Hello all,
Almost a year and a half ago I registered on this site for the first time and made a hello post where I said I was going to make a copy of the entire manuscript by hand. Never posted or commented since, though I've done a lot more lurking and reading.
And I've done it!
Almost.
I have about 2 pages left to ink, and 20 pages plus the Rosette fold out to paint. And of course I have to bind the entire thing. I'm hoping I'll be completely done in two or three weeks.
I'm in the process of scanning and formatting the pages I've completed while I finish the last physical pages, and I think at least one person was interested in seeing it? Here's a link to a goole drive folder with a sampling of completed pages if that's you: You are not allowed to view links.
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Let me know if there are any particular pages anyone is interested in and I'll add them.
Thanks for looking!
-michelle
That's amazing, well done! I think I see a herb Paris
I'm impressed by your rendering of the small plant page, very clean and crisp. I wouldn't mind seeing more of those. Or anything really.
What was your experience like doing this project?
(08-07-2026, 11:27 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That's amazing, well done! I think I see a herb Paris
I'm impressed by your rendering of the small plant page, very clean and crisp. I wouldn't mind seeing more of those. Or anything really.
What was your experience like doing this project?
Thankyou! And that is Herb Paris! I didn't draw any plant's in the herbal section that don't exist in real life. I'm going to create a pdf or something of my entire document once I've got everything finished, scanned and formatted and I'm happy to share it. Along with my plant list and everything else.
I'm not sure if I have words yet to describe the whole experience. It's been wild, delightful, frustrating, exhausting, and exhilarating in turns. I highly recommend doing it if you really want to deep dive your brain into the imagery - it's one thing to look at the images, another entirely to examine them in detail in order to redraw them. And the text as well. I don't have any theories on encryption solutions or languages - but copying it out feels like writing a language, not gibberish. There are phrases that repeat enough that I started "knowing" what the next word was before I looked to copy it.
I am so happy I almost have it finished and it will be done, but there's a part of my brain that's already turning over things I would do differently if I were to do it again from the start and I might. Not any time soon, but at some point.
(08-07-2026, 11:58 PM)seridane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm going to create a pdf or something of my entire document once I've got everything finished, scanned and formatted and I'm happy to share it.
Very nice!
A tip for scanning: to reduce the see-through in the image, try placing a
black sheet behind the page.
The page will look darker this way, but you can fix that in post-processing.
All the best, --stolfi
What a fascinating and amazing piece of work. I can sort of imagine how much work went into it, since I also “copied” a few lines at the beginning to get a feel for the script. But to copy the entire work? Phew, that’s impressive. And it turned out so beautifully, honestly!
I think some people here would be interested to know how many hours you spent on it? Just to get a rough idea of how long it takes to copy something like this.
Did you “time” it somehow?
And one more question: Did you also get the impression that it was easier to write the glyphs, how should i say: backwards?
(09-07-2026, 05:40 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What a fascinating and amazing piece of work. I can sort of imagine how much work went into it, since I also “copied” a few lines at the beginning to get a feel for the script. But to copy the entire work? Phew, that’s impressive. And it turned out so beautifully, honestly!
I think some people here would be interested to know how many hours you spent on it? Just to get a rough idea of how long it takes to copy something like this.
Did you “time” it somehow?
And one more question: Did you also get the impression that it was easier to write the glyphs, how should i say: backwards?
Roughly timed only, and all time is for a singular "foldout"? Not quite sure how to describe that.
- The text only pages take from 30-45 minutes to copy.
- The plant pages usually took about 2 hours.
- The Nymph pages and "Recipe" pages were probably in the 1.5 hour range.
- The Rosette map was easily 8 hours just for the line work - haven't started painting it yet.
- The Astronomy pages were probably 2 hours for the zodiacs or anything else with all of the tiny star-nymphs - I'm guess wildly here because the sheer amount of tiny little naked ladies (538) turned into a bit a a marathon over the last three months.
- Maybe an hour a piece for the non-nymphs Astronomy rosettes.
I'm probably underestimating all of those times, so 400 hours of work on the short end. Possibly 500 hours - I could easily be underestimating all of that by 30 minutes a page.
Also, there are transcription errors in my copy. It was incredibly easy to get lost in the Voynichese and repeat a part I already copied, or skip a line. If I'd gone back and redone those places, I can't even imagine. I've left all of those transcript errors and spilled paint and ink drops in place.
I've never attempted writing any of the script backwards - the idea of that hurts my brain
I have some videos I took of some pages while I was working them. The script wrote incredibly naturally for me.
Just wow... Amazing work.. and they're aesthetically beautiful as well...
Do you feel you gained any insights through this process?
Thanks Ed!
I have a lot of thoughts about the book following this. Note sure if I'd call them insights, or even original.
Top of mind this morning:
- All the plants are real and identifiable.
- The Astronomy section contains events that could probably be identified and dated - like solar eclipses.
- The Bathing Nymph section contains elements of the four humors theory.
- The roots in the pharmacological section may all correspond to plants within the book. And a lot of those roots have imagery I'm still thinking about (that section is all drawn but not all painted so it's still percolating)
- The rosette map looks like a map of Heaven, or something similar - like the Hereford Mappa Mundi or the Ebbstorff map. I don't think it pertains to an physical location.
- Something about the text itself keeps pinging around in my brain in relation to vowels and the c character. Sometimes there's one, sometimes two, sometimes, three, or more. And I keep think that the number of c's means different vowel sounds. No proof, no evidence, just a thought I keep having. Also not something I have the brain space to explore - I'm terrible at languages and worse at codes.
(08-07-2026, 11:58 PM)seridane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I highly recommend doing it if you really want to deep dive your brain into the imagery - it's one thing to look at the images, another entirely to examine them in detail in order to redraw them. And the text as well.
Hi seridane!
I enjoyed looking at your drawings, they are beautiful, and also interesting in terms of the choices you made, not only to see it from your point of view, but it also helps me see the vms version even better. I noticed a few differences, but it's funny, some I just accept, like your nymphs are different, but somehow they just seem like they are your nymphs instead of the makers' nymphs, doing similar things. But some other differences I found enough to give a few alternate answers, if someone used your copy as the basis to answer certain questions about a vms page. Maybe those things don't matter either, it's hard to say until we know what it all is. But i very much enjoyed having something to compare, and those differences made it all the more interesting! I got both a clearer sense of what I myself think does or doesn't matter, and some about your own ideas to consider! I didn't know the plants you drew off hand, but it would be fun to figure them out and then compare again with the vms drawings. I think you should make us guess them all, like Koen did with the Herb Paris!
I would love to see more of quire 13 drawings especially!
I am more than half tempted to recreate a part of your experiment for myself, half had it in my mind to do my own transcription of quire 13 to get a better feel of it, and to compare with all the others, I wonder how yours would compare also! Maybe the differences there can move us all forward somehow too. Thanks for the recommendation, i think i am going to try. Not sure my results will be able to hold a candle to yours, though, you did a great job!