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+--- Thread: A possible source for the "modern italian copy" (/thread-2036.html)
RE: A possible source for the "modern italian copy" - Koen G - 15-09-2017
I understand what you guys mean, but I'm not sure if I can agree. Purely from an artistic perspective, the drawing on the right looks like it took more effort than the one on the left. Also, the roots have the same core shape and layout, just more has been added on the right to make them look more natural. It's almost as if someone tried to "normalize" the plant drawing. If their intention was to show someone else what the VM is all about, surely they wouldn't have bothered with the more refined roots?
RE: A possible source for the "modern italian copy" - -JKP- - 15-09-2017
(15-09-2017, 10:14 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I understand what you guys mean, but I'm not sure if I can agree. Purely from an artistic perspective, the drawing on the right looks like it took more effort than the one on the left. Also, the roots have the same core shape and layout, just more has been added on the right to make them look more natural. It's almost as if someone tried to "normalize" the plant drawing. If their intention was to show someone else what the VM is all about, surely they wouldn't have bothered with the more refined roots?
There are a lot of things that don't match, like the last two words on the bottom right.
I keep wondering if the person had access to the original for a limited amount of time and filled in the parts they didn't remember correctly based on current conventions (roots, some of the text??). Or maybe if someone asked them to copy the page, maybe the person asking didn't say what it was for (didn't emphasize that an exact reproduction was needed because they didn't want to give away where they got it or what they were doing with it???).
I find it almost as perplexing as the manuscript itself.
RE: A possible source for the "modern italian copy" - Koen G - 15-09-2017
Can we exclude the possibility of a modern fake though? Someone who made it as an art project and sold it, after which it got sold again as a genuine historical copy? The VM script and drawing style are fairly accessible, and there are countless adaptations on art websites.
I don't want to argue either way yet though, for all I know it's a genuine item of interest, however small the chance.
RE: A possible source for the "modern italian copy" - -JKP- - 15-09-2017
So many questions...
Why add an extra row of dots on the first glyph?
Why add veins?
Why change the roots?
Why interpret the text as Latin and "clean up" EVA-ch based on what it usually means in Latin?
Why have the gallows characters been given a descending tail on the end stroke, rather than the little serif that is so distinctive to Voynichese?
Why is the first v-shape written more like d? Why are quite a few of the glyphs incorrectly copied?
I find it particularly intriguing that the gallows P in the middle of the Vord doesn't stem all the way to the baseline even though it does on the original. This is what sometimes happens in other parts of the VMS, the ascender hovers above the baseline, and sometimes has an extra stroke added to bring it down to the baseline. Has the copyist interpreted it as a pilcrow/capitulum and drawn it as such?
RE: A possible source for the "modern italian copy" - davidjackson - 16-09-2017
Purely as speculation, I would suggest the whole thing was done by someone with zero knowledge of medieval herbals, almost as a labour of love. They saw the book, and for artistic reasons of their own, started to copy it out.
RE: A possible source for the "modern italian copy" - bi3mw - 16-09-2017
(15-09-2017, 10:14 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.... If their intention was to show someone else what the VM is all about, surely they wouldn't have bothered with the more refined roots?
Would it not be possible for the "reconstruction" to indicate that the roots of the plant should be used ( for whatever ) ? In the original they would be cut off, at least from the viewpoint of the copyist.
RE: A possible source for the "modern italian copy" - Fabrizio Salani - 16-09-2017
WOW, how many questions in a brief time ! But believe me all these questions and more have been proposed and discussed with the world specialists of the Voynich as Claudio Foti, Renè Zandbergen, Nick Pelling, Raymond Clemens, Stephen Bax and many others. So is correct to give you more informations and some conclusions regarding the presumed making of the parchment and the red wax seal.
About the seal (only the first remained, cause there are only traces of the second below), Nick (Pelling) told to me about a firm in U.K. (Birmingham) that produce manually personalized wax seals and one of them is very similar to that of the parchment. I contacted the owners of the firm and they told me that the shape of the seal represented in their web site is a wax seal commissioned by one of their customers (as they remeber) many years ago and the customer showed them a photo with an old seal taken from a document dated XVIII th century but since it was an old commission they don't have any other informations. The seals they produce are at least of 2,5 cm diameter, those on the parchment is 1,5 cm diameter, tipical size for a personal ring seal as told me the sphragistics experts of Italian State Archives. I show you the way of a typical roman "litterae clause" made with a 3D reconstruction of the wax seal of the parchment and the enlargment of the seal with a microscope. First thought was that the seal "AG" or "GA" probably was the initials of Gottfried Alois Kinner (one of the correspondents from Prague with Kircher after the dead of J. M. Marci in 1667) but is strange to put in a seal only the initials of the name and not the surname, I exclude the hypothesis.
