The Voynich Ninja

I think there are near-exact copies in some places, most obviously the Zodiac figures. The appearance of the animals as well as the human figures betrays either strong familiarity with examples (i.e. regular contact with them) and/or direct access to examples.

It's made more tricky since only a minority of copies is exact. The rule is that they tweak some things like clothing, misinterpret some details, make some stylistic alterations...

Anyway, my personal view is that the VM artist must have had access to a number of common books (like Hausbuchs) and perhaps some less common herbal illustrations for reference. I also don't think the star charts can be entirely improvised. So I'd lean in the direction of various sources, maybe access to a library of sorts.

This certainly is not compatible with the prisoner scenario above, but maybe it's possible to adjust the scenario without breaking many of the existing explanations.

Suppose the prisoner had or gained over the years legitimate access to some books (I feel like I'm retelling The Shawshank Redemption). Maybe then the author(s) had only to hide the fact that they were working on a book of their own, but a prison library would make it much easier not only to smuggle in some empty vellum among books, but also would make the task of hiding the manuscript more trivial. It would just be "some herbal folios" and "I have no idea who brought them or when" and "no I don't know what it says, it's some foreign language".

Maybe even there would be some legitimate reason to have some ink and a quill in the library, just for the purpose of "keeping the records of the books".

This doesn't break most of the explanations above, it's possible the work would still have to be performed on individual bifolios smuggled from the library, in the night in the cell, with a little ink and an old quill. But makes the rest of the logistics easier and allows referencing some other manuscripts after studying them during the day.

You can be a prisoner and not "behind bars". You could just be in someone's castle and not permitted to leave for whatever reason, a debt of some sort, your existence is problematic politically.. so on

(29-11-2025, 03:09 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You can be a prisoner and not "behind bars". You could just be in someone's castle and not permitted to leave for whatever reason, a debt of some sort, your existence is problematic politically.. so on

Rudolf II had You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  He murdered his plebeian mistress 1608, and was then sentenced to life in prison, IIUC in the Český Krumlov Castle; where he died in 1609.

Back in the days before the C14 date, he was one of many suspects of being the VMS author.  But it never seemed very likely.  For one thing, one year seems too little time for a book of that size...

All the best, --stolfi

(29-11-2025, 03:09 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You can be a prisoner and not "behind bars". You could just be in someone's castle and not permitted to leave for whatever reason, a debt of some sort, your existence is problematic politically.. so on

The main conditions for the prisoner scenario are you'll be punished if you write manuscripts and you are being constantly monitored. If yes to both, this can explain the ink density variation, occasional jitter, small format, mistakes in images and alignment - basically the author was covertly doing something for which she or he could be severely punished, which could explain a lot of inconsistencies, including possible use of poor quality quills and inks, strange writing system, strong cipher, etc.

If either or both of these conditions are not true, all these features require a separate explanation and then the prisoner scenario doesn't have much to offer by itself. Maybe it can still explain why the manuscript is this long, just because prisoners have plenty of time and little to entertain themselves.

(29-11-2025, 03:22 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(29-11-2025, 03:09 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You can be a prisoner and not "behind bars". You could just be in someone's castle and not permitted to leave for whatever reason, a debt of some sort, your existence is problematic politically.. so on

Rudolf II had You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  He murdered his plebeian mistress 1608, and was then sentenced to life in prison, IIUC in the Český Krumlov Castle; where he died in 1609.

Back in the days before the C14 date, he was one of many suspects of being the VMS author.  But it never seemed very likely.  For one thing, one year seems too little time for a book of that size...

All the best, --stolfi

I didn't know about this, thanks!   

There was also a theory that Kelley produced it while locked up, the idea was the payment was made on a promise he(and Dee) never fulfilled so he was locked up until it was done. 
While that theory is also not a great one, the nugget of info I took from the talking about it is that - apparently while Enochian doesn't use English letters it is curiously similar to English language when analysed. 

The theorist used this to suggest it (VMS) was not Enochian. I don't think they connected the dots which also imply it was not Kelley either.

Monastic communities are prisons of sorts, and they have libraries, writing materials, and plenty of spare time.

(29-11-2025, 03:09 PM)Bluetoes101 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You can be a prisoner and not "behind bars".

But that kind of removes much of the point.

Quote:I think there are near-exact copies in some places, most obviously the Zodiac figures.

When I said that the author probably had access to other manuscripts or had a photographic memory I exactly meant zodiac signs but couldn't find the examples.
Now I found what I remembered:

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I believe the author was looking at some picture similar to these when he drew Gemini. They are too similar, beyond a coincidence.
He was generally a bad artist and it is much easier to paint what you see and not from memory. You don't want to see atrocities that he would create from his head  
But I don't have the final proof of course.

I'm not good in image analysis, I see two figures standing face to face holding hands. Nothing here that would require photographic memory, neither the garments, nor the footwear are perfect match?

Given the general idea "gemini are a man and a woman standing holding hands", how would you draw this differently?