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| The 600 ducat question |
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Posted by: ReneZ - 25-01-2016, 05:27 PM - Forum: Provenance & history
- Replies (23)
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Did Rudolf II really buy the Voynich MS for 600 ducats? Would that not have been an unrealistic price?
We don't know the answer yet, but we can see some of his other acquisitions, showing that the price would not have been unrealistic, as has sometimes been suggested. (This only works for those who can read German).
Here, he pays 600 Taler to Jacopo Strada for some books:
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(Note that the silver Taler was worth a little more than a gold florin, and a little less than a gold ducat).
From other references, this seems to concern 6 printed books.
Here is a contract with Sambucus for 2500 ducats for a collection of Latin and Greek classics:
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This concerns 500 books. There was some haggling about the price: 5 or 6 ducats a piece. Not so funny: Sambucus died before being paid and his widow is asking for the money afterwards. A nice list of debts after Rudolf's death:
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But I digress.
Here some herbal books of Clusius. He is not sure what is their usefulness, but still pays 200 Taler.
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1350 Taler to the Dutch trader Emanuel Sweerts for flower bulbs (making up 700 Taler) and a book:
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There's a curious book (but only 150 florins):
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My favourite: 500 Taler to Carolus Widemann for books. These are almost certainly paracelsan and/or alchemical works. Several are still preserved in the Vossius collection in Leiden (NL):
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On a side note, here's a list of people receiving a monthly stipend of some 20 florins. Who can spot Jacobus de Tepenec?
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| Word Fitting |
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Posted by: Fachys - 25-01-2016, 09:56 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (12)
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At the bottom of folio f56r, there is a large space between "kchoar" and "sotodan".
In my interpretation, the spacing exists because "sotodan" would overlap with the illustration. Do you agree?
I mention this because the Voynich text itself could be meaningless gibberish - certainly the qok*dy chains in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. have low information content - in which case it's improbable that the author would not make good use of that space.
While there are other plausible explanations for that particular whitespace, in my opinion it suggests that:
- The author's intent was to write down "sotodan", and no shorter word would do.
- It was not desirable to split up the word in order to fill up the space.
- It was not acceptable to fill in the space with a random set of glyphs.
If true, these are three important points, and a sensible set of axioms for further analysis and interpretation of the text.
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| VMs Zodiac shows heraldry |
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Posted by: R. Sale - 24-01-2016, 09:15 PM - Forum: Imagery
- Replies (10)
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Traditional heraldry uses a number of standard patterns that can be found in any reference. Among them are certain patterns of alternating stripes, known as the paly, bendy and barry, examples where the stripes are vertical, diagonal and horizontal respectively.
In the VMs Zodiac, on first page, which is Pisces, at the top of the outer ring, there are two figures, one apparently male and the other female, occupying separate tubs on which there are patterns of alternating, vertical stripes. And moving clockwise, other tub patterns can be seen with similar stripes oriented diagonally and horizontally. Then there is another pattern with alternating stripes that can be seen as strongly equivalent with the heraldic pattern of chevrons. In addition to these, the Pisces tub patterns have examples that are evocative of the heraldic designs known as a semy of roundels and a papelonny.
Six traditional heraldic patterns, well represented in VMs Pisces: three vertical, two horizontal and one each of the others. To me this is a sufficient display to indicate that something very strongly evocative of historical heraldry has been included in the Pisces illustration. And furthermore, it suggests to me that heraldry might well be a plausible basis for further investigation into these illustrations.
The heraldic patterns are continued on the second page of the VMs Zodiac, with repeated examples of the semy of roundels and the papelonny, etc. Heraldry clearly is a theme that is carried on in the Zodiac illustrations. For all of three pages!
Let's examine the four striped patterns more closely. One is missing. The diagonal pattern in Pisces is representative of the bendy sinister. (Sinister = from the left) The pattern that is missing is the opposite diagonal which is a bendy from the dexter or right-handed side.
An example of the standard bendy is on the second page of the VMs Zodiac, Dark Aries. Directionally, the pattern is oriented from the bearer's right hand. And as it is, in a sense, a bendy the right way, could it not have been selected by the author as an affirmation of positive direction? It is, in fact, a direct indicator of the fact that the things on which the investigation of heraldry depends are those which the VMs illustrations provide.
And this particular pattern, the standard bendy, becomes even more important as the investigation moves to the third page, White Aries. Here there is a paired representation and a disguised evocation of historical facts and events. Here there is also an opening to glimpse the author's intentions. They are drawn into the VMs illustrations through intentional positioning. There is a level of complexity and historical correspondence that completely eliminates any accidental possibility. Heraldry is a key to the author's intentional construction, and the trail of the author's intent is a key to the VMs.
