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Welcome, Guest You have to register before you can post on our site. Username/Email:    Password    Remember me Search Forums (Advanced Search) Online Users There are currently 733 online users. » 4 Member(s) | 722 Guest(s) Applebot, Baidu, Bing, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yandex, Hider, rikforto Latest Threads No text, but a visual cod... Forum: Theories & Solutions Last Post: Linda 17 minutes ago » Replies: 1,872 » Views: 1,307,442 Deconstructing the VMS : ... Forum: Analysis of the text Last Post: Dunsel 46 minutes ago » Replies: 18 » Views: 296 What if it's a "Lossy Enc... Forum: Voynich Talk Last Post: oshfdk 1 hour ago » Replies: 11 » Views: 166 Aries Design: Truly Aries... Forum: Imagery Last Post: nablator 1 hour ago » Replies: 44 » Views: 2,831 The 'Chinese' Theory: Fo... Forum: Theories & Solutions Last Post: Linda 7 hours ago » Replies: 803 » Views: 213,370 Month names collection / ... Forum: Marginalia Last Post: Koen G 8 hours ago » Replies: 347 » Views: 80,971 New members: trouble regi... Forum: News Last Post: Strong Test 8 hours ago » Replies: 1 » Views: 149 I am not convinced by the... Forum: Provenance & history Last Post: Oscroft 9 hours ago » Replies: 35 » Views: 1,002 Voynichese is a numeric c... Forum: Theories & Solutions Last Post: ololololo 10 hours ago » Replies: 199 » Views: 21,153 116v Forum: Marginalia Last Post: Jorge_Stolfi 11 hours ago » Replies: 1,361 » Views: 959,624

f42r Posted by: Anton - 12-10-2016, 12:57 AM - Forum: Marginalia - Replies (8) I was examining f42r, the text of which (as we discussed in another thread) is quite peculiar in certain respects. This folio is also peculiar in that it depicts two plants (or maybe two variants of one plant, who knows), as opposed to most botanical folios. But I open a new thread in "Marginalia" because I suddenly noticed certain extraneous writing below the "red plant". It looks as tiny Greek letters "kappa" and "nu", or maybe "K 0" or "K O", but "kappa nu" is currently my favorite. Has this ever been discussed? Any ideas of the meaning or the relevance?       Guglielmo Libri - and the Voynich manuscript Posted by: Diane - 11-10-2016, 01:03 PM - Forum: Provenance & history - Replies (24) There has been so much interest shown in my so-called "Libri theory" that I thought I might add a thread here. If you want to skip the introduction and go straight to the details, see the list of posts below. For those who prefer a summary: As far as I was able to discover* nobody in Voynich studies had ever heard of Guglielmo  until I began writing up a few posts in 2015, not only because he was in the right place at the right time to give or to return books to the Jesuits, via Fr.Beckx, but because if Beckx had gained the manuscript from Libri, then all bets are off about where it had been kept between the last quarter of the seventeenth century and 1910-12. _* some people don't think it necessary to acknowledge precedents, and don't like to pass on such information.  Libri was a member of the minor nobility in Italy, apparently a bit of a social climber, and  his great friend was a certain nobleman named Manzoni, whose own library at his death was counted as 300, 000 volumes (yes, hree hundred thousand). Both men lived in Florence and both - I think - had smaller villas in Fiesole. Guglielmo Libri developed a habit of helping himself to other libraries, perhaps as a way to increase his own social standing, and have something to talk about to the man he so admired, Count Manzoni. When the Napoleonic wars resulted in the contents of many libraries in Italy being stolen or confiscated, or simply claimed as French in areas taken by Napoleon,  our dear Guglielmo wangled his own appointment as "overseer of French libraries".  including also an office as Administrator of the “ecclesiastical patrimony of Prato” [ref: Maria Fubini Leuzzi, ‘Guglielmo Libri amministratore …]; Prato links to a certain Datini - but don't you dare!  I'm still working on that topic and already published a "Statement of Intention'. Once he had obtained that official position, Libri's  thefts became more numerous and finally more obvious -  ito the point where he had to leave France.  He aarrived in England with trunks and trunks of rare medieval monastic and secular manuscripts, some certainly as old as the seventh and  eighth centuries (i.e. before Charlemagne) So that is could be why, when Wilfrid arrived in England a couple of decades later - another continental aristocrat with trunks and trunks of medieval manuscripts,  one expects that the English might feel a little wary of any very unusual elements in his collection. By 1868 Libri sensed his death imminent and returned to Florence with what books he'd not sold in England, soon moving up to the small hilltop village and nobles' place of retreat 10 kilometers away,   in Fiesole.   According to the Jesuits' offiical history, Fr. Beckx had gone direct from Rome to Fiesole in the 1860s, as  Jesuits were being expelled from Rome.  He apparently  remained  there in a former 'Hieronymite' house that had been built by Cosimo de medici  on the hill behind the Medici villa.  This old hermitic centre the Jesuits bought. So they inherited anything in it, too. (Interesting..) Guglielmo passed on most of his remaining collection (not all stolen) to his friend, Count Manzoni, who also had a house in Fiesole. So we can suppose Fiesole held about 350,000 collectable MSS by now.  