The Voynich Ninja

Another article of interest for this topic: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(08-12-2022, 06:59 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Another article of interest for this topic: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Yes, it's an interesting topic.

Another perspective is to consider specific libraries, where there were relevant inventories of the texts. The Dukes of Berry and Burgundy, as examples IIRC, had losses of 2/3 to 3/4 of the contents.

(08-12-2022, 10:11 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Another perspective is to consider specific libraries, where there were relevant inventories of the texts. The Dukes of Berry and Burgundy, as examples IIRC, had losses of 2/3 to 3/4 of the contents.

Losses can vary from library to library. When it comes to ciphers from the early 15th century Mantova and Lucca have significant material, but Venice has almost nothing.

The article on the restoration of the Cotton manuscripts is a long but very interesting read. Sometimes shocking how carelessly the keepers treated manuscripts we would now consider treasures.

One curious thing is that the article suggests that the pressmarks (at least the letter and numeral part) weren't assigned until the manuscripts were in the British Library. I must misunderstand what the article refers to.

One must also take into account whether it is handwritten or printed.
Here are a few against thousands.

And the destruction doesn't stop. The creeping destruction like insects and fungus. Also the big ones like fires.

A library in Ukraine was just hit.
And of course others.
For example, the monastery in St. Gallen had 3 fires in its library.

And others.

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(07-12-2022, 10:39 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.or dismembered to be part of the capitalist biblioclasm of the twentieth-century.

I wish that had been limited to the twentieth century.  Dismemberment of "ordinary" Books of Hours and the like is distressing enough, but manuscripts with unique textual content are still routinely being split up for profit, such as notarial repertoires that contain the copies of record of all the land transactions, marriage agreements, wills, and so forth handled by a particular notary in a particular community over some months or years.  I could name sellers on eBay who routinely buy intact codices of this kind, dating back as far as the fifteenth century, and then auction them off leaf by leaf as novelties, with no apparent shortage of buyers.  I also know from their vague or incorrect descriptions that they can't read or identify the documents they're breaking up in this way, so that in theory these could be almost anything.  Even a key to Voynichese!

Absolutely. It happens every day, and people should know better.

(09-12-2022, 05:40 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Absolutely. It happens every day, and people should know better.

Sadly, I think they know well enough, but like so many things it is just a sign of pure greed.

Here is another estimate of how many manuscripts survive, based on a statistical method first developed in ecology called an unseen species model.

Lay press summary:

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Link to actual article (abstract only):


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As indicated in the summary of the full article, the authors use this to estimate that over 90% of manuscripts have been lost -- for a wide variety of reasons.