The Voynich Ninja

@Dobri
About your castle with the battlements.
You yourself provide the link, but why don't you look at the photos?
This castle had no dovetail battlements.
It's the little things that say as much as the big ones.
None before 1930.
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(02-03-2025, 09:54 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The way 4o is written almost like a ligature is very interesting. I don't think I've ever seen one this close before (though I haven't really looked).

I found two 40 letterforms in the mid-15th century manuscripts.[attachment=10093][attachment=10094] 
In the letter of Emperor Frederick, it is clearly a number, but in Tractatus, it looks like a letter, and in the Alphabetatum, it looks like letter q.

(02-03-2025, 10:13 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.@Dobri
About your castle with the battlements.
You yourself provide the link, but why don't you look at the photos?
This castle had no dovetail battlements.
It's the little things that say as much as the big ones.
None before 1930.
Emperor's castle-old photo - Castello dell'Imperatore – Wikipedia

The battlements seem to have both
- Ghibelline (dovetail, see the attached segment from a XVII century painting); and
- Guelph (loophole, in every second merlon) features.

It is a mixed architecture. Note that every second merlon without a Guelph loophole would be useless if there is no Ghibelline dovetail on top provided for crossbows.

It can be assumed that the dovetail features of the unfinished castle became less prominent over the centuries due to disrepair and Guelph influence.

Perhaps at least one (or all) of the scribes of the cipher manuscript were Florentine students of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. according to the use of qo in their cipher.

(03-03-2025, 05:34 PM)Dobri Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Perhaps at least one (or all) of the scribes of the cipher manuscript were Florentine students of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. according to the use of qo in their cipher.

The 4o symbol is used in numerous diplomatic cipher alphabets of the 15th century.

(03-03-2025, 05:36 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The 4o symbol is used in numerous diplomatic cipher alphabets of the 15th century.

Please kindly share some examples of such ciphers from the early 15th century.

(03-03-2025, 05:34 PM)Dobri Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Perhaps at least one (or all) of the scribes of the cipher manuscript were Florentine students of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. according to the use of qo in their cipher.

There are numerous characters in numerous scripts that all hold some resemblance to characters in the Voynich alphabet. But there's no evidence of meaning behind any of these resemblances.

Still, it might be interesting to get a better idea of when and where "40" was written like a connected EVA-qo. The inclusion of the potentially familiar symbol can be separate from its meaning.

Mark: it would be very interesting if you could provide some examples. Was it 4o as a separate symbol?

The symbol resembling '4' has usage that varies wildly throughout the manuscript. The herbal section uses it sparingly, the bathing section uses it a massive amount, the astro/cosmo sections barely use it, and the zodiac section uses it almost never.

This document is one of the many documents I photographed on my recent visit to Milan. It contains the 4o character. There are so many other examples of ciphers with this character being used that I haven't catalogued or listed them all. I suppose this is an exercise that could be undertaken.