Guglielmo then died,  around the middle of 1869. Fr. Beckx didn't return to Rome until 1873. In the meantime, the late Guglielmo's manuscript collection seems to have shrunk, or vanished from the house of Manzoni. I suppose it's possible that Manzoni took some, but the historical record doesn't suggest he did that. So Perhaps on his deathbed, Guglielmo had wished to see the most important Jesuit in Italy, who was just up the road, and ask him to organise the return of any illegally-acquired books he still had, to leave this life with a clear conscience. Who knows? And then finaly... as postscript, a thread recently published here led Rene and Ellie V to mention that Fr. Strickland - who served as middleman between the Jesuits in Rome, and Wilfrid Voynich -  once wrote to Wilfrid telling him that for the convenience of the current Provincial, Wilfrid should send the "1,000 books" that Wilfrid had selected to the Jesuit house in florence, where the current Provincial would be able to check them over before they were sent on to Rome. So what do you think? "The castle" an Italian "palazzo"?  The Jesuit Villa, or Count Manzoni's house in Fiesole?  The Medici villa?  So the story so far is that we have Fr. Strickland and "1,000 volumes" and Wilfrid Voynich all in the vicinity of Florence - and perhaps ten kilometers from Fiesole, or in Fiesole and ten kilometers from Florence. (On Wilfrid's own warehouse in Italy - see the original research by Rich Santacoloma, published on his blog.  You don't have to accept his theory of a conspiracy). But wait!  There's more. When Kraus donated the Voynich MS to Yale, he  donated *at the same time* works certainly ones earlier "acquired" by Guglielmo Libri.     English collections also contain works that were acquired from  a notable English bibliophile, and who in turn had  purchased both from Libri and from Wilfrid. So.. that's the introduction. ---- More details in the posts I put out while researching this previously untouched topic.  (I expect that the usual suspects have filched the basic material and neglected to mention whose research they were helping themselves to... lots of Guglielmos around. Not so many Manzonis. 'You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (March 19th., 2015)    You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (March 20th., 2015). 'You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.', (March 23rd., 2015)   'You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.' (April 4th., 2015); You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.'. (April 23, 2015); You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (30th., April 2015) '... You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.' (April 30th., 2015); You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (October 6th., 2015) 'You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.' (March 5th., 2016)   The Big Comparing Nymph Proportions Thread [image heavy] Posted by: Koen G - 10-10-2016, 08:24 PM - Forum: Imagery - Replies (3) I decided to make a new thread for the actual comparisons, so I can keep the first post here updated based on new suggestions. The presentation of how I got to the nymph proportions can still be read in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. The full version of this study can be read in this blog post: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. What? I determined the average proportions of the Voynich nymphs, as explained in the other thread. I found out that The length of the head, measured from the top of the skull to the chin, could be used reliably to measure the nymphs' proportions. I chose the arbitrary points of the belly button and the knee of the stretched leg as anchors. Determining the median values, I was able to compose a number of lines like this: I added four nymphs to show that the lines are more or less consistent in marking the top of the skull, the chin, the navel, the knee and the bottom. Of course there are minor variations depending on the nymph - it's an average. By resizing Homer Simpson to make his head fit between the top two lines, we can see that his feet only reach the nymphs' bottom line. This means that Homer is significantly more compact than Voynich nymphs. Some notes: Most importantly, proportion is just one aspect of art style. Matching proportions can enhance an analysis, but don't prove much all by themselves. I had collected a number of examples from older sources, and asked forum members for suggestions. There are millions of human figures drawn during and before the 15th century, so by definition I missed a lot. Purpose of this thread: I will present here the best matches from my blog post in chronological order. However, it should not be limited to that. If you find more likely candidates, just tell me and I will add them to this first post with your name for fame =) Like this we can hopefully map the occurrence of nymph-like proportions throughout time and space. So let's get to it, then. I will try to keep the commentary to a minimum - in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I elaborate a bit. 1400 BCE, Egyptian: alabaster figure of a Nubian servant (Koen) Note: this example is very early, and it portrays a dwarf. You may recognize a number of nymph properties in it, and proportions match rather well. I don't wish to argue a direct connection, yet still include this item because I like it As a general note, the nymphs do have some aspects in common with dwarfism, and dwarfs had positive connotations in Egypt. They were associated with the Sun, rebirth, immortality, fertility, magic... Ptolemaic Period, Egypt: various objects (Koen) From left to right: Dancing Dwarf, 3rd century BCE; Isis, Horus and Nephthys; Female figure, 1st century BCE. Note how the navel-line and knee-line match rather well. Another point of similarity is that they are mostly nude, apart from headgear. 