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No text, but a visual cod...
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Ensoulment
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Trivia!
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f57v
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Pisces: March or February...
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The truncation effect
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Documents in Archives
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Yale University Free Disc...
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Abbreviations, anyone?
Forum: Analysis of the text
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An explanation of the Voynich Manuscript text |
Posted by: DonaldFisk - 10-04-2017, 02:50 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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Over the past few months I've been analysing the text, using standard statistical techniques, and now think I have a good idea how it was written. I have posted You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. describing my analysis, along with some attached files, on my "blog".
As there's a lot to read there, and you're no doubt ol daiin to know my You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., I'm afraid they're going to disappoint many of you. I have concluded that the text is almost certainly meaningless. I have also worked out, in detail, the general method by which the text must have been generated. Then, using this method, I have generated a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., I verified that this has all the important statistical properties of the original text. The method leaves very little scope for hiding any meaning.
In brief, the text appears to have been generated using state transition tables. At each state, a glyph is written. The transition to the following state is then a weighted random choice, possibly decided by drawing a card or two from a shuffled pack, though I'm open-minded about the exact mechanism. This might be a slow and tedious process, but it fits the data. The state generation tables I have used are capable of generating 90% of the original text, but there's no reason that couldn't be improved upon.
There are a few loose ends. My method focuses on word generation. Deciding paragraph breaks is still somewhat ad-hoc, and I didn't generate labels, though I think I have good reasons why they shouldn't present any problems.
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[split] Are there trees in the VMS? |
Posted by: Koen G - 05-04-2017, 07:31 PM - Forum: Imagery
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Edit KG: this thread is split from another one where Marco stated that the VM does not contain any trees. I thought this question worth its own thread.
Thanks, Marco. You touch upon an interesting question which I've meant to bring up before: are there trees in the VM? I agree that at first sight the plants look mostly like herbs, though this is hard to tell for sure since we have no indication of scale. Isn't it thought, for example, that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. might be a tree? This is something that really needs its own thread, though at the moment I don't have time to give it the attention it deserves.
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Alchemical Symbolism in the VMS |
Posted by: bi3mw - 01-04-2017, 11:06 AM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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I gathered some information about "alchemical symbolism" here and there in the forums and as it was really interesting it could be a point worth discussing. It is in the nature of the subject that conclusive comparisons are difficult. This could lead to wild speculation, but it does not have to.
In my opinion, alchemical symbolism always requires some consideration in relation to the entire manuscript or section. An isolated consideration is of little use here.
An example, folio 82v, @JPK ( thread "rainbows" ):
Quote:I've collected quite a few rainbows from alchemical texts, where they have symbolic meaning related to the color sequence of chemical transformations.
So, what about the nymphs ? Do they stand for elements and / or temperatures or metall(oid)s ? Is there an allusion on this or any other folio ? - As I said, an example. I would like to keep the discussion open for other approaches. Perhaps they sum up a picture behind the picture.
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A collection of motifs |
Posted by: R. Sale - 31-03-2017, 07:49 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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It occurred to me that we have discovered a number of artistic motifs in the VMs that have good correspondence in other, historical, illustrated sources.
Those examples include:
1) The nebuly line
2 & 3) The ladder pattern and the dotted ladder
4) The herringbone pattern
5) The quatrefoil
6) The dotted sine wave
7) Oresme's cosmos The cosmic pattern that consists of a central sphere and a background of stars - as opposed to the multi-sphere of planets.
8) The scallop-shell cloud band
9) The pairing paradigm. The first five houses of the VMs Zodiac Sequential pairing and non-sequential pairing A simple pattern as a basic motif
10) Heraldic Ordinaries These are well-know patterns. Some of them (VMs) have certain problems. Is it incompetence or intentional distraction?
11) Heraldic representations of historical tradition The Fieschi insignia and the red galero; hidden by a radial illusion and affirmed by other factors built into the illustration
12) A traditional heraldic fur strategically placed and paired The papelonny pun It's an intentional construction.
This is quite a collection in one manuscript source. It currently appears that each of these is a motif that can be shown to exist before the VMs parchment dates. Which is also to say that none of this was an unusual or occult type of knowledge that might be difficult to represent. These are common and ordinary medieval motifs, but they are used in a sophisticated and punning manner that makes them more difficult to interpret for those familiar with the motifs of those times. And almost impossible for those unfamiliar with the motifs and heraldic canting in use at the time of VMs composition to follow the artist's intentions. The pathways are marked - often with a quatrefoil.
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Poggio theory as presented by Claudio Foti: more evidence |
Posted by: Daniel Briggs - 30-03-2017, 11:49 AM - Forum: Provenance & history
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For the hundredth anniversary of the resurfacing of the Voynich manuscript, Claudio Foti presented evidence that Poggio Bracciolini may have been responsible, at least in part, for writing or ordering the writing of the Voynich manuscript. I thought his evidence was intriguing, so I decided to learn more about the characters involved. What I found was even more interesting. Of the numbered points below, some are just setting, while others I believe contribute credibility to this claim.
1. Poggio was called by John XXIII to the Council of Constance, southernmost Germany, 1414–1417, over which Sigismund presided in the sense of "defender of the Catholic Church." Its purpose was to determine the succession to the papacy, as well as what to do with heretics. Poggio spent time travelling Europe directly thereafter, collecting old books from libraries on the way. Jerome of Prague and Jan Hus were burned as a result of the Council, the latter at least against the preference of Sigismund.
