The Voynich Ninja

Koen's question: "That is the conundrum, in my opinion: why is almost everything unusual?"

In part, it is the artist's unique 'style' that creates the unusual appearance, but the main reason (IMO) is the artist's intent to create a book that would appear to be a reference source that has originated in an unknown *foreign* culture, as it would be seen by a person living in the middle of the 15th century.

Many medieval attempts at "secretive" writing use symbols or techniques that make it obvious that some form of disguise is being used. This violates Rogen Bacon's first rule secrecy, which is to disguise the fact that trickery is being used to begin with. As a fake foreign text, the VMs may have carried a hidden message. And in its current, cut-up condition, we will never know.

Almost everything is unusual in its appearance. Almost everything, but not everything. One small opening in the impenetrable VMs facade is found in the use of the nebuly line, as seen in the VMs cosmos. Historical investigation and heraldic information have shown that a nebuly line can be a cloud band, and a cloud band functions as a cosmic boundary. And that there is a similarity of uncommon structure in the comparison with cosmic illustrations from BNF Fr. 565 and Harley 334, and all that entails.

The VMs is unusual because of altered appearance and intentional ambiguity. Clearly there are two paths of heraldic interpretation for the blue stripes on VMs White Aries. Does the reader know the armorial insignia of the pope who started the tradition of the cardinal's red galero? If so, five minutes may be sufficient. If not, then it depends on how long it takes.

All incidents create noise (or fog by a different metaphor.) The problem is always to distinguish the noise from what is important, to see the true shape of things amidst the mist. In this sense, all incidents are like a verbose cipher: the important information is hidden amongst a profusion of intriguing irrelevancies, by nature.

A classic example of the problem is the assassination of President Kennedy. The incident took place within a very small window, barely sixty seconds. The amount of information in that window is quite extraordinary - but what is relevant and what is noise? Is the man holding an umbrella important to the event, or noise? Is the looming figure on the grassy knoll important to the event, or noise? In the official version of the event, both of those things are noise.

Importantly, we may not be able to explain either of them. In any given incident there will be things that cannot be explained. That is just the nature of things. This is why noise can be intriguing.

In the case of the VMs, there is a huge amount of noise. That is what we mean when we say it is all weird. Somehow we have to distinguish what is important from the noise. We have to make distinctions. 

But even if we find the author and decode the text, there will be lots of weird things that cannot be explained. The “chicken scratches” for instance. Intruiging, but probably noise, and most likely will never be explained. Ditto some of the marginalia. 

That’s why I ask questions like: what is the core conundrum here? Where to focus amidst the noise? Our problem is asking the right questions.


(My own preparation for this was spending 10+ years in the academic study of the medieval Gospel of Barnabas - a not dissimilar problem, a weird document and a huge amount of noise.)

(14-07-2022, 02:43 PM)cvetkakocj@rogers.com Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(14-07-2022, 12:04 PM)Hermes777 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The answer must be that existing scripts were not adequate to the task.

Because we are constantly reminded about the weird script, little research is done into the similarity of the script with the medieval Latin. In my research, I found clear similarity for all VM letters, except the four tall glyphs. Looking at the 15th century manuscripts in different languages we can see how different Latin letters were being adopted, and here and there some new letter-forms were created. The Gothic script also underwent changes to make all those minims more readable and to form distinctions between y, i and j. Slovenian people who prior used Glagolitza, had to switch to Latin writing, because their territory was divided after the disolution of the Patriarchate of Aquileia. At the time of the Basel council, it looked the western Church would permit the use of vernacular languages in liturgy, which also triggered the incentives to commit national languages to written form.
However, the promotion of vernacular language started before the appearance of humanism. The question was first raised when the Slavic people of Moravia began using their their language and developed Slavic literacy in Great Moravia, which also included Large part of present day Slovenia. Slovenian (Wendish in German, Schiavone in Italian) became the fourth sacred language, recognized by the Roman pope. In the 10th century, the use of Slavic language in liturgy was suppressed, the land of Great Moravia was divided, but rebellion against that and against the feudal church was growing as different religious sects began appearing under different names (Bogomils, Patereni, Kazars, Catars...) Within those movements, the objective was to promote art and literacy, so that people can read and interpret the biblical books.
All these movements were called 'sectarian'. Members and particularly leaders were persecuted, their literary works burned. The so-called sectarian language was developed, as Gabrielle Rossetti explains in his book Antipapal Sentiment. Dante was the first to use it to express his ideas in the plain eyesight, but in such a way that only select (sectarian) people were able to understand, because he used the symbols that were familiar to them. Rossetti (in the 18th century) even explains how Dante changed 9 to I. In his book, we can find the explanation for the weird pictures in the VM and their double meaning.
The alphabet used in the VM is mostly based on Latin. In some European scripts, the combinations of Latin letters were used for certain sounds. The Latin z was problematic, because it was pronounced as c (while C was pronounced as K or Č (ch) in Italian. For German language, special shapes of K and H were created, but they were cumbersome to write in cursive. In some manuscript, a small T was used that could easily be confused with other letters when it was connected to them. In many German words, double T was used. We can imagine the author of the VM writing his letter T as TT written with one stroke. 
The Slovenian language does not have Q letters (KV or CV is used), so one of the first thing I changed in EVA was EVA-q