48 – 25 BCE, Indo-Scythian: coin of Azes I (Diane) 2nd century CE, Roman Egypt: the Tomb of Petosiris in the Dakhla Oasis (Koen) Note: in this same Egyptian oasis tomb, there are also images of similar stars and blond people: 813-820, Byzantine: Vat. Gr. 1291 (Sam G.) Note: inconsistent proportions, significantly more elongated than VM nymphs. 11th century, French : BNF MS Lat. 7028 (not sure who to credit here, don't remember how I found it Note: from our initial batch, this is one of the best matches. Proportions match perfectly. The figures' lower bodies look a lot like those of the nymphs, while the upper bodies and heads look different. 11th century, Coptic. Woven Tapestry (Koen) 1184, Italy: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Ellie) Note:  inconsistent proportions but some figures match very well (example: priest above). 1361, Catalonia: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Diane) Note: figures are about a head taller than nymphs, though other stylistic similarities. Mid 15th century, Germany (al-Sufi translation): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Darren Worley) 1457, Paris: The Hague MMW 10, A, 11 (Ellie) 1459, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Biblioteka Jagiellonska (Picatrix) - (Searcher) Note: two different art styles. 1949-present, Denmark: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (Sam G.) Wow! perfect match! So that's it so far. I probably missed some suggestions or attributions, please let me know in that case. And let's start expanding this thing. All suggestions are welcome!   curly herbal Posted by: Davidsch - 09-10-2016, 02:53 PM - Forum: Imagery - Replies (5) Based on this message You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. I noticed that a lot of images of herbals have a distinctive curl. such as You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. [attachment=745] That reminded me of the image You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. It's not quite the same, because the curl is there inside the stem, but perhaps there are other better examples.   Father Joseph Strickland Posted by: EllieV - 08-10-2016, 01:00 AM - Forum: Provenance & history - Replies (24) The intent of this thread is to share any information we find about Jesuit Father Joseph Strickland. My first clipping is from the book Jesuit Survival and Restoration. According to the author Joseph Strickland was appointed to dig into Jesuit archives researching the history of the order during the suppression period 1773-1814 (note; this includes the Napoleonic wars). He dug into the Italian archives for three years between 1895 and 1897. Thus it is possible that father Joseph Strickland had more than average knowledge about what is where in the Italian Jesuit archives.     Short bio of Joseph Strickland from his obituary posted in The Tablet magazine (International news weekly)     Photo and info about Joseph Strickland's service as chaplain from Jesuits in Britain web-site. The reason it is relevant is because in places Strickland in the UK in July 1914 (St Ignatius retreats and start of the WWI). He never goes back to Italy after that (he goes to France and then Malta). So whatever dealings he had in Italy - they were before 1914.       Pre-Modern Linguistics Posted by: Emma May Smith - 07-10-2016, 08:45 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text - Replies (3) It is believed by some researchers that the Voynich script, language, or both, were designed by the author of the manuscript. This is used to explain why the manuscript is both unique in its appearance and somewhat divergent in its underlying statistics. Were the script or language to have been designed then we can fairly assumed there must be some understanding of linguistics which informed that design. So an inlightening question for researchers to answer is what possible knowledge was available to the author. Although we can put an ultimate date and place of creation in 1400s Europe, the sources of knowledge may be much wider spread. Thankfully, we can divide linguistic traditions into five main groups: Medieval European, Greek-Latin, Arabic, Indian, and Chinese. (We could also assume some 'folk' knowledge of linguistics, in that unlearned people had ways of looking at language which could have been an influence, but such things seem to be unrecorded.) Due to the time and place of creation the first two traditions—Medieval European and Greek-Latin—are most immediately interesting. I've been reading a little about these two traditions, specifically their understanding of phonology and phonetics, in order to learn how they might have understood a language were they seeking to design a script for it. Medieval European linguistics was based on the knowledge of Latin writers but extended in various directions. Their main interests were logic, rhetoric, and semantics, and do not seem to have been innovative with regard to the study of phonology or phonetics. Whatever they knew about these areas were based on ancient authorities, but I cannot discover exactly the depth of their knowledge except that it was much more on Latin writers than Greek. The Medieval European tradition was wholly forsaken at the onset of the Renaissance with a switch to the full Latin-Greek tradition which was being revealed through the new learning. However, it is hard to say exactly when the new ancient knowledge became available. Some, certainly Aristotle, would have been available before 1400 for the author of the Voynich manuscript to have studied. Others will not have been available. Thus we're interested in the Latin-Greek tradition, specifically Greek knowledge of phonology and phonetics, which was relatively advanced. The Greek made a number of interesting discoveries and developed a classification of sounds which is of interest to us. I will enumerate the main points, at least as I see them. 1) A clear distinction between vowels and consonants. 