2. Sigismund, who was already king of Hungary and Croatia, was coronated king of Bohemia in 1419. Martin V was pope from 1417 to 1431, and his election ended the Western Schism.
3. Guarino da Varona was an Italian translator contemporary to Poggio who set out to study at Constantinople and returned home with a case of books (another was lost at sea) from there. Guarino was a student of John Conversini of Ravenna, while Poggio was a student of John Malpaghini of Ravenna. All three Johns of Ravenna were students of Petrarch.
4. According to the Italian Wikipedia, John Malpaghini of Ravenna transcribed the Familiares of Leonardo Bruni into Rotunda, or Semigothic. Considering that one of his contributions to the time is in developing typography, Semigothic (Rotunda) certainly bears concrete resemblances to the Voynich script in how it treats curves and lines, and does flourishes, and the curve-line distinction is shown to be material in the Voynich manuscript by Brian Cham at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
5. Poggio found Manilius' Astronomica during his trip to Constance for the Council of 1414–1417. He does not disclose whether he found it in Germany, Switzerland, France or elsewhere. He has a scribe copy it, and becomes frustrated with the scribe's superlative ignorance.
6. At the time, there was a high popular premium on proving the great antiquity of The Hermetica of Hermes Trismegistus.
7. The Florentines were clearly tasked with the creation in situ of a Hungarian royal court culture and knowledge base. Those situated by Sigismund's court almost certainly all knew each other and worked together on things.
8. This one (with the next) is the clincher for me. Foti already mentions it, but I think it carries great weight: Poggio writes that Piero Lamberteschi offered 500 florins for him to go to Hungary and partake in the writing of a book for three years. The way Poggio spills the details to Niccoli in the letter makes it clear that no one is supposed to know that this is happening. He's supposed to be presumed to be in England, and only lets it be known that it is the writing of a book in an oblique manner. He says he's thinking of accepting, but asking for 600 florins instead of 500.
9. Almost nothing is known about Piero Lamberteschi, other than that he and Poggio were friends and collaborators of Cosimo de' Medici, who "found" the Corpus Hermeticum. It is said that Lamberteschi is a cardinal; my guess is that Sigismund was given great liberty over appointments in his burgeoning region and was allowed to appoint himself a cardinal at his whim. Poggio likely saw him as a fellow widely learned Florentine. Online, we get little more than the entry of one book at one library: I Cherubini del Rigagnolo. So apparently, Lamberteschi liked cherubim enough to make them the title of a fantasy romance he wrote.
Given all this, I think that it is a very reasonable hypothesis that Marci's memory of Rudolf II paying 600 gold ducats for the manuscript is what naturally happened to a true statement after a long game of telephone: the King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, and Holy Roman Emperor paid 600 florins for it. (Or indeed ducats; Poggio in his letter could have chosen the well-known Florentine word as equivalent, since the weights were almost exactly the same.) Rudolf II was interested in the occult, so when it was forgotten exactly which King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, and Holy Roman Emperor did this, they naturally identified it as Rudolf II, due to his interest in the occult.
Four heads of Hungary later, Matthias Corvinus founds the largest library north of the Alps in Prague in 1460, where I'm guessing they store all the books going back to Sigismund's collection. Five heads of Hungary thereafter, it's Rudolf's library, and the book is sold to Jacobus de Tepenec after his death to settle his debts. Or Jacobus is just clearly the person in Rudolf's court to whom the book should clearly go, because he had been initiated into the Jesuit order and taught how to read the Voynich manuscript. In either case, it ends up in a Jesuit library, which is meet since it had been started by academic ancestors of the Jesuits, and the set of all people who knew how to read it from a certain point forward were Jesuits.
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order of f103r till f116r |
Posted by: Davidsch - 28-03-2017, 03:07 PM - Forum: Physical material
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Question to Voynich experts:
Is the order of f103r till You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. numbered in the correct order.
This is important to me for analysis of the text & word order.
if yes, how can you tell.
if no. why not and what should be the correct order.
Looking forward to your arguments.
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Date of hypothetical medieval exemplar? [Thought experiment] |
Posted by: Koen G - 25-03-2017, 09:16 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
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I believe the VM images ultimately go back to a number of pre-medieval sources. This thread is NOT about that. It's about what could have happened in between. For any material to be carried from let's say the first century to the fifteenth, it is reasonable to assume a number of intermediate steps. Copies, additions, reinterpretations, updates, translations, and perhaps in our case, transcriptions.
We know that the physical object has been created in the early 15th century. This is one of the few things we can build upon with relative certainty. But, as you well know, any contents of a medieval manuscript, whether it be text, image or both, are not unlikely to have existed in some form earlier. Copies were made, traditions formed, fragments from various sources combined, altered, commented upon, and so forth.
There are a number of images in the VM which are medieval without a doubt. The crossbow, the castle walls on the rosettes foldout... I would like to find out when these were added. For example, is it possible that the VM was copied from a 10th century work?
I will phrase this in a very concrete question:
What is the terminus post quem for a hypothetical medieval document from which the VM was copied? - For the imagery?
- For the script?
Obviously things that pertain to the physical makeup of the manuscript are unlikely to help us much here, since they depend on the availability of materials to the 15th century scribes. But apart from that, which parts of the manuscript unambiguously point towards an early 15th century context?
I also have no idea when the script could have been given its current form. Are there indications that the script must have been a 15th century creation? For the record, this is not an idea I'd oppose, since to me this would mean that a source text was transcribed in the 15th century, which would be extremely interesting to know. But if this glyph set might as well have been a product of the 13th century, then that's interesting as well.
So has anyone studied any of this?
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