The Voynich Ninja

I'm not sure if I've weighed in on this before, but the actual physical evidence of the manuscript itself makes a modern forgery staggeringly unlikely. It's one thing to argue that Voynich could have found some old parchment and mixed ink and pigments using fifteenth-century techniques. Sure, that's possible, albeit remotely so. But then to also argue that he developed multiple ways of writing Voynichese so that the manuscript would appear to have been written by several different scribes; drilled wormholes that pass through the writing; added waterstains and other damage that overlay the writing and UNDERlay the later foliation; crafted the evidence of multiple bindings; added the provenance evidence in the manuscript (such as the effaced inscription on f. 1r); laid on the layers of early-modern annotations and additions (such as the foliation) in multiple - and correct -  types of script that stretch over hundreds of years; etc. etc. It is truly unimaginable that he could have done so in a way that would continue to appear authentic after decades of scrutiny. There are so many physical features of a medieval codex beyond the writing on the substrate, that it is truly unimaginable to contemplate a successful forgery of an entire manuscript.

(29-05-2022, 11:34 AM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, but my question is:
What in the VM would make Kircher assume it was a hidden text and not a foreign alphabet? He explicitly refers to a secret chest of a sort he is familiar with. 
multas huius scrinae scripturas variis occasionibus me dissolvisse memini, imo et iam circa hanc quoque molientur ingenii

Quote:André Szelp: opinions that “shrines” refers to the concealment of text by encryption which has to be cracked, i.e. opened like a shrine/cabinet? In particular, in Latin “scrinium (neuter)” means ‘case, chest for a book’, so has a connotation with knowledge and writing which I agree with. Kirchner uses a non-standard gender form (feminine) “scrina”. The idea here seems to be that there is a chest of knowledge – ie, plain text hiding a secret message.

Hi David,
the first character in the supposed "scrinae" is an "f". The difference from a long "s" is the presence of a dash across the ascender.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. gives the reading by Philip Neal "huius farinae" which appears to be a documented idiom; on the other hand, as Szelp more-or-less says, "scrinae" is not a Latin word, it should be "scrinii" or "scrini".

BTW, we are off topic and this discussion should probably be moved to a different thread.

(29-05-2022, 03:16 PM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.To say it clearly, my suggestion IS that we have in Beineke 408
a caswe of Late Medieval Shorthand. It came to me when I ignored the
misreadings of EVA and started to read the ms. by itself, which is
possible as I have told you again and again

I am still looking forward to a "Helmut Winkler's theory thread"  This would probably clear things up for many people.

As far as the argument against Voynich faking the MS goes, I don't think anyone could put it better than Lisa did above.

Marco,

I am sure you are wrong, the first letter is a long s, look how the ductus is flowing,
there is no separate dash, not to say  that farina - flour really does not make sense
in this context. And I can assure you that 17th c. writers took sometimes a neutrum ending
on-a as a femininum

KoenG wrote

I am still looking forward to a "Helmut Winkler's theory thread"

I am afraid you are right

(29-05-2022, 05:28 PM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Marco,

I am sure you are wrong, the first letter is a long s, look how the ductus is flowing,
there is no separate dash, not to say  that farina - flour really does not make sense
in this context. 

Hi Helmut, I am afraid that this time I must disagree. "Huius farinae" was used figuratively, meaning "of this kind / of this nature". I was not familiar with this expression, but I could easily find various occurrences of it. Philip Neal's translation You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is grammatically correct and fits the context perfectly.

Quote:Multas huius farinae scripturas uarijs occasionibus me dissoluisse memini

I can recall solving many writings of this kind when the occasion presented itself

These are a couple of XVI Century examples:
Top: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1541)
Bottom: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (this edition, 1521, see the line above the highlighted word)

EDIT: 
Another example, from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1570). This is probably even closer to our case, since the expression is applied to magical spells and characters.

Quote:...ea tractare statui, quae ad pietatem attinent, id est de superstitiosa et Magica curatione per verba, characteres, invocationes nescio quorum Angelorum et quicquid huius farinae cacodaemones excogitarunt.

I have resolved to deal with those things which pertain to piety—that is, concerning superstitious and magical healing through words, characters and the invocations of all sorts of angels and whatever else of this nature evil spirits contrive.

Such cases of faking the manuscripts are not unusual at all. It also happened in the 19th century in Bohemia
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
A lot of linguists and bohemists are arguing even today about the credibility of those manuscripts.

Kircher uses several times "huius farinae" in his work about Egyptian hieroglyphs, Kabbalah and other mysteries (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). For instance, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (my translation):

Quote:Tempus me deficeret, si omnia, quae in Rabbinorum libris passim occurrunt, huius farinae machinamenta, adducerent vellem.

I would run out of time, if I wanted to discuss all the inventions of this kind that appear in the books of the rabbis.

Maro.

assuming you are right (which I don't, but it doesn' matter), where is the difference in meaning, i.e. that K. had seen these kind of writings and had read them?

(30-05-2022, 08:49 AM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Maro.

assuming you are right (which I don't, but it doesn' matter), where is the difference in meaning, i.e. that K. had seen these kind of writings and had read them?

Hi Helmut,
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as evidence that Kircher thought of the manuscript as a cipher: that's why I researched this word. From my point of view, "huius farinae" has a clearer meaning, but I don't believe it makes any substantial difference.

My own personal speculation is that Kircher was very much in the same position as many contemporary researchers: he had no clear idea about the nature of the script as a cipher or another kind of strange writing system. Similarly to the first impression of many people, he thought that, with a little time and effort, the manuscript would have been readable.