Has anyone raised the opinion that the manuscript might be a collection of separate manuscripts that were written at different times, and were then bound into one so as to keep them all together? I have some ideas on this but I am not sure whether it has been debated before.
(04-03-2024, 10:06 AM)dashstofsk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Has anyone raised the opinion that the manuscript might be a collection of separate manuscripts that were written at different times, and were then bound into one so as to keep them all together? I have some ideas on this but I am not sure whether it has been debated before.
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Sammelhandschrift on the forum's search box: Helmut Winkler has often stated that the VM looks like "works or notes by a single person on various topics that were bound together at some time."
The quire marks that were presumably added with the first binding are written with number forms 4, 5, 7 typical of the 14th and first half of the 15th century.
Don't just search for that term either. Also look for terms like Leonardo da Vinci, notebook, folio order and binding.
We know that the VM's current binding is not its original one. We can also be reasonably certain that the current folio order, while perhaps logical to us now, was not always the order of the folios. We can be reasonably certain there are at least several folios missing. Since binding was always the last step in the making of an illuminated medieval manuscript, it is very unlikely the VM started as a bound book but would have originally been loose sheets of vellum during its drawing and writing, though most of the bifolios and quires would likely have been predetermined. However, it has also been suggested that, like Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, the VM was also its author's (or authors') personal notes accumulated on loose sheets of vellum over many years and possibly not bound for the first time until after his, her or their lifetime. And it has been proposed, and possibly proven, that the VM was written by more than one author and/or scribe.
All these possibilities and probabilities have been discussed on this site multiple times in multiple threads and are in keeping with what you are suggesting. Not to the extent, say, of some manuscript collections wherein completely separate complete and partial original works by different authors at different times were re-bound together by a particular collector much later, of which various institutions hold at least several such examples. The VM is too fluidly written for that and it has a common codicology. But certainly the VM could originally have been a combination of separate loose sheets, bifolios and/or unbound quires by multiple authors of common backgrounds and interests who worked together at some point and whose cumulative work was not bound together as the VM until much later, probably multiple times over the centuries. Each of these separate documents would then have been a separate manuscript originally.
One thing I don't think has been considered yet is whether or not the first binding may have been as more than one volume. That could be an interesting line of research, assuming there is sufficient evidence of the first binding.
That said, the contents of the VM, perhaps especially the linguistics/cryptology, which has been discussed on this site in great detail, will be a primary factor in determining its overall purpose and must be considered when determining its construction. While each conventional section of the VM may be at least somewhat separate in its purpose from other sections, the codicology unites the volume as a single, cumulative work, regardless of how many authors/scribes made it, regardless of its original folio order, and regardless of when and how it was first bound.
I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts on this.
I have expressed a similar opinion more than once on this forum and with Nick. For example
Q 9 is alien to the manuscript for 4 reasons. Two of which are worm holes in the outer margins (for marginalia), which are nowhere else on the inner notebooks. There are no holes at the top of the sheets for additional fastening of bifolios. Even ROS has such holes.
If you look at the root of the book block with the cover removed, you can clearly see that Q13 has an independent vertical dimension.
This also includes pre-stitching Q20
Nick supported my idea, not all holes from bifoio worms are -116, they correspond to -115.
Additional holes in some initial spreads that are not used in the current binding.
Another suggestion is that some of the long clamshells were previously scrolls. I gave two examples on the forum of how when cutting a scroll in a modern version of the manuscript, parts of the missing drawings were left behind. But I found a third case (I want to write a post about it, but I don’t have free time).
Thanks very much, merrimacga.
However something about the manuscript doesn't feel right. In particular the drawings and paintings on the botany pages look very unprofessional and don't compare well with the detailed drawings on the astrology pages.
My idea was that the writings were a forgery, and were written because there was a market for rare books. The author might have intended to first complete a starter manuscript to gain initial interest. Then after the success of his original offering he committed himself to doing further work. His patron later may have decided to bind all the work together.
Otherwise if it was not a forgery and the author was writing for himself then was all of the content of the manuscript really so important that some of it could not have been written in the local language?
Ah well, the whole hoax theory has been discussed a lot on this site too from a number of different angles, including the theory Voynich made it himself, the theory that it was a medieval hoax, and a linguistics experiment that was done to test whether, linguistically, the VM could be a hoax. But searching for the word hoax will bring up a lot of results so I cherry picked a few threads you may want to review (in date order, oldest to latest):
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I'm sure there are others I missed.
A number of scholarly papers have been published about the VM being a hoax but the best known ones were published in Cryptologia, one of the Taylor and Francis publications, and I haven't been able to find free copies of them. Some of them have been discussed on this site. The Wikipedia article on the VM notes a few of the hoax theories too.
I don't think anyone has definitively ruled out the possibility yet that the VM is a hoax but there are some very convincing arguments out there that refute the theory. However, as I have said before on this site, no VM theory is wrong until it is proven wrong and there is something to be gained in any line of inquiry, even if it does eventually prove incorrect. I don't know how well researched your theory is yet but you should definitely pursue it until you either prove it right or wrong. You may learn something new that no one else has considered. And yes, that does still happen, even with the VM. I do look forward to reading more on your theory. Hope this helps.
I always wonder when people talk about "forgeries" in the context of the VM, what exactly they mean. Can you find any definition of
forgery that applies to it?
Are we talking about an official document signed with a fake signature, i.e. forgery as the white-collar crime?
Are we talking about You are not allowed to view links.
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Are we talking about counterfeiting, i.e. an attempt to make an exact copy of existing currency?
In other words, what is the VM a forgery
of, if one of its defining characteristics is being mysterious and unique?
Now, you might say, this is just a matter of definitions and we might use a different term. How about "a fake"? A fake
what though? The same problem emerges. How can it be a fake version of something if it is unique? Wouldn't that just make it a real version of itself?
an act of forging: the crime of falsely and fraudulently *making* or altering a document (such as a check)
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If WV ever intended to make a forgery, it would have been he's first but, afaik, there was for no obvious reason for hime to to do anything like that, if not fame being the only reason, possibly as the value of his books at the time was half a million dollars
The thing is, how credible it would be to become famous by creating an originall low grade book that is even unreadable, rather than copying a famous manuscript? If you want fame you go with famous.
Mysteries do not sell and get in the news that well, Michel Angelos and DaVincis do.
Thanks very much again, merrimacga. I will look through your list of links.
When I used the word forgery I was intending to suggest that possibly the words were meaningless, written in an invented language, and that the plants were fictitious, all with the intention on making people believe that the writings came from some distant and unknown land where strange plants grew and where they had some secret knowledge about witchcraft and about reading the stars.
Are there any known examples of someone in medieval times forging something for financial gain? And if so, which types of forgery are we looking at?