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+--- Thread: [Talk] Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019 (/thread-2953.html)
RE: Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019 - -JKP- - 20-10-2019
(20-10-2019, 06:27 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
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Alain is not really interested in the text, and his conclusion that the MS is not a 'serious medical MS' but like a parody of one, is based on the herbal illustrations. This is something that one has to take seriously in my opinion. The forensic dating should be left to those specialists, and the palaeography to others.
We don't know if the VMS plants have anything to do with medicine.
Even if they do, ALL medieval medicinal plant books look like parodies. They are full of utter nonsense... this plant can only be picked on the 6th day of the new moon, this plant can only be used on a Saturday, this plant is governed by Jupiter, this plant will cure dog bites (rabies) if it is mixed with cow urine and drunk in the evening, etc., etc.
This is not just the so-called alchemical herbals, this is in many herbals, both textual and illustrated. I don't think the VMS looks like a parody of medicinal herbals. I think that either the plants have some function other than being medicinal (not every herbal is medicinal, some of them are for garden plans, some are records of actual gardens, some are culinary) or there is possibly additional information encoded in the way the plants are executed (perhaps cultural or religious).
Do you know why artemisia is usually listed first in many of the old herbals? It's not because it starts with "a". It's because it is governed by the sun and therefore, by ancient reasoning, it belongs first.
And look at all the dragons, snakes, eyeballs, faces, etc. in medieval plant drawings. Those aren't parodies either. Ironically the strange animal shapes are not nonsense even if the cures are nonsense in the sense of being unscientific. They are mnemonic, and mnemonics are known to work rather well. If the strange roots in the VMS are also mnemonic, then there's no parody there, either.
So, to my mind, one should not assume the VMS plants are medicinal plants (they might be other things or a combination of categories) AND I do not think we should assume the VMS is a parody. I don't think there's any evidence yet for either assumption.
Quote:Even if the MS may be a 'fake', that doesn't mean that it's a modern fake.
Touwaide is saying the Marci letter may have been referencing a different book, and he seems to be giving a lot of attention to the possibility that W. Voynich masterminded the forgery. That can only be a modern fake.
RE: Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019 - Aga Tentakulus - 20-10-2019
The word forgery says a lot.
What should a medieval counterfeit contain ? What would that be ? Only the text could be a fake.
Everything else would be just a compilation of other books. But exactly these are the most books from this time. I haven't seen many where you can say that is the first who wrote it, and therefore an original. All draw wheels, but who invented it? Are all wheels of today forgeries of yesterday ?
The professor moves on thin ice.
RE: Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019 - -JKP- - 20-10-2019
Stellar has posted a biography of Touwaide on YouTube, presumably because Touwaide's comments on the VMS support Stellar's modern forgery (Wilfrid-did-it) theory:
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RE: Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019 - -JKP- - 20-10-2019
(20-10-2019, 08:28 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Contact him again! I fancy doing another one!
If he's not willing, try Linda Voigt. She's studied astrological elements in medieval plant medicine (mostly Middle English manuscripts but still interesting).
RE: Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019 - -JKP- - 20-10-2019
I looked through Touwaide's credentials and academic history.
I had assumed he had a background in historical botany, so I couldn't understand why he described plant structures in such an unorthodox and unbotanical (and somewhat misleading) way. It turns out he has an interest in historical pharmacy but his early academic work was mainly in classics, oriental history and philology. From what I can tell, it is mostly in a professional capacity that he has became involved with plants (you can't study ancient medicine without including plants).
RE: Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019 - ReneZ - 21-10-2019
(20-10-2019, 08:21 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.... he speaks from a position of authority that is beyond us poor web-commentators. We should assume that anything he says, he says aware of his position of authority. Otherwise, how are we to take anything he says as being serious?
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A man of such expertise would not make such a comment (forgery) without having examined the whole situation. He would be aware of the implications of such a declaration. If he has decided to bring the forgery argument into his presentation, it is either to dismiss it out of hand (which he didn't) or to leave the question open (which he did).
Certainly he hasn't declared himself "in or out" of the forgery argument, either way. But he has left the door open for future argument.
I agree with all that. I am just saying how I prefer to combine his viewpoints with those of other experts in other fields.
From what I know I can conclude with confidence that he either hasn't studied that particular area in detail, or decided to ignore most of that.
It's worth reading the printed commentaries in the Italian press again. (They were translated to English earlier on in this thread). His views about Voynich as the forger are hardly included in it, so I think that that says something about how that has been received.
RE: Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019 - ReneZ - 21-10-2019
(20-10-2019, 11:41 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I looked through Touwaide's credentials and academic history.
I had assumed he had a background in historical botany, so I couldn't understand why he described plant structures in such an unorthodox and unbotanical (and somewhat misleading) way. It turns out he has an interest in historical pharmacy but his early academic work was mainly in classics, oriental history and philology.
JKP, when you call his view unorthodox, unbotanical and misleading, and blame it on his background, then the necessary question becomes what is your background in order to make such a statement...
RE: Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019 - Aga Tentakulus - 21-10-2019
Other anomalies can be seen as the forger overdoing his job, resulting in an object that is "truer than truth". The worm holes that appear in f1 are absent in f2, but worms do not stop at one page. The forger decided he needed to also add worm holes to his repertoire of signs of authenticity. In his game, by stopping at the first page, he also provided a hint to forgery.
The statement of the worm is not on page f2r, therefore a fake should be considered. This statement is wrong !
The worm was on page f2r, it just did not come through the parchment. The traces of eating can be seen.
The food stops only with sheet f8.
Further on f1 you can see the shades in the spot. One can see at the bright places where the worm was, but also not through the parchment.
The bright path also tells me that the worm was active after the stain and eroded some signs.
This means that the writing Tepenec was possibly already blurred before the worm.
Sorry, I'm not really on top of the quoting yet.
Marco P wrote at #23...... at. ** Edmond Locard and the psychology of forgery **
RE: Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019 - Aga Tentakulus - 21-10-2019
Question: Does anyone know a good UV scan of f1 ? There seems to be a text in the upper right corner.
RE: Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019 - Koen G - 21-10-2019
I agree, the argument about the worm is a strange one. These worms were mostly interested in the wood of the binding, we don't require them to dig deep into the stack of vellum to be real...