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+--- Thread: First thought (/thread-6110.html)
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RE: First thought - Stefan Wirtz_2 - 24-09-2026
(23-09-2026, 11:26 AM)Joerg Fuchs wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[..]
So what if the Voynich was created by a person with mental illness? I wouldn´t wonder if something like that has happened[..]
That would mean 2-5 quite skilled scribes /authors did much work to produce or (copy)write a lot of text around some pictures from a lunatic.
With expensive materials, time-consuming and obviously some kind of re-working ("retracing") later.
All a bit too much for a therapy session.
I agree with the idea of most or all "plant images" maybe being only fantasy pictures for decoration, or for separating text blocks - at last, there is not really a hint that those plant chapters are anyhow a "herbal" at all.
RE: First thought - JoJo_Jost - 25-09-2026
I'd like to see someone with a mental disorder who can maintain such a highly structured text over 200 pages. Most of the texts known as “imaginary languages” created by people with mental health issues are far, far removed from such structures.
RE: First thought - JustAnotherTheory - 26-09-2026
Note that Athanasius Kircher, a polymath and one of the confirmed early owners of the VMS, invented a "universal language": Polygraphia Nova.
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RE: First thought - Jorge_Stolfi - 26-09-2026
(26-09-2026, 08:36 AM)JustAnotherTheory wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Note that Athanasius Kircher, ... one of the confirmed early owners of the VMS
Just to make good on my user title, let me point out that the only evidence we have for this claim is essentially Wilfrid's word.
The letters to Kircher by Marci, Baresch, and a couple other guys that supposedly mention the VMS do not describe it in sufficient detail to uniquely identify it as Beinecke MS 408. They could have been talking about another book entirely.
There is no solid evidence that Marci's letter was ever attached to Beinecke 408.
There is no note or stamp on Beinecke 408 itself that confirms that the book ever was owned by Rudolf, Baresch, Marci, or Kircher; or that it ever was in the Collegio Romano library, or was at any time in the possession of the Jesuits. AFAIK there is no surviving catalog of Kircher's books or of the Collegio Romano holdings before ~1860. It is not listed in any catalog or survey by them between their creation of the secret book stash in ~1860 and the supposed sale to Wilfrid in 1911-1912.
In fact, AFAIK there is no evidence that Kircher ever received the book from Marci, or that the book was even sent. The cover letter that is kept at Beinecke was apparently written by Marci's secretary. We do not know how Wilfrid obtained it; there is no mention of it, by the Jesuits or anyone else, before he announced its existence. Thus that letter at Beinecke could well be a copy that the secretary made and archived for his own reference.
Who knows, maybe the book was stolen or substituted, before it left Prague, by Marci's "friend" Raphael. He believed that the book was a Roger Bacon original, in Bacon's fabled cipher, hence a treasure of incalculable value to an aspiring cryptographer like him. It may be unlikely, but it does seem possible...
All the best, --stolfi
PS. Ops, this post belongs in another thread. Ho do I move it there?