The Voynich Ninja

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Quote: I have it on Rene's authority that the dimensions of the Vms are as made; that there's no sign of later trimming.

This must have been long ago, as I can't actually remember this, but the point is sufficiently interesting to start a dedicated topic.

Manuscripts are occasionally trimmed when rebound, but any significant trimming of the Voynich MS can be excluded, because of the foldouts. These would have been cut.
One can also see that the edges are irregular, and pages are of somewhat different sizes.

On the other hard, there are numerous cases where at least the bottom edge of a page has been partially trimmed.
I believe that onYou are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. the drawing at the bottom was clipped.

Here, one also sees a feature in the scan that was mentioned years ago, by Dana Scott, namely that some edges of the parchment are much lighter in colour. In this case, this seems to indicate a more recent cut. We don't know when it was done, of course.

With respect to the dimensions of the Voynich MS, in 2010 I did the exercise of comparing it with various known herbal manuscripts. I put it next to 22 other MSs in a powerpoint file, all at the scale 1:10.
I include the figure here:

[attachment=665]

The legend is:

A = Med.Gr.1, ONB, Vienna
B = Voss.Lat. Q.9, Leiden
C = Graecus 1, Napoli
D = MS Grec 2179, BN Paris
E = MS Plut. 73.41, Bibl. Medicea Laurenziana, Florence
F = CLM 337, Munich
G = Ms M 652, Pierpont Morgan library
H = MS Bodley 130
J = MS Harley 1585
K = Cod. Vind. 93, ONB, Vienna
L = MS or. Arabe 4947, BN Paris
M = MS Plut. 73.16, Bibl. Medicea Laurenziana, Florence
N = Egerton 747
O = MS Lat. 6823, BN Paris
P = Ms.Canon Misc.408, Bodleian, Oxford
Q = MS 459, Bibl. Casanatense, Roma
R = MS Aldini 211, Pavia
S = Egerton 2020
T = Chigi F. VII 159, BA Vaticana
U = MS 106, Bibl. Dip. Di Botanica dell'Universita, Florence
V = MS Lat 17844, BN Paris
W = MS Hebr. 1199, BN Paris
Z = Voynich MS.

While the Voynich MS is relatively small, there are still smaller MSs.
Also, MSs "R" and "U" are almost exactly the same size as the Voynich MS, and both are 'alchemical herbals'.

I think that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. must have been trimmed too, for the drawing is clipped at the bottom. A small bit of the root is missing, and one of the lines runs almost along the edge of the page.

Rene,

May I ask when you performed that set of comparisons?

As you will know, my survey included all the manuscripts in the British Library dated between 1340 and 1450, and I published the results in 2013.

At that time, to the best of my knowledge no such survey had ever been done, but if in publishing that work, I neglected to recognise any done earlier by you, do let me know.

I admit that I cannot see any purpose in limiting the study to European herbals, since paper and vellum-sizes are a codicological issue, and only tangentially related to whatever is set on the page.

The results of the (original?) study are here:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Of all those, there were only two manuscripts having exactly the same dimensions at present:

*You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – 225 x 160 (145 x 110); Italy, N. E. (Venice) 1437 AD; Latin; Gothic. Parchment codex. Roman martyrology.

*You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. – 225 x 160 (140 x 95); England, c. 1436; French and Latin; Gothic cursive. Parchment codex. Legal texts.

Which is one reason that I date the current manuscript to about 1437.

(30-09-2016, 06:52 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Rene,

May I ask when you performed that set of comparisons?
...

I admit that I cannot see any purpose in limiting the study to European herbals, since paper and vellum-sizes are a codicological issue, and only tangentially related to whatever is set on the page.

...

In his post, René wrote that he did the comparisons in 2010.

How do you know René limited the study to European herbals?

He said he researched herbals, he didn't say "European" herbals, and he was probably constrained to the ones in which the bibliographers recorded the sizes (not all bibliographies include this information), plus there was much less information in 2010 than there is now. It's also possible he chose those that are created in a similar way (on parchment). I don't know if this last is true (I haven't had time to check the whole list), but it doesn't hurt to define our terms when we evaluate this kind of list.

As for the issue of parchment or paper...

Many Arabic herbal manuscripts, such as MS Leiden Or.289, Walters MS W.675 (1224 CE), etc., are written on paper (usually thick laid) and you yourself pointed out that many eastern manuscripts are written on other materials like bamboo. Thai and other eastern manuscripts tend to be long and narrow as befits the writing medium and don't resemble the proportions of vellum documents. Arabic scribes have been using paper since around the 9th century.

I couldn't find information on whether al-Ghafiqi's (13th c) herbal is parchment or paper, but a Baghdad copy of it done in the 14th century is on thick oriental paper (the paper in those days was often two sheets laminated together, so the process of creating it was very different from the preparation of parchment).

It seems unlikely the VMS scribes went to the tanner and said, "Please give me pieces of vellum that are the same proportions as paper manuscripts written in Arabic." They probably used what was available.