2) A further distinction between 'half sound' and 'soundless' consonants. That is, between sonorants like /l, r, n, m/ and /s/, and plosives /p, t, k, b, d, g, ph, th, kh/ and /h/. 3) They specifically linked aspiration with the sound /h/. 4) They saw voiceless, voiceless aspirated, and voiced plosives as existing on a kind of spectrum. So that if /p/ and /ph/ were voiceless and voiceless aspirated counterparts then /b/, the voiced sound from the same place of articulation, was seen as 'between' the two. This is actually wrong, as voicing and aspiration are not linked in this way, but it was their understanding of it. I haven't yet read up on Arabic, Chinese, and Indian linguistics, though I guess that Indian linguistics will be the most interesting for our purposes. I hope somebody can add further knowledge or raise important points.   About "group" words Posted by: Diane - 07-10-2016, 02:52 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk - Replies (7) For this, I'll have to ask temporary suspension of disbelief. Supposing that (1) my analyses and ids for the botanical folios are not far wrong; and (2) that they are composite images as I concluded from the analyses -  later finding, rather nicely, that the Friedman group suspected it; and indeed that (3) the majority of plants pictured in the botanical folios are  native to the line between southeast Asia and Arabia.  So, tracing eastern plants' early importation  to the west, I found they came first through Cairo (Fustat). Specific information about just which plants were being imported and used, and connections between Cairo and southern Italy comes from just one  source available to me, though I have long ago referred others to the work of Oliver Kahl in connection with Arabic dispensatories. (As far as I heard back, no one followed that lead). The  Cairo geniza documents are both relevant and specific. That is, they include actual prescriptions and traders' lists because medical works are often theoretical. One paper has been written on this subject of materia medica from the Cairo geniza, and by the same authors who wrote a larger book published by Brill.  One of the authors (Dr. Lev) agreed to put up the paper at academia.edu. This bit I thought the linguists might find interesting, or even useful: “The medieval system tended to classify plants and animals in larger groups according to external morphological characters, with no consideration of genetic proximity or anatomical similarity as is the case today. Therefore, the existence of a collective (general) name for a group of several similar species was common. Here, are some examples of this feature:- 1. Fūdanj: collective name for various species of aromatic plants, namely of the family Labiatae (Maimonides, 1940). 2. Zaj: collective name for salts of sulphuric acid (verdigris,vitriol) compounded with various metals such as iron, copper, lead, and zinc (Maimonides, 1940; Amar and Serri, 2004). 3. Awsaj: collective name for spiny bush species such as boxthorn, buckthorn (Lycium sp.), (Rhamnus sp.), and bramble.   ... If I have correctly analysed the imagery and rightly identified the plants then the unifying principle might actually be a single word, rather than (as I described) "similar form with  comparable or complementary purpose and naturally occurring in proximity".  Native speakers, traders, pharmacists and keepers of the funduqs or warehouses used those group-words regularly.   Of course, nice looking herbals and medical works made for Latin libraries would separate each plant, picture some and label them individually, a la Dioscorides. Not what we have in the Vms. There's no reason that the Vms mightn't be a traders' handbook, or a warehouse book.  Baresch does speak of "thesauros Artis medicae Aegyptiacos".  and in Latin 'thesauros" could mean a "treasury" of knowledge, but it could also mean quite literally a warehouse.. basically a treasure-house of goodies. So what do people think about the 'group word' as possible key to the botanical folios? (not the leaves and root section). Too many imponderables?   f53r IOANISS DEE SIGNATURE FOUND LEAF INVERTED! Posted by: stellar - 07-10-2016, 06:10 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text - Replies (11) I have searched for days looking for signs of a signature which attributes John Dee for designing the MS-408.  I truly believe he made this document and as most artists practice as a hiding technique; they place hard to spot letters in their art.  I have done this with some of my oil paintings.  There is a leaf half way up to the right in folio 53r and if you invert it and look really close you can make out letters. Ioaniss Dee This is a solid analysis for letters just don’t appear!  Also it looks as though he tried to hide the text with a dark brown stain, but he added a pointer to the letter, “o”.  This is information and finally it adds validity to my work. Also earlier today I found this, credit JKP:   f68r2 Stars Posted by: stellar - 07-10-2016, 03:21 AM - Forum: Analysis of the text - No Replies f68r2 Stars   f82r Dee's Necronomicon Star of Ishtar Posted by: stellar - 06-10-2016, 08:42 PM - Forum: Imagery - Replies (1) f82r Dee's Necronomicon Star of Ishtar: First Previous Next Last