I feel like we often spend so much time trying to decipher the script, figure out the drawings and the mystery of it all, that I've never really seen people state what they think is written in the VM/what it is. so what's your theory, based upon your studying of the VM?
I think it is most likely intended to be an enciphered scientific/medical rough notebook. Obviously the terms "scientific" and "medical" should be used loosely as the Voynich manuscript obviously wouldn't live up to modern scientific/medical standards.
What I can say is that I don't consider the VMS to be a coherent work, but a kind of anthology. This is not at all unusual for the time when the manuscript was written. Everything else is ( unfortunately ) open.
I think it must be a scrappy personal notebook as when one compares it with the professionally produced manuscripts of the time the Voynich drawings look so crude and so poorly done that they must be drawn by an amateur not concerned about the artist or visual details. (Even an amateur could have made more effort with some of the drawings.) Because it looks so rough and ready it seems unlikely it would have been produced for sale at that time. Obviously it was very saleable much later in its history, but if I were producing something for sale at the time I would not have produced something so crude looking.
So on that basis it counts against the idea that it was a hoax meant for sale to a collector as it would have been made more visually appealing. Similarly if it was meant to impress some people to obtain membership of some society I think more effort would have been made on its visual appearance. As Voynich said himself it was an "ugly duckling" when compared with other manuscripts.
So I don't think it was intended to be seen by other people. I think it was just a personal scientific notebook. This would account for the fact that we don't see references by others at the time to the manuscript as it wasn't intended to be seen and so was seen by very few people. It may have just been lying around, so to speak, not noticed and with little interest until time had made it a historical curiosity the likes of which Emperor Rudolph might be interested in.
Of course this is speculation.
I think differently.
The drawings of the plants as an example, are carefully and accurately drawn. What makes it look unreal is the coloring. Here everything was disfigured with the thick paint. But some have been nicely colored so that you can still see the base lines. Example, Viola.
Further, I see that not everyone is a Leonardo, so far the drawings are OK.
Since it seems to be several writers, maybe also draftsmen, so I see it not directly as a private work, but rather as a group work.
This leads me to believe that mainly regional plants were used and what can be made of them, or can be made. This would give a pharmacist or doctor an advantage by not having to buy expensive imports. To this knowledge and advantage of the region to were, the encryption came into play.
That's the way I see it.
(17-05-2023, 08:02 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.so I see it not directly as a private work, but rather as a group work.
From my perspective it can be a private work and a group work at the same time. By this I mean it can be the product of a small group of people, such as friends or brothers(in my theory), and just kept between them and not shared outside their very small circle.
Even with a group work I see, or make there differences.
Let's assume it was friends who created the book. As an example, students. Here the question arises, who gets to keep the book at the end of the study? After all, it represents a considerable value in the time.
Was everyone allowed to make a copy now? That would also mean that several of the books with this writing were in circulation, or still are.
In the family it looks somewhat different. There the book would remain simply in the family, and that possibly place-scattered. So students are perhaps from different regions or even countries come.
Purely philosophically regarded.
(18-05-2023, 09:23 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Was everyone allowed to make a copy now?
It is my opinion that no copies where made of the Voynich manuscript. There is only one copy namely the Voynich manuscript itself. If it was kept by one family member other family members could see it when they visited that family member if they wished to. However then the question becomes when and why did the manuscript leave the family's possession? Within how many generations did it remain in the family?
(18-05-2023, 09:56 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If it was kept by one family member other family members could see it when they visited that family member if they wished to.
If the VMS should have been the work of a family and always in family possession, then the question arises about the sense of the "encoding". This could be explained at best with the assumption that one did it simply because one could do it. In any case, access to the VMS, i.e. to potentially explosive content, from outside does not seem to be a problem in this scenario.
(18-05-2023, 10:44 AM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (18-05-2023, 09:56 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If it was kept by one family member other family members could see it when they visited that family member if they wished to.
If the VMS should have been the work of a family and always in family possession, then the question arises about the sense of the "encoding". This could be explained at best with the assumption that one did it simply because one could do it. In any case, access to the VMS, i.e. to potentially explosive content, from outside does not seem to be a problem in this scenario.
You are right the central question about the Voynich manuscript is thie "encoding" and most importantly that we can't yet decipher this encoding. Without the encoding it would very likely be an intriguing medieval manuscript amongst many other intriguing manuscripts. It is the fact that we can't read it that really makes it stand out. I would say the Voynich mystery is the "encoding" everything else is details. We are left with the questions:
Why was it encoded?
Why can't we decipher the encoding?
Why aren't there any other manuscripts from around the time that are encoded in the same way?
In essence I think your statement that "This could be explained at best with the assumption that one did it simply because one could do it." has a lot of truth in it. However I would qualify this statement somewhat. I think one, or more than one, of the authors had already had significant experience in cryptography years before any of them even thought to write the Voynich manuscript. So I don't think a cipher was invented as it is felt necessary to keep the contents of the Voynich secret, though there may have been a small element of that. I think rather the Voynich was written in cipher as it was an opportunity to experiment with a complex cipher by someone(some people) who already had a strong interest in and knowledge of ciphers. I think the cipher is really part of the work. The manuscript is a work about herbs, astrology, cosmology and cryptography i.e. a rounded scientific text of the time covering various area of what they thought of as "science" of the time. The closest parallel from the time that I can think of is the work if Giovanni Fontana. Another loose parallel I would think is the work of Abbot Trithemius.
As I said before what I have written here is speculation.