The most mysterious VM glyphs (EVA-f and p) might be inspired by author's own intention to connect it with the divine and solve the problems created by three different writing convention. With the introduction of the printing press at the end of the 15th century, those two glyphs would have been absolite.
Slovenian speaking people were divided among three different political entities in the 15th century - German, Hungarian, and Italian. As the Basel Council was counting on the use of the national languages in liturgy, it is possible that the Carthusians who united their four charterhouses, were attempting to write down the Slovenian language as it existed in oral form. This can be further substantiated with the fact that Nicholas Kempf, the prior of Jurklošter charterhouse, was one of the greatest proponents of the use of vernacular languages in liturgy and literature. Besides this, there are other possible reasons why he would write a book in Slovenian:

a) he had close ties with the Counts of Celje (the most powerful Slovenian noble family, rivaling with the Habsburg at the time;

b) there must have been an interest at the time Kempf was at Vienna, since Georgius de Sclavonia wrote a book on Glagolitza while he was a student there a few years before Kempf's arrival; 

c) as a monk and Carthusian prior, he kept in touch with his students and with the professors at Vienna university where Slovenian, Brikcij Preprost was a rector at Kempf's life-time;

d) he might have co-autored the Latin grammar book (Grammatica nova) with two Slovenians from Celje region - Bernard Perger and Brikcij Preprost. (The third author was Nicholas of Novo mesto (Rudolphswert), but there was no other outstanding learned men at the time in this town, except Kempf, who was a Carthusian prior at nearby Pleterje Charterhouse. Besides philosophy and Latin, Perger had also studied grammar, mathematics, astronomy and classical literature.)

e) for many years, Kempf was a prior at Gaming, one of the most distinguished European monasteries at the time, and for over 20 years, he was a prior at Carthusian charterhouses in Slovenian speaking lands, precisely, in the monasteries supported by the Counts of Celje that could have supported his artistic activity;

f) Kempf also  could have known Thomas of Celje, who was private tutor of Emperor Frederic's son Maximillian, and later the Bishop of Constance. It has been documented that Thomas wrote Slovenian grammar book and dictionary, but since the manuscript does not exist, there is no proof for that. 

In my opinion, the VM might be a collective work of those learned men and the story about the Slovenian book might have been a reference to the VM, which in some parts look like a dictionary (the labels) and a grammar book (pages with words starting with the same initial, or with the same prefix). But in general, the VM is primarily a religious book in style of humanistic 'sectarian' language, where each picture has a double meaning - one realistic and one symbolic, with just enough clues for the like-minded to understand the hidden messages.

To understand the VM, one needs to learn the symbolism of humanistic writing, the writing conventions used in the region of Northern Italy, Southern Austria, and present day Slovenia, and also a lot of history to find the reason why the language was written down. It took another 100 years, before the first Slovenian books appeared.

These are just a few ideas why I focused on the connection between Slovenian language and the VM.

I agree with your general linguistic context, namely the changes in national languages in the relevant period. Very likely the script in the Voynich emerges from shifting linguistic forces. It seems to be related to the broader revival of 'humanist' scripts, for instance. 

I appreciate that you are building a contextual case for a Slovenian VMs. Kempf is an interesting candidate. But it seems your reading depends upon "double meanings" for the illustrations. I think that is because your case is largely to do with the text and the language and doesn't fit the illustrations so neatly. 

I prefer a different scenario, anyway. But in my case I think I can give a good account of the pictures; I struggle to explain the text. A strong possibility, though, is that what we see is a previously oral tradition being put to writing for the first time, with no established conventions for mapping the sounds to script. That might have 'nationalist' motivations. I exclude Slovenian because I place the manuscript in a different region: alpine northern Italy, the Bishopric of Brixen, County Tyrol. I think that region is the linguistic context. 

The linguistic context of that region is: Germanic intrusions from the north, Gallo-Itallic intrusions from the south, with ancient remnant tongues (Ladin, Romansh etc.) squeezed in the middle. Plus Latin, of course. Personally, given that context, I doubt nationalist motivations are primary. I suspect the relevant pressure - the 'crisis' - was more likely the rising tide of witch hunts in the region. (I always look for a 'crisis' - what situation brought the work into being?)

(14-07-2022, 03:55 PM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think it is a mistake to classify Beinecke 408 as weird, it only entices you to look for out of the way solutions

Thanks Helmut. I tend to agree with your warning. It is a weird work, but it is not that weird. Exaggerating its weirdness invites UFO theories, and the like. It is not a-historical. It was written by someone in the 1400s for perfectly natural reasons and there are perfectly natural and historically appropriate explanations for every single aspect of the work. It's important not to surrender to the weirdness which, in large measure, reveals our own limitations.

