The Voynich Ninja

I'm making a separate thread specifically fot this question, since in Mark's thread a lot is being handled at once. This is the question I personally find the most fascinating right now, though others are of course welcome to explore different facets (e.g. label matching) in the other thread or a separate one.

A first thing I have noticed (probably been noticed before) is that the following bifolios could be nested, from outside to inside:

1-8
37-36
18-23
47-42

This would result in a lot of the strongest, most obvious resemblances from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to be somewhat grouped together: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (I think this may have been a new discovery by Mark) - f37v - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. follows without clear match - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. without clear match - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. without clear match - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - then the rest follows without clear match: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
All of these bifolios are Herbal A, scribe 1. This suggests that the later ones are indeed out of place. The suggested nesting would bring a large amount of recurring roots together with just a few other plants in between. 

It is possible that more bifolios should be nested. In Q20 it went up to 7, apparently. I'm still puzzling further, juggling these bifolios requires quite a bit of concentration. I am not sure if this will lead to anything else, or if it's all a coincidence, but the fact that they can be grouped and this action pulls back some wayward Herbal A folios is a bit encouraging.

Link to our Drive doc for easy access: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The one thing I noted based on earlier comparisons is that the vast majority of good matches are to Herbal-A pages, with one exception, which is Mark's number 9.
It will be worth checking if this feature holds up.

There are also concentrations in both sections. Most notably 102r. But also in the large plants that are currently (re)bound closest to the pharma section. I'm starting to fear though that the number of actual matches is too low to determine what is actually going on. 

Would there be a possibility that both sections were originally combined? Like a few large plants, then the corresponding foldout with "pharma stuff", then some more large plants, another foldout etc?

(03-10-2023, 06:58 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The one thing I noted based on earlier comparisons is that the vast majority of good matches are to Herbal-A pages, with one exception, which is Mark's number 9.
It will be worth checking if this feature holds up.

This doesn't surprise me, since Scribe 1 wrote the pharma pages and the Herbal-A pages. You would expect Scribe 1 to copy her/his own work better than that of other scribes/artists. I'm looking more carefully now at places where the Pharma section calls back to Herbal-B pages, that is, those written by Scribes 2, 3, or 5, using Mark's table as well as my own (some new) callbacks. More on this, and its implications, soon.

Maybe, but there are several assumptions in this, of which I am not (yet) convinced.

Looking forward forward to progress, though.