[Talk] Alain Touwaide - Villa Mondragone - 14 Oct. 2019

[Aga Tentakulus]

It's a typical professor's disease. Vanity, I'm a professor I need to know.
His knowledge does not help him either, so it must be a fake...

Fake or not.
M. Voynich couldn't have been the forger, his biography doesn't allow that at all.
Abstract:
Directly after the study with approx. 20, 2 years in the jail. Then to Siberia.
1890 London. Founding of the book trade. Revolutionary writings.
1897 London. Foundation of antiques trade with books. First catalogue 1898.
1912 VM manuscript discovered in Italy.

In 15 years of ( no idea to become a master forger ?

The rest exactly as JKP has described it.

[MarcoP]

My impression, also on the basis of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: when Touwaide says that maybe Voynich made the manuscript, he is thinking of him as the mastermind of a project that involved other people.

[-JKP-]

Thanks for clarifying that, Marco.

Even so, accomplices have to keep silent for something like this to be created as a fraud. And one would need a lot of highly knowledgable, skilled accomplices.


And there is still the matter of the radiocarbon dating, the pigments, etc., etc. I'm surprised Touwaide gave so much attention to the possibility that Voynich created the VMS (whether with accomplices or not).

[bi3mw]

The radio carbon dating was developed in 1946. Why should the "Voynich - Team" consider a possible test which did not exist yet ? There were no deviations from the determined time window during the dating. The parchment is thus completely from the same time.

I do not understand why one can pay so much attention to a very questionable theory.

[Koen G]

I can imagine some process of elimination which would lead to modern forgery as the only remaining solution. But that doesn't mean that there is any decent evidence in support of this.

[ReneZ]

One should distinguish between those remarks made by Alain Touwaide that are in his field of specialisation, and those that are not clearly within. Other specialists have made observations in their own field and it is by combining the best of all worlds that one can improve one's understanding of the MS.

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.

Even if the MS may be a 'fake', that doesn't mean that it's a modern fake.
I already opened a thread about that recently: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  .

There is a large amount of real evidence that the MS is a genuine product of the late middle ages.
See the main link I provided in that thread.

There is no evidence that the MS was faked by, or on behalf of Voynich. There are only suspicions and speculation. Anyone who cares to read up on all the related information will realise that it is in fact impossible.

[davidjackson]

One should distinguish between those remarks made by Alain Touwaide that are in his field of specialisation, and those that are not clearly within. Other specialists have made observations in their own field and it is by combining the best of all worlds that one can improve one's understanding of the MS.

Notwithstanding that, 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?

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.

I'm afraid that doesn't really stack up. 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.

[Koen G]

It would be illuminating if we could somehow get direct comments from Touwaide himself about this.
Back when we were doing the web interviews, I contacted him but he didn't respond...

[davidjackson]

Contact him again! I fancy doing another one!

[Koen G]

Yeah about time. But you should contact him, maybe he'll listen to you