), dated to second quarter of the 1400s, or 1430-1440.
The original comparison of the cosmos (f29) can be supplemented with the comparison of the 'pond scenes' - Harley 334 f57 with VMs f79v. It's not the appearance, it's the 'thing' that is being represented -  the pond scene. And what does tradition offer up for the first part of the 1400s? One interpretation is Melusine, mythical ancestress for the four Valois sons of Jean the Good and Bonne of Luxembourg. They inherited the Luxembourg version of this mythology through the mother. If comparison results in a potential connection, the the later date of Harley 334 moves the VMs creation to the latter part of the parchment dates. And it ties in better with events in the Duchy of Burgundy in the 1430s. Both the Golden Fleece and la Sainte Hostie de Dijon occur in the early 1430s.