About the parchment: the leaf was taken from an old book (signs of binding at the front rigth), erased (abrased) and covered with calcium (see the XRF spectre n° 1) typical old treatment used for an erased parchment to allow the writing with a goose pen.
Let's start with the back (verso) of the leaf. The parchment present a central fold well visibile and an impression of a stamp (upper central) visibile with the black light (Wood light) of the typical cross of the Gesuits, a remaining of a document over the parchment. Are well visibile some traces of lines used to write linear over the parchment, these lines in ancient times were made by a silver pen or an iron pen (as in this case) as told my by the professors that analized scientifically the parchment.
With the black lamp are also visibile some traces of numbers and letters hand writes.
The text present some variations compared to the original page. It seems that the writer presents inaccuracies copying (…..-"Traducta itaque aliqua parte, scriptura imitata simili, ex libro quodam vetusto" - "….. with the
writing closely imitated" - as on the letter by Baresch dated 1639), I think this is not an attempt to translate the language of the MS, but who copied it was taken for granted that some letters of the MS were identical to those of the alphabet known.
The watercolor and color is very weak, perhaps an old restoration to the beginning of the XXth century? Difficult to understand.
What made me very curious about this parchment, is the reinterpretation of the plant, very similar to the botanical iconography of the XVII-XVIII th century. In my opinion realized to affect the Kircher about the translation of the partial copy, giving the whole a more scientific style for the period and not a childish style as the original. Athanasius Kircher was a doctor, engineer and the most greatest translator of ancient languages (see his book "Prodomus Coptus") of the XVII th century !
I apologize for the link of the University of Bologna regarding the Logwood ink, it's out of date. But I had download the entire document, so if anyone wants I can send it. In this research about “The colors in the man history” is writed (South America paragraph, page 21, 2nd image) “... In the pictorial work, the Logwood is cited among the Aztecs colorants in the miniature, while in Europe in the 17th century it was used as an economical product for the watercolor technique ... “.Probably the parchment was not realized in XVII th century, but we are sure that it was not realized in the XX th century. So if it was made in the XVIII or in the XIX th century, this is an enigma, it means that someone have read the manuscript in 1700 or 1800, but who and why to realize only a partial copy ? The only one we know that realized a partial copy of the book (as he write in his letter of 27 April 1639) was G. Baresch. So I think this is "an Elegant Enigma" too, just to take the words of the book by M. E. D'Imperio.
P.S.:
I have aquired another piece of the Voynich puzzle (not with this parchment) in 2015 from an antiquarian bookseller in Florence, the 1908 catalogue of W. M. Voynich of his library in Florence. Thank to this book catalogue there is a connection between father J. Strickland and Voynich, we must think that the priest have contacted the book seller because it owned a famous library in Italy (ex Franceschini library in Florence).
At page 30 there is an enigmatic book to sell dated 1515 that report a speech dated December 13, 1492 (!!!), regarding the true history of discovery of America.
I have contacted Scott Wolter of America Unhearted and it is very interested about this discovery... but this is another history.
RE: A possible source for the "modern italian copy" - -JKP- - 16-09-2017
This is extremely interesting.
Thank you for sharing it with us in such detail. Fascinating!
RE: A possible source for the "modern italian copy" - ReneZ - 16-09-2017
Dear Fabrizio,
the catalogue you mention is of some interest.
Voynich published over 30 of them, as far as I know from 1898 to at least 1914.
Any information about this one (it should have a number somewhere between 24 and 28) would be much appreciated.
Copies of all of his catalogues are preserved (again to the best of my knowledge) in the Grolier club in New York, and in the Binghamton University (State University of New York).
Especially a mention of one of the Strickland brothers would be interesting.
RE: A possible source for the "modern italian copy" - ReneZ - 17-09-2017
There's a publication about Voynich in his newly acquired bookshop of Franceschini, from 1908:
Zimmern, Helen: The Romance of a Literary Treasure-House. Pall Mall Magazine, July to December, 1908.
I am grateful to Rich Santacoloma for finding it, and sending me a copy.
It is only 8 pages, and if I understand correctly, this is no longer under copyright.
If the admins agree, it could be published somewhere in this forum.
Two of its pictures are already in my 'locations gallery':
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