The Voynich Ninja

Since we can't read any portion of the original Voynichese text, any decision or distinction on the nature of topics relies entirely on the illustrations. What is the purpose of the illustrations? - and what do they reveal?

The illustrations reveal the artist's knowledge / or purported knowledge in science topics (botany, astronomy, anatomy, medicine, and pharmacognosy), in Christian topics (the Agnus Dei, the Genoese popes, Colette of Corbie, and the Assumption of the Virgin), in classical myths (Philomela, the Muses, the Golden Fleece, and Melusine), and early 15th C. clothing styles (sleeves and hats). All that and more. Such that, it's hard to see how it was all put together.

I think we very strongly  need some references about the price of vellum.

This subject is actually less niche than Voynich Manuscript and there should be some data available.

My feeling is that when you talk about "cheap vellum" then you are contesting a mainstream history.
People will tell you that there was no cheap velllum. Even the cheap one was still expensive.

I have once tried to talk to ChatGPT about it. It gave me some really huge numbers like an average manuscript worth the same as two
years work of a proffesional craftsman. Or a house for a whole peasant family. I guess for modern standards it's something like a new car of good quality.

Lisa, if I may ask, do you have any serious references about vellum prices? I mean scientific books and articles and not forum and blog posts.

As I said we really need it for a lot of further discussion.

And speaking of the authorship, I mostly agree with Lisa.
In case of old books either you know the author from the very beginning or often you are pretty hopeless.

In Poland where I live, the most important book describing our early history is of unknown authorship:
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As you may guess incredible effort was made trying to establish the author. And sorry, no luck  
And it was not some crazy alchemist sitting in his basement but most probably someone of high reputation, hired by the king.

The same thing is in Hungary: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
They even made a monument to their author. This is how he looks like  


And lets be honest, Voynich Manuscript wasn't anything influencial when it was created. It became famous much later.

By the way, what do you think of this statistics?
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5 million manuscripts in 1400s? Possible or not?
And how many authors of them do we know?

(26-01-2026, 10:39 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.the parchment could have been produced in-house, as it were, instead of being purchased.

Parchment/vellum making is a very messy and labor-intensive process, even more than paper making.  It requires simple but bulky equipment, months or years of practice, and, from all reports I have seen, it *stinks*.

So I doubt that any ordinary vellum users in the 1400s would make it in-house.  Maybe large monasteries?  I can't imagine the VMS author doing it...

All the best, --stolfi

"Cheap vellum" is just called parchment. Cost will vary depending on place and time. Perhaps in some high-end scriptorium, the VMs pages were discards.

(26-01-2026, 11:31 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think we very strongly  need some references about the price of vellum.

I once saw an article on the 'net that stated the price of vellum at the time was equivalent of 2 USD per folio today.  Thus ~200-300 USD for a book like the VMS.

But that article did not specify the quality or place, not even sheet size.

Since vellum has a high price/weight ratio, I suppose that prices would be relatively uniform across Europe.  If the local supplier charged too much, you could ask your cousin to buy you a dozen sheets next time he goes to Paris or Prague.

All the best, --stolfi

There are plenty of accounting records that record how much a particular person paid for a particular amount of parchment at a particular place and time, but it is really hard to generalize. Unless we know specifically when and where the VMS was created, we simply cannot estimate how much the materials cost. 

My work suggests that the manuscript was produced by a community, in which case it is certainly quite possible that - whoever they were - they may have made their own parchment (and their own ink, and their own pigments). The parchment is of such low quality that it seems more than likely to me that it was produced in-house, using around fourteen calfskins or so. It's thick and uneven, roughly-textured, with numerous flaws and signs of animality. Absolutely not the kind of material you would pay top-dollar for. High-end fifteenth-century parchment is thin, smooth, creamy, and flawless. By comparison, the VMS parchment is a mess.

I'm a bit perplexed about why there is any confusion here.

Not many people would have been able to afford creating a book in the first place.

One can completely trust Lisa's assessment that, as illustrated manuscripts on parchment go, the Voynich MS is on the very low end in terms of quality and cost.

Then again, a non-illustrated MS on paper would still have been a lot easier to make, and a lot less expensive.

(27-01-2026, 01:14 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not many people would have been able to afford creating a book in the first place.

What does "not many people" mean more precisely?

What very approximate percentage are we talking about?

Surely, this means it would have been expensive.

I don’t understand when we say there is no reliable record of how much a calf-skin vellum would have cost (and not even knowing whether it was done in-house or not, which are speculations) how can we then decide whether it was cheap or not.

You can’t say one thing and insist on the other. From all I have read, even the Yale edition gives the impression that just using calf-skin in itself was a sign of a more expensive try (“… but most manuscripts in this period were written on paper or on parchment, if their owner could afford it, as was the Voynich Manuscript, in this case made from the skin of a calf”) (xii). Then, further down, it says “Expensive parchment, which was nearly white on both sides, required many hours of labor with the lunellum” (p. xii). And from all that remember, that has been regarded as a feature of the VM vellum. Either specialists have been misleading us, or are changing their views.

Has what the Yale edition, or other serious material, I have read about the physical condition of the VM, been misleading us about the quality of the VM’s vellum (despite its defects, which can be results of hundred years of aging and handling)?

We are also making no distinctions between the scribes’ work and material they chose and what the author(s) had given them to copy. You can’t make a judgment about the author based on what you see on a vellum copy of it, even if you assume the author was alive, which I don’t, and who is right depends on opinions held.

@LisaFaginDavis, when you say, ““Expensive” is a relative term, and the Voynich materials were not at all expensive, relatively speaking” that seems to be a confusing and contradictory statement. Relative for who, when, where, you, them,  …? You say, “No one can really say how much the parchment would have cost, because 1) we have no idea what the market was like, since we don't know specifically where the manuscript came from, and 2) the parchment could have been produced in-house, as it were, instead of being purchased.” Well, if that is the case, how can you come to such a strong conclusion that it was or not expensive, since you don’t even know if it was produced in-house or not, nor do you know (as you agree) what the market was like?