Rather than criticizing René for deliberately leaving out non-European herbals (you don't know if he "limited the study" to European herbals, you are only assuming that), we can thank him for sharing his list (that fact that you've also made a list is a good thing, not a bad thing, in science, cross-checking should be considered an asset not a turf-war). Why don't you give examples of non-European herbal manuscripts written on parchment that include dimensions and add to the list if you think it's too Euro-centric? It's a more positive way to contribute.

Dear JKP

Rene says himself that what he did in 2010 was compare the size of the Vms..

Quote: with various known herbal manuscripts.....

His list of those manuscripts shows they are European herbal manuscripts.

So the point Rene was making in that talk in 2010 (a powerpoint slide seems to imply a limited and private audience)... is that herbals come in a range of sizes and that the Vms is small compared to some.

So there's no "turf war" as you imagine.

And I see that I do not need to add a note about precedence as I thought might be in order. -As my readers know, it is my habit to mention any precedent work of which I hear, whether or not I knew of it before doing my own. This is so that one "plays fair" with those who come later and deserve to be presented with the full range of available comment on a folio or an issue.

But Rene was only showing that European herbal manuscripts come in large and small versions, which has nothing to do with the issue investigated by my own survey.

What I published was, instead, an investigation of when and where we find substrate used in the fairly unusual dimensions of the untrimmed standard bifolia in Beinecke MS 408. Its an issue of codicology and economic history as it affects provenance.

I thought the results of that basic survey were rather interesting. You say:

Quote:thank him for sharing his list..

I think it's fair to say that until the recent advent of Voynich.ninja, the custom had arisen whereby only fellow members of a "theory-fraternity" were ever thanked for the work they did.

I cannot recall receiving any thanks from anyone for publishing my own study, brief as it was. But perhaps you are right, and it should become a more general habit to thank people for sharing the results of their work.

I do hope others accept that principle.

Quote:Why don't you give examples of non-European herbal manuscripts written on parchment that include dimensions and add to the list if you think it's too Euro-centric?

First of all - My point was that the dimensions of the manuscript have no relevance to the content. The relevant codicological issue is where substrate of these dimensions was being produced and used.

Also, there is so close a link between standard sizes of membrane and of paper that there is no point in limiting study to one type of substrate, or even just to membrane. The isssue is where and when substrates (as bifolia) were produced in those sizes, and when.

Thirdly, because the dimensions of the untrimmed bifolia in Beinecke MS 408 are unusual (see my survey of all the Brit. Lib. illuminated manuscripts and all the herbals), it is important to see where else we find those dimensions - and I did find them elsewhere - I've published that information too. Some paper sheets in the Cairo geniza predate those from the English, northern French and northern Italian.

As you can see if you have time to investigate this point, there are quite a number of posts where I've shared results of my research into this question, and shared also the comments of experts who were kind enough to give their advice and opinion.

What you will not see, I should think, is any comment saying "thank you".

After eight years of nothing but ad.hominems or determined silence, it is certainly a nice thought that some of the "new wave" might adopt your suggested policy of even-handed courtesy.
Cheers.

(01-10-2016, 06:37 AM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

Diane wrote: First of all - My point was that the dimensions of the manuscript have no relevance to the content. The relevant codicological issue is where substrate of these dimensions was being produced and used.

I find myself both disagreeing and agreeing with this point.

I think dimensions quite often are related to content. Note how Bibles that are kept on pulpits (rather than carried around) are often larger than other kinds of books so they are easier to read standing (and can contain the large amount of text and embellishments found in a cathedral volume). Similarly, atlases tend to be larger than average so they can accommodate many small geographical details. Even the VMS follows this convention in the way the rosettes page is a foldout.

At the other end of the scale, many physician's books were small so they could be easily carried in a pocket or satchel during the many centuries when the doctor went to the patient rather than the other way around. Travel books were designed the same way.

Books that were meant to be used by families, rather than being consulted in a library, as the "house books" that became popular in the 15th and 16th centuries, were a bit smaller than chained reference books that were consulted on a desk, partly for the convenience of using them around the house and partly to accommodate the smaller pocketbooks of individuals as compared with institutions.

So I think dimensions do have relevance to content, both then and now.

But I will agree that these general patterns don't prove that the size of the vellum chosen for the VMS was chosen to accommodate a certain function. Maybe it was. The VMS is small and small books are more portable. If it's an apothecary or physician's reference, or a botanical reference, portability is desirable, but we don't know for certain what it is or how it was intended to be used. For all we know, whoever created the VMS had a brother or uncle who worked in a scriptorium and provided whatever parchment was available for a special price, or perhaps the creator lived with a patron and used whatever the patron had at hand.

Diane wrote: Also, there is so close a link between standard sizes of membrane and of paper that there is no point in limiting study to one type of substrate, or even just to membrane. The isssue is where and when substrates (as bifolia) were produced in those sizes, and when.