For almost everything, more or less close parallels can be found in other manuscripts, except for the writing.
One could tentatively order all the points listed above in terms of weirdness. (And come up with many different opinions).

For me, at the top is the writing.

At the other end are the foldouts. There's a little anecdote to that. During a workshop in 2014 the MS was analysed by five library curators, and they collectively considered that the presence of these foldouts was probably as unusual as the writing itself. Then one of them, Abigail Quandt of "Achimedes Palimpsest" fame, decided to get to the bottom of it. She consulted a colleague (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) who immediately came back with different examples, from the 12th and the 15th century. The two most interesting are:
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As far as the nymphs are concerned, for me, it isn't so much the nymphs themselves, but the 'stuff' they are standing in. Badly drawn naked women standing in green water can again be found elsewhere.
My favourite: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
For me the connected tubes and stuff in the biological section comes second, followed by the rosettes page (3rd).

The thing that has revealed our limitations is the lack of familiarity with the relevant details of history, tradition, religion and science as represented in the VMs illustrations - present company excepted, of course.

Consider the investigation of the VMs mermaid on VMs f79v. Over 100 years of research and nobody really knew what to make of her. A female Jonah and the whale? Or just a mermaid? Only a few years ago, someone brought the medieval myth of Melusine to the ninja discussion. Not only did the lines of Valois descendants claim ancestry from the mermaid-like version of Melusine through Bonne of Luxembourg, but her son, Jean, Duke of Berry, had several connections to the dragon-like Melusine of Lusignan.

William Newbold suggested that the VMs cosmos was Roger Bacon's telescopic illustration of the Andromeda galaxy. After a century of confusion, the Oresme cosmos of BNF Fr 565 provides a much better comparison. And even then, it is a determination based on a similarity of structure, rather than a similarity of appearance.

In the fog of confusion, a single fact can be of great importance. Such a fact is found in the VMs cosmos. That fact is that the VMs artist knows that a nebuly like can be used as a cosmic boundary. That fact is then put to use in the identification of the VMs 'critter' of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - variously described as an armadillo, a pangolin, a dragon, even as a representation of the Golden Fleece. However, the critter is not alone - there are two other artistic elements below it. A century of investigation found no real explanation for this. However, if the nebuly line is interpreted as the representation of a cosmic boundary, then the question becomes: What critter is associated with a cosmic boundary? Then the answer is simple: the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God. The particular, three-part structure of the VMs representation is matched by the illustration of BNF Fr. 13096 f.18, which provenance later places in the <Valois> Duke of Burgundy's library. (1430, origin of the Order of the Golden Fleece by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy)

The Golden Fleece is put in place of the Agnus Dei. The Luxembourg version of Valois Melusine is substituted for the generic mermaid of Harley 334 and the Lauber illustrations. The Oresme cosmos sits inside of Shirakatsi's wheel with eight curved spokes. The use of combined images is a trick employed by the VMs artist to create ambiguous illustrations. Once is chance; twice is coincidence; three times is methodology. White Aries holds an obfuscated reference to a unique, combined set of factors regarding Catholic church history and tradition based on heraldry.

The wriing is nothing weird or unusual, only there is not a full set of glyphs or lettrers, someone else remarked on this a few days ago

I'd rather not make a further remark on this

he foldouts are easily explained (as I said before) once you realise that independent writings were bound together

Rene: do you know of any other example of a foldout that unfolds in two dimensions, like the Rosettes?

Helmut: I don't buy that. Look at the foldouts in the small plants section for example. They are designed in such a way that one part fits the VM folio format and the other part can fold out. The same goes for the other foldouts in the MS: they are all designed with the VM's folio size in mind. The most obvious exception is the Rosettes, where they clearly wanted one big sheet to fit one big drawing. But the revers side is again neatly divided along the VM folio format.

Koen,

the Liber Floridus has both horizontal and vertical fold-outs, but (as far as I remember) none that go in both directions.
On the other hand, there is an example of that in Vatican MS Pal.Lat.1356, which was originally in Heidelberg.
This was created in Germany, and is a collection of items from the 12th to the 16th century.

The double foldout isn't nearly as large as the Voynich double fold-out. Also, the binding does not cut through the design.

Go to: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and scroll to fol.113

On the recto side there is a map.

(15-07-2022, 09:36 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Rene: do you know of any other example of a foldout that unfolds in two dimensions, like the Rosettes?

Helmut: I don't buy that. Look at the foldouts in the small plants section for example. They are designed in such a way that one part fits the VM folio format and the other part can fold out. The same goes for the other foldouts in the MS: they are all designed with the VM's folio size in mind. The most obvious exception is the Rosettes, where they clearly wanted one big sheet to fit one big drawing. But the revers side is again neatly divided along the VM folio format.

I think the better part of the (bi)folios was cut to size before binding, it is obvious in the herbal part. Medieval parchment had a similar average size, it comes from  the average size of he animals used, that is were you get your V. folio size.

I must say I am not far advanced with this ´things, I just turn around some ideas from years ago