(23-06-2026, 04:11 PM)monisusa Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hello, Here the + just represents an addition sign meaning "and".
The plus sign was "invented" by Nicole Oresme in ~1350, but I don't know how long it took for it to become common.
If the VMS was scribed around 1430,
and those "+" on You are not allowed to view links.
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But I don't think those "+" are plus signs. I believe the You are not allowed to view links.
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All the best, --stolfi
(23-06-2026, 04:27 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But I don't think those "+" are plus signs.
I've wondered the same thing myself.
But I can imagine it being a self-sign of the cross: a sign in the air, on the forehead and chest, left and right.
To turn a two-line curse into a whole ritual. Just to make it seem more credible.
(22-06-2026, 12:06 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (22-06-2026, 09:11 AM)monisusa Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I had these lines checked by the Head of the Austrian Chamber of Pharmacy Prof. Beba and he confirmed the plausibility of it. I reproduced this ointment successfully.
I assume you mean Franz Biba (Mag. pharm.), librarian at the library of the Austrian Chamber of Pharmacists. But neither is he a professor nor was he ever the overall head of the chamber. This is not meant to diminish his qualifications, but to keep things straight. If you cite people, please cite them correctly. Have you checked their library or asked for relevant manuscripts? Since you apparently have a connection to their librarian, this might be an interesting source for VM-related texts.
I also have to ask - did you show Mr. Biba a picture of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (preferably the multispectral images), or just your interpretation of the text?
Yes Bernd, you are right, it was Mag. pharm Biba. I thought he was the Head of the Chamber. Sorry, I mixed it up and will be more careful next time. Kind regards, Monika
(23-06-2026, 04:27 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (23-06-2026, 04:11 PM)monisusa Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hello, Here the + just represents an addition sign meaning "and".
The plus sign was "invented" by Nicole Oresme in ~1350, but I don't know how long it took for it to become common. If the VMS was scribed around 1430, and those "+" on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are indeed plus signs, that would be evidence indicating that the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. writing is not contemporaneous with the rest of the VMS text.
But I don't think those "+" are plus signs. I believe the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. text is much later than the rest of the VMS, but for other reasons.
All the best, --stolfi
Hello, thanks for your comment. What makes you believe the text is later? The orthography is typical for the beginning of the 15th century, no capital letters yet, no gemination yet. This is striking.
Kind regards, Monika
(23-06-2026, 05:15 PM)monisusa Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (23-06-2026, 04:27 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (23-06-2026, 04:11 PM)monisusa Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hello, Here the + just represents an addition sign meaning "and".
The plus sign was "invented" by Nicole Oresme in ~1350, but I don't know how long it took for it to become common. If the VMS was scribed around 1430, and those "+" on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. are indeed plus signs, that would be evidence indicating that the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. writing is not contemporaneous with the rest of the VMS text.
But I don't think those "+" are plus signs. I believe the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. text is much later than the rest of the VMS, but for other reasons.
All the best, --stolfi
Hello, thanks for your comment. What makes you believe the text is later? The orthography is typical for the beginning of the 15th century, no capital letters yet, no gemination yet. This is striking.
Kind regards, Monika
It could have been written by someone other than the author of the manuscript.
(23-06-2026, 04:40 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But I can imagine it being a self-sign of the cross: a sign in the air, on the forehead and chest, left and right.
Indeed, AFAIK that is what the crosses mean in similar charms seen in other manuscripts. Points along the reading where one should do the sign of the cross.
And I believe that whoever wrote those lines was trying to restore the text that had been wiped out with the water spill. My guess is that he saw a pair of smudges that looked like crosses, "deduced" that the text was a charm, and that hunch guided the rest of his "restoration". In particular, he "restored" some other smudges as "maria", and added more crosses where he though they would have been in a charm. But he still could not produce a text that made sense.
All the best, --stolfi
It’s nice, isn’t it? Everyone is convinced they have the answer, that they’re right, and that everyone else is wrong.
This poses a problem: If, say, 100 people each have a different theory about f116, then at most one of them can be right.
That means: 99 of the others, who are equally convinced they’re right, are actually wrong.
Hey, the odds clearly go against YOUR conviction.
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attachment=16168]
A) What is the meaning of those markings? (We could pretend they do not exist of course.)
B) The placement is way off:
1.It was writed as a single word by mistake, is latter separated: Oddly for a sequence with beforehand known items.
2.Is a single word where the + has a second function:
I)Like enhancing the word with a cross. (It started writing "Ma" then decided to make a cross above and then returned to continue writing the rest of the word after respecting the identation space below it, maybe a surpesticious trigger: "i have to protect this before finishing the charm" or something.)
II)A code of some kind: a cipher, re-allocation, sequence break...
3.It is two words hinted by the space separation: A little bit incoherent that the consitency of the + was not mantained (We could add some form of dislexia to support this idea, but the rest does not seems that dislexic.)
C) The Size of the Gliph: WHY? If there were two words, why not just put a very small + between them as a correction? if it is just a plus after all. The Size of the + is very consistent, almost like religiously consistent.
It is in the last page of the manuscript. I imagine (no bases for this) Charms usually are put at the last page of the manuscript.
The marginalia scriba had a lot of space to write, there was no need to make it clusterish like.(If it is like a recipy or similar it could have been tired or lazy or both; or it is like a charm with second gueses?)
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This is how i see it, does this fits with the recipy- prescription format?
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attachment=16169]
(23-06-2026, 02:50 PM)monisusa Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi, after years of research there are more than guesses. I discussed the text with pharmacists to check the ingredients and logical sequence. My local pharmacist remembered to have learned the expression "mana in vitra" at university. Moreover I also discussed it with experts of German studies at University of Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck. The last sentence has a proper syntax.
And please explain: what exactly is it you consider "nonsense" ? Do you refer to the ingredients, the reading of the gothic cursive, the dialectal spelling? These spellings are exceptional just as the Voynich-Manuscript is exceptional. Nevertheless, there are in fact numerous manuscripts in Bavarian language but this is indeed special. However, it is just a brief note, not a manuscript.
Everday texts as e.g. housebooks were written in vernacular. Medical expressions in Latin. Last but not not least - I understand the language. Kind regards Monika
If you cannot show these words and spellings in contemporary manuscripts or documents (housebooks will do), they are essentially your guesses. Educated guesses, quite possibly, but still unproven. We cannot deduce if any of these words were actually spelled this way in the XV century without a clear proof.
As for the nonsense - your proposed reading doesn't look coherent to me, way too abbreviated with no reason at all. There is plenty of space on the page and the scribe had time to write in small neat letters and add embellishments like the dots over o, so probably not in a hurry either.