The Voynich Ninja

That's actually more interesting than the science fiction novel. What's in the historian's toolbox about the VM?

(04-10-2024, 06:02 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That's actually more interesting than the science fiction novel. What's in the historian's toolbox about the VM?

A summary of the Golden Fleece book:

Quote:Is the Voynich Manuscript a Hoax?

In 1912, a Polish antique book dealer living in London, Wilfred Voynich (1865–1930), announced the discovery of a strange new manuscript (MS), allegedly originating in the thirteenth century with the English polymath and Franciscan friar Roger Bacon. The text was written in an indecipherable code, unbroken by William Friedman and other world-class cryptographers to this day. The illustrations of botanical plants and flowers seemed unique. Some were unknown. No one could find a similar manuscript anywhere. Nobody had recorded anything like this strange book before 1912. Could the MS be authentic? Or was it a hoax?

Voynich claimed the manuscript’s provenance ran from Bacon through the Elizabethan seer and con man John Dee to Habsburg emperor Rudolf II in Prague, ending up in a Jesuit library outside Rome or a “castle in Europe,” as Voynich described it. More likely, Voynich acquired a warehouse of medieval and early modern manuscript materials from a Florence book dealer in 1908 and put the strange book together himself before moving to the US and setting up his own book dealership in New York before World War I. Failing to sell his “ugly duckling” manuscript for an inflated asking price in the 1920s, he bequeathed it to his widow Ethel Boole Voynich, daughter of the famous logician George Boole, and to her committee. The manuscript finally ended up at the Yale University library in New Haven in 1969, where it currently resides. In our time, thousands of Voynicheros worldwide spend their days trying to follow the intricate historiographical debate and source materials related to the manuscript. Their online websites are full of claims, counterclaims, evidence, and clues. If you wish to, you can lose yourself in the Voynich MS debate online for as long as your eyesight holds out.

Was the Voynich manuscript a hoax or a forgery? Since 1986, many scholars have thought it was both. Voynich, as a young Polish revolutionary, was versed in codes, conspiracies, and ciphers. The appearance of the MS parallels the faked discovery of Piltdown Man, the “missing link,” between apes and humans, and the Dreadnought battleship spoof of Virginia Woolf and her friends in 1910, disguised as a royal delegation from Zanzibar to Great Britain. The manuscript’s provenance as alleged by Voynich follows closely the trail of books published in England after 1890 and well known to him. There is no mention of the manuscript before January 1912, when Voynich tried and failed to sell it to an American pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Henry S. Wellcome, who lived in London and planned to open a museum of medical history there (he did in 1913). Published sources of the day provide a vast amount of material related to Roger Bacon, John Dee, and Emperor Rudolf II that resemble the alleged Voynich provenance. There is circumstantial but convincing evidence that Voynich put the manuscript together himself, using authentic paper, inks, and pigments and employing his friends and family to assist him in the project. His provenance was consistent with current scholarship.

Task: Using online research, see if you can find any evidence that a Voynich manuscript existed before 1912.

For Further Reading

You can see the entire book online now if you wish. Don’t bother traveling to Yale. Join the discussions regarding the Voynich manuscript. Or check out my own investigations in my book Golden Fleece. The Voynich Manuscript and British Intelligence, 1890–1960 (Pittsburgh: Dorrance Publishers, 2024). The debate over the authenticity of the Voynich manuscript continues and shows no signs of ending soon.

"circumstantial but convincing evidence", "authentic paper" 

Not really focused on VMs content, I gather. You know, the fake drawings on 'authentic paper'.

I wasn't going to write here, because I haven't read the book.
However the quote from the summary referring to paper is of course a major blunder.

Now it may be that the newer book makes it clear that the author is aware that the MS is not on paper but on parchment - someone might have seen this - but it demonstrates the lack of seriousness in the whole thing.
Even the short blurb has numerous mistakes and statements that are not supported by evidence.

The January 1912 date comes out of nowhere, and the only thing of interest I have seen is the proposed contact (correspondence?) between Voynich and Wellcome. A source for that would be interesting.

All in all, as far as I can tell, this author has put in only a tiny fraction of the time and effort that Rich has.

(05-10-2024, 07:14 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Now it may be that the newer book makes it clear that the author is aware that the MS is not on paper but on parchment - someone might have seen this - but it demonstrates the lack of seriousness in the whole thing.

He seems confused in the new book too: calfskin is not paper. Probably the cause of the confusion is "vellum paper" that imitates calfskin.

Robert C. Williams in the new book Wrote:In 2009 University of Arizona scientists on Yale’s behalf performed a radio-carbon test of the vellum or calfskin paper in the VMS. The results dated the paper to 1404-48 with 95% confidence, but that could have been true of thousands of pages of old books and manuscripts that Voynich acquired and stockpiled in Florence in 1908.

ReneZ Wrote:The January 1912 date comes out of nowhere, and the only thing of interest I have seen is the proposed contact (correspondence?) between Voynich and Wellcome. A source for that would be interesting.

January because of the 13th January letter about the "13th century medical manuscript" that Williams identifies "probably" as the VM.

Indeed, the correspondence between Voynich and Wellcome's agent C.J.S. Thompson hasn't been studied or even mentioned before it seems in VM literature.

Under Booksellers correspondence WA/HMM/LI/Bks
Voynich M.W. Letters to and from Charles J.S. Thompson, 1909-21 WA/HMM/LI/Bks/73
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (107 images)

In the new book, Robert C. Williams inserted "Roger Bacon" into his otherwise correct description of the 13th January 1912 letter from Voynich to Thompson and answer:

Robert C. Williams in the new book Wrote:On January 13 Voynich wrote Charles Thompson asking if he wanted to keep the Roger Bacon “13th century medical manuscript which I sent for your inspection.” Thomp­son did not. He would not pay more than ten pounds for it. This was probably the Voynich manuscript in some form. Thompson returned it to Voynich.

"Probably"

Bacon is not mentioned in the letters:

[attachment=9316]

[attachment=9317]

This seems to be an attempt to link this manuscript (?) with Bolton's book, supposedly providing a provenance:

Robert C. Williams in the new book Wrote:Roger Bacon’s anniversary and Bolton's 1904 book provided Voynich with a provenance for a thirteenth-century alchemical-medical manu­script by Roger Bacon supposedly delivered by Dee and Kelley to seventeenth­ century Prague and the court of Rudolf II. But where was the evidence of such a manuscript if it ever existed?

Williams is obviously just using the word "paper" instead of "vellum". He was probably unfamiliar with the word "vellum" and so thought "paper" was a clearer and simpler word to use for most readers. That is, for most of us, an unnecesary --and even misleading-- simplification.  Most of us equate "paper" with "wood-pulp paper", but in a more general and colloquial sense, it may be used to refer to any similar writing material.

Williams' Voynich work is certainly amatuerish and ill-informed, and on the topic of the Voynich MS, it's essentially useless. So there are a lot of substantive flaws in his work to criticize; his use of the word "paper" is probably not one of them.

Uhm, so being misleading is not a flaw that should be criticized?

(05-10-2024, 11:11 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Uhm, so being misleading is not a flaw that should be criticized?

Crticize it if you wish, but doing so makes it obvious that you are really just more concerned with "piling on" and looking for whatever irrelevant items can be used to tear him down, than with the actual evidence that he may or may not have presented and the legitimacy of his ideas.

Normally I'd agree with the sentiment, Andrew. But this is a scientific publication by the professional author of "the historian's toolbox", not an amateur blog. We should expect adherence to a certain standard, including in the use of terminology.