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| Character entropy of Voynichese |
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Posted by: Anton - 23-01-2016, 02:08 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
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Comparatively low character entropy of Voynichese has traditionally been used as an argument against the natural language hypothesis. To make it clear, it is not the single argument against the natural language, but it seems to me that it is not the strongest one.
Why? Because I wonder how we can be sure of our calculation of Voynichese character entropy if we don't know the real Voynichese alphabet? We only work with transcriptions (such as EVA), which maybe (and I'm sure they are) not that adequate.
Take an English text and substitute all instances of "d" with "cl" (which visually is much the same, but not linguistically). In other words, exclude the letter "d" from the English alphabet and imagine that letters "c" and "l" now do all the work. I think that character entropy of English will then change (namely, decrease), will it not?
So if we decrease the level of decomposition in our transcriptions of Voynichese, entropy is likely to rise.
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| Quire 13 |
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Posted by: VViews - 22-01-2016, 06:51 PM - Forum: Imagery
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Hello everyone,
A few months ago I made a wordpress to share my views of Quire 13.
It's just one page, but here's a link in case anyone is interested:
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As I explain on that page, it may be that Glen Claston or Nick Pelling had come to some of the same conclusions before, but I never read any explanation of what their exact reordering was or the exact reasons they gave for it beyond the connected tubs on two of the folios.
I don't have the courage to trawl through old VMS list archives in search of their exchanges on the subject, if they're even on there. If someone has a link to them I'd love to read them.
If my observations have been made by others before, I'll be happy to edit and give credit as necessary, or even delete the whole thing if its entirely redundant.
I'm not really sure whether to post this here or in some other section. I put it here because my views are based on illustrations. Admins, feel free to move it, or tell me how to do it.
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| Decomposition of the "gallows" characters |
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Posted by: Anton - 20-01-2016, 03:05 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- Replies (50)
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This is an interesting discussion in itself, so I decided to open a separate thread.
This thought occurred to me right after reading Cham's You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about the "Curve-Line system" which, among other things, makes accent on how some Voynich characters can be decomposed into more elementary characters - the basic e or i and one of the possible "tail modifiers" - an idea generally expressed earlier by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
It appears that the gallows can well be decomposed in a similar way (please excuse awkward graphics, I'm not a professional web designer):
gallows_decomposed.jpg (Size: 39.24 KB / Downloads: 454)
All four plain gallows result from combining either EVA "q" or the vertical line with one of the two tail modifiers (marked as t1 and t2). Note that these tail modifiers, when combined with elementary e or i, mostly yield valid Voynichese characters:
- e + t1 = d
- e + t2 = g
- i + t1 = z (?)
- i + t2 = m
The only point of question here is the third expression. "z" is a valid character that is encountered, though rarely, in the VMS, but in contrast to i which is normally at a 45 deg. angle, z is perpendicular to the baseline. So it is not clear whether z is really meant to be a combination of i and t1.
A question may arise why p and t gallows, if indeed containing q as component, do lift over the text line and not extend below the baseline (as the normal q would). There is a ready answer - this is to make the "coverage" behaviour (explained You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) possible!
One also may argue that a standalone vertical is not met with in the VMS. Maybe it is not (I'm not sure), but I remember seeing vertical as a component in some rare characters.
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| The Voynich Ninja goes public |
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Posted by: Anton - 19-01-2016, 05:25 PM - Forum: News
- Replies (3)
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So, pox leber, the day has come when the long-awaited Voynich Forum goes public.
Actually, the forum has already been publicly available for some time (as the current participants do know), and we have had some very interesting
duscussions and, of course, the "killer application" - the Voynich Blogosphere Reader (thx David!).
But until today we did not make any major announcements or the like. Today we feel that most things required for comfortable discussion (such as forum structure, policies and features) are in place, so we are glad to invite all people interested in the VMS to participate.
If you run a Voynich blog or a website, or simply participate in any Voynich-related community, it would be great if you could make a small announcement about this forum there.
The idea of this forum was not an idle one, but one that aimed to address the actual and often-expressed need of a dedicated Voynich-discussion site. So we very much hope that it may fill the gap. We tried to plan the forum structure so that it not only provides for discussions, but is task-oriented.
We would like to thank all those who have been sharing their feedback. The forum will continue to be polished from the features and probably design perspective, so please excuse any potential deficiencies that may still be in there.
A big thank you to all members of the initial focus group (you know who you are).
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