(29-12-2017, 11:43 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I split this post off Rene's thread so the discussion about the humanist hand in the VM can be focused here. 
For starters, it would be interesting to know what exactly proponents meant when they said the VM script resembles humanist hand. Was this about actual Voynichese? Or marginalia? Or both? 

And perhaps most importantly, why did they come to this conclusion?

Jim Reeds Wrote:From: "Jim Reeds"
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 10:51:40 -0400
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Re: Toresella

On Sep 10,  9:16, Dennis wrote:
about what I wrote about what Toresella said:


>    ....  What you had: "The VMS is, with certainty, authentic;
> not a fake.  It was manufactured in the period 1450-1460.  It was in
> France for a while: the month names
> on the zodiac diagrams are in French in a French handwriting.  The book
> itself comes from Italy; the mysterious writing is done in a round
> humanistic style found only in Italy in the second half of the 1400's."  
>
>       It would be interesting to know what specific "humanistic style"
> he had in mind; does it have a name?  It always puzzled me how T. could
> specify such a narrow time range, given the uncertainties here.  
>

The shifting of the date range from 1450-60 to 1460-80 is a bit bothersome.

The "humanistic style" question is easy to answer. In about 1450 a new kind of handwriting arose in northern Italy, consiously associated at the time with the Humanist movement (Petrarch, the recovery & revival of classical MSS & learning; the literary aspect of the Italian Renaissance). This handwriting was based on classical Roman models (some MSS, I think, but also on samples seen on stone monuments) and was a model for our printed "Roman" typefaces. Unlike the "textura" (aka "bastarda" or "gothic") handwriting common througout Europe in the period 1100-1400, which can be seen in Stofi's web pages), humanist hand is easy for us to read. It fell out of popularity in a few decades, however, being supplanted by the "Italic" hand, which is still in use. This brief period of popularity is what allows Toresella's puzzling narrow range of dates. Unlike the slanted Italic hand, the humanist hand is upright. Round letters seem equally round on both sides. The book by Tradechino I mentioned earlier this year is written in this kind of handwriting; there are samples in Bischoff's "Latin Paleography". (Which I don't have at the office, so I cannot check any of the details above.) After Toresella pointed it out to me I am completely convinced that the VMS script was written by a user of the humanist hand.

(05-01-2018, 01:12 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thank you Marco, that sheds some light on the matter. So it seems like the "humanist hand" theory was a promising lead for the VM's main text. But since it seems to have been a script characteristic of the second half of the 15th century, the carbon dating has closed that avenue.

Quote:From: "Jim Reeds"
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 10:50:09 -0400
To: voynich@rand.org
Subject: Humanist hand, 1400's dating, and so on.

I took a look at Bischoff's Latin Paleography book after posting my blurb about Toresella's
round humanist hand dating of the VMS, and it is clear that I oversimplified and overstated
things. The humanist hand dates from the earliest years of the 1400's, and was not instantly
supplanted on the invention of the Italic hand, so the time bracket for the VMS (if you believe the
VMS scribe was used to the humanist hand) is wider than the decade or 2 I suggested in my
earlier letter. Unfortunately Bischoff does not say very much about the h.h. (it is at the very end
of his time period) so I cannot give more info here. He does cite several books about the h.h.,
so there is clearly a lot more to know.

(05-01-2018, 01:12 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.However, I think you hit the nail on the head when you say that this appears to be an unpolished reproduction of illuminations we are used to seeing in expensive manuscripts. The unpolished look combined with the naked figures is what really strikes one as VM-like, since we're not used to seeing these types of drawings often.

Upon closer inspection, though, I think the resemblance is only superficial. Sozomeno's drawing style is kind of "all over the place", for example switching freely between frontal, three quarters and profile view. Additionally, as you indicate, he is clearly influenced by standard illumination practices. There's kings, angels, humorous man-bird combinations and even scatological humor...