Hi! It's @JustAnotherTheory again. This time I submit to you the theory that
Johannes von Gmünden was the writer of the VMS marginalia.
Johannes von Gmünden (1380/1384 - 1442) was an astronomer in Austria (You are not allowed to view links.
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Not many writings of his own hand survive, unfortunately. One of them that does, is Augsburg, Universitätsbibl., Cod. III.1.4° 1 (You are not allowed to view links.
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In this manuscript, we can see some startling things. Here are a few words that remind one of the VMS folio 17r:
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Others ressemble the VMS folio 116v:
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We also have an MS from him where he draws some kind of star map with the sun and the moon having human faces:
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In VMS, luec has a line above it, which means that it's an abbreviation, so I think it would be more appropriate to focus on
the abbreviation rather than the word itself. However, your example is quite interesting...
By the way, the shape of the letter x on You are not allowed to view links.
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(08-07-2026, 07:12 PM)JustAnotherTheory Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not many writings of his own hand survive, unfortunately. One of them that does, is Augsburg, Universitätsbibl., Cod. III.1.4° 1 (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
I think a similar MS has been discussed not a long time ago, there is some list of syllables on 67r-76v, I remember discussing ideas about what these could be for.
Edit: found it You are not allowed to view links.
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Regarding "vix", etc, given this is a list of all possible syllables, as it seems, it's no surprise almost every syllable can be found there.
(08-07-2026, 07:12 PM)JustAnotherTheory Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Others ressemble the VMS folio 116v:
I find the first two examples rather remarkable.
Currently my best guess for the You are not allowed to view links.
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Well, maybe he thought he could see traces of some charm that either was somewhat popular at that time and place, or he found in some manuscript that he had at hand...
All the best, --stolfi
(08-07-2026, 08:50 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think a similar MS has been discussed not a long time ago, there is some list of syllables on 67r-76v, I remember discussing ideas about what these could be for.
Edit: found it You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
The manuscript description You are not allowed to view links.
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Imagine if that's all the VMS is... writing/penmanship practice for young students..
While searching for additional manuscripts by Johannes von Gmunden, I came across Cod. 2440 at the Austrian National Library (ÖNB). Gmunden is listed here as the scribe, not the author.
Composite manuscript
Various [authors] ; Johannes von Gmunden, 1380–1442 [scribe] ; Nicolaus Heybech [scribe] ; Georg Prunner de Ruspach [previous owner] ; University of Vienna, Faculty of Arts [previous owner] ;
Vienna ; 1400–1499, Cod. 2440
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The marginalia writer could definitely have used such practice with his weird letters...
I wanted to say the handwriting is not a particularly good match but look at the 'g'. No idea how common this horizontal bar is.
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I think the part of the book with the many syllables is... a syllabary. It is used to teach student scribes to write correctly. Unfortunately I cannot find other examples of medieval syllabaries of that time in open collections, so it's difficult to compare.
There is a curious binary "code" on folio 1r:
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Karin Schneider, who reviewed the MS, describes it as:
"
1 Zeile in Geheimschrift (Striche und Kreise)"
Which means a secret, or ciphered, writing.
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