It's my understanding that the "standard size" for parchment was based on the largest usable areas in which the skin of a specific animal could be divided. A kidskin will yield fewer or smaller pieces than a cow hide.

Paper, on the other hand, is based on the most practical size for the screening frame (too large and the frame is difficult to lift and the paper is difficult to peel off in one piece, too small and too many frames are needed, it's less profitable, and space becomes an issue). I can't imagine that paper manufacturers were trying to match what tanners were doing. They were trying to provide what was practical in terms of production and what would set easily on a pulpit, on a library desk, or in a person's hand. If there was a "standard" it's because form follows function, not because there was agreement between tanners and paper manufacturers.

Diane wrote: As you can see if you have time to investigate this point, there are quite a number of posts where I've shared results of my research into this question, and shared also the comments of experts who were kind enough to give their advice and opinion.

I'm actually quite interested in this topic and would like to read more and explore it further, but unfortunately I have a murderous work schedule–I'm still trying to finish a short blog I started three days ago. C'est la guerre. Hopefully, I can find the time to look further at the research.

Let us not go OT with meaningless discussions about who thought of doing this first.

Diane has an interesting point with her mention of the 3:2 ratio rule (which we still see in our modern paperbacks...), which is of course linked back to the physiological needs of the human carrier (longer than wide closed, but when opened up wider than tall, which fit handily into our hands when reading). Books that are designed to be carried about are closer to that rule than books which are designed to be left on a stand when read.

In fact, the 3:2 ratio is just a ratio that humans love (maybe because we are used to it? Let's not get bogged down in the psychology of the question!). Look at the rave reviews the MS Surface tablet got when MS issued it in 3:2 ratio, people loved it!

To add to the trimming question, I pointed out years ago that the final folio (f116) was originally the same size as the preceeding folio (f115) but was trimmed after the "Michtonese" was penned to its current size (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

The manuscripts in the (short) list in the first post are a selection of those for which I found images online in 2009-2010. Even when it is not that long ago, it was much harder then than it is now. When looking at scanned images online, one has no feel whatsoever for the physical size of the MS, and I made the picture for my own use.

The MSs are sorted chronologically (roughly) in the picture.

The one conspicuous thing about the dimensions of the Voynich MS is that it is relatively small, as has been noted both by amateurs and by experts alike, but they are in no way unusual. In fact, that is one thing that the figure shows clearly.
There are much smaller MSs still, and perhaps MS Plut. 73.16 could be called unusual.

The figure also shows that one cannot use the dimensions to say anything about the time when the MS was created, or the region. The fact that two alchemical herbals have a very similar size does not mean too much, since other alchemical herbals are larger. However, it just shows that the size of the Voynich MS is not unusual.

JKP is quite correct, of course, that the size does say something about the intended use of a book. Casanatense 459, one of the larger ones, was conceived as a present from a prince for a king.

(01-10-2016, 11:10 AM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.To add to the trimming question, I pointed out years ago that the final folio (f116) was originally the same size as the preceeding folio (f115) but was trimmed after the "Michtonese" was penned to its current size (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

It doesn't seem like it could have been trimmed by much - the margin at the top of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. looks about the same as on the other pages in the section.

May I just say that there is a distinction between "relative size" which just means "little-bigger-biggest" and "dimensions". The latter refers strictly to measurements.
Rene's picture illustrated the relative sizes of European herbals;
My research was into the distribution of manuscripts having exactly the same dimensions as the standard bifolia in Beinecke MS 408.

Rather different.

Sam - you are right that some kinds of books were made bigger than others; just as Rene was illustrating, though, big herbals, middle-sized herbals, and small herbals are known.

There are a number of good sites online; my posts linked to some and quoted others. You will find that the dimensions for sheets of paper and of membrane were subject to legislation once the manufacture of books moved from the in-house environment of the monastic houses to the commercial environment.

Two critical points apply when doing the more precise sort of study (i.e. of bifolio dimensions rather than just "small-bigger-biggest")
1) Unlike the Voynich ms, the great majority of extant manuscripts may show signs of having been trimmed substantially when re-bound (sometimes more than once).

Second - that my study was begun only after being assured by Rene that the Voynich bifolia showed no signs of having been trimmed ( I was also interested in the possibility that a pricking line may have been sliced away, as often happened).

At the same time - because I see no point in wasting my time and effort if something is already done - I was assured (correctly) that no survey had ever been done to determine if the dimensions of the manuscript's ordinary bifolia were common, or uncommon.

They are uncommon. Very.

It was suggested at the time, that such a survey would be "another irrelevancy" but in fact it turned up some very interesting results - chiefly that in the whole collection of the British Library's illuminated manuscripts and digitised manuscript herbals, there were only two items having those dimensions: one made in Northern Italy and another in England, and both in the second half of the 1430s. Rather pleasing, I thought.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

ReneZ

Emma May Smith

Diane

-JKP-

Diane

-JKP-

davidjackson

ReneZ

Sam G

Diane