Looking at other manuscripts recently makes me aware again how poor and unprofessional looking the illustrations in the Voynich manuscript are. It seems to me, for example, that the Zodiac illustrations were copied without much care or attention. In fact I would say that all the Voynich illustrations were done without much care by an amateur.
So, the idea that the illustrations were made to impress other people seems doubtful. Rather it seems to fit with the idea that the manuscript was kept private and secret than to be made public. The Voynich has the feel of a scrappy scientific/medical notebook. I suspect that the manuscript was intended to be functional and practical as opposed to beautiful, so the illustrations were as good as they needed to be for practical usefulness rather than visual appeal.
I must admit that the scrappy appearance of the manuscript bothers me a little. It makes me worry about the seriousness of the author(s) in making it. On the one hand the hours of work put into making it shows they took it seriously. On the other hand I worry about whether they put as much effort into the text as they put into the illustrations. Maybe the text is as poorly executed as the illustrations. The possibility that I have discussed before that a lot of the text may just be filler with only a small proportion meaningful occurs to me again. It makes me wonder if we have all been treating the manuscript with more seriousness than it deserves.
The Voynich MS was made in a time where paper was easily available and was being used regularly for manuscripts. It was cheaper than parchment, but it was not seen as a durable material.
The single fact that the Voynich MS was written on parchment can assure us that its maker(s) was/were serious about it and wanted it to last a long time.
Would there be a good reason to draw all those nymphs, if the author(s) went for practical usefulness and not visual appeal? Id argue that unless there's hidden meaning behind them, its of little to no use to embellish such a ms with so many similarly looking nymphs, if it was intended for private use and not for exhibition or to impress others to some degree
I think the manuscript was for private use, a template for making readable copies of things one could sell instead, while keeping the information secret from those who might want to take it from them in order to do the same. I think the nymphs are there for a reason, not for simple embellishment. Seems to me they could have done a better job of making them enticing if that was what they were going for, but I guess I am not the intended audience.
The nymphs have poses that don't seem natural, I think that incorporates meaning, and that they are reminders of things to write when making a copy to sell. Perhaps they sold paper copies of herbals from the plant pages, personal calendars from the zodiac, possibly some form of story hidden in amongst the other things? An atlas perhaps.
You wouldn't want such a template to be too pretty, people might want to steal it just because of perceived value, so i think some of the sloppiness might be purposeful to prevent that idea from occurring. If you were trying to hide it from someone and they caught you, you could blame it on the naked ladies you didn't want them to see you looking at. Might be an icebreaker for getting to see things you might not have had access to otherwise. Who knows.
It would be sad if the text ended up being mostly filler. I hope it means something, and hope it was meant to be read easily if one had the knowledge, rather than sitting with a key and figuring out letters one by one to write down, that would seem like too much work to have to do to get a copy from it. Maybe you can't read it right off the page, but can quickly write what you see in such a way as it reveals itself immediately through whatever method is employed.
(02-01-2025, 07:33 AM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....hope it was meant to be read easily if one had the knowledge, rather than sitting with a key and figuring out letters one by one to write down, that would seem like too much work to have to do to get a copy from it. Maybe you can't read it right off the page, but can quickly write what you see in such a way as it reveals itself immediately through whatever method is employed.
This is my main assumption too when it comes to possible ciphers. If there is actually meaningful text, to make it practical it should be easy to read and write. I'd even say one should be able to read it right off the page to make it worth it.
Of course, the original author(s) might not have thought about the practicality of reading the manuscript, but at least they should have started thinking about the practicality of writing it after a few dozen pages
(02-01-2025, 02:38 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The Voynich MS was made in a time where paper was easily available and was being used regularly for manuscripts. It was cheaper than parchment, but it was not seen as a durable material.
The single fact that the Voynich MS was written on parchment can assure us that its maker(s) was/were serious about it and wanted it to last a long time.
Or maybe they were just sufficiently rich to be able to afford parchment.
(02-01-2025, 04:35 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Or maybe they were just sufficiently rich to be able to afford parchment.
But possibly not enough to afford competent illustrators/painters.
(02-01-2025, 04:35 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (02-01-2025, 02:38 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The Voynich MS was made in a time where paper was easily available and was being used regularly for manuscripts. It was cheaper than parchment, but it was not seen as a durable material.
The single fact that the Voynich MS was written on parchment can assure us that its maker(s) was/were serious about it and wanted it to last a long time.
Or maybe they were just sufficiently rich to be able to afford parchment.
Well, obviously, but they still decided to do it.
(02-01-2025, 05:49 PM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (02-01-2025, 04:35 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Or maybe they were just sufficiently rich to be able to afford parchment.
But possibly not enough to afford competent illustrators/painters.
I don't think with the painting it is really just a question of competency. I think often it looks like a lack of effort as though in some cases the quality of the illustrations was not that important. I have no artistic ability or experience and yet in some instances I think I could have done a better job than the Voynich painter(s) just by being careful and paying more attention to detail. There is an kind of laziness to some of the illustrations and maybe that was ok as the work was intended to be functionally useful rather than visually appealing. Some of the painting looks kind of like a rushed job.
Also, even if the author(s) could afford to pay professional illustrators they may have been reluctant to do so as that would mean introducing more people to their possibly intended to be secret private manuscript.
It depends on the definition of 'ugly'.
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