Expert opinions about the VMS

[Koen G]

Very neatly put Diane.
However I quibble with your last assertion - a hobbyist need not be a lobbyist for any theory. Some may be - but many have no particular theory they try to thrust upon others.

That is certainly true. One can hobbyistically study the MS without settling on any solution. Though I would say that even this brings a certain amount of expertise. One can know incredibly much about the MS without being certain about anything.

[Diane]

Koen,
If Irena Hanzíková - the Czech woman mentioned yesterday on Nick Pelling's site - has really has translated the whole text, then the solution may be one like the wise men and the elephant - everyone wrong, but everyone a bit right.

As a Czech language book,  it could be called 'central European' but in the thirteenth century, part of the Veneto area* was under the rule of Ottokar II and that's the time and region that I posit for the final stage of development in the text and imagery before our current copy.
The first book published in Old Czech was the tale of the Trojan wars..

That would be the nicest resolution, of course. Everyone leaving with an elegant sufficiency.

* not the administrative district of that name.

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David Jackson,
It is true that I was thinking mainly of armchair history enthusiasts.  Some of the best and most thorough information you can get is from technical people who are 'amateurs' in the strict sense.  Personally I'd trust the opinions of a long-term practical amateur, or an archaeologist specialising in that area, for information about the history of the crossbow over that offered by a historian whose subject was the history of the Angevin court.

[ReneZ]

There is one general point I would like to add to this thread - maybe my last one on this topic.

Both in the non-academic and the academic world, there are people capable of presenting a sound and convincing argument, and those who are less capable of doing that. Of course, in the academic world this is a hindrance, and after the first one or two peer reviews one has hopefully learned.

Never did I intend that the word 'amateur' has  any negative connotation, and I have seen plenty of very sound and convincing presentations from 'amateurs'.


Additionally, as far as I can tell, several people here and in other fora seem to have some very relevant professional expertise, but, as Anton already pointed out, we don't have (and don't need to have) the CV's or photocopies of any diplomas.

A good example of clear formulation I find in the report from Joe Barabe (McCrone) of the first forensic examination of the inks and pigments in the MS. Some statements are firm, some are less firm, and others are more speculative. This is always made clear by the formulation of these statements. My favourite example: 

Samples 19 and 20 appear to be different inks, although the small amount of material available from Sample 20 lowers the level of confidence in any conclusions we might wish to draw from the available data.

[Davidsch]

I am not good in anything, however my skills on many areas are far beyond the average skills of anyone in any full room of people on many disciplines. Do i like being treated as if i know nothing and am just a little child ? I don't care.

Do i mind, if a public speaker tells the room: ... since there is nobody among us that knows the answer on the question....etc.
And i do know the answer. That doesn't bother be very much and i don't take action.

But what would bother me intensely, is when i would speak out loud and clear the answer to the question and i'am totally get ignored and the speaker just says the same: ... since there is nobody among us that knows the answer on the question....etc.

Then i just walk away. 

Probably mumbling something. 

[Diane]

A last word:

The issue with the sensible-sounding idea that we should pay attention to experts is that the experts selected as preferred "authority" are usually just that: selected.

If one were to simply go with the numbers of expert opinions about the manuscript, we should have to say that expert opinion had it a work made in England.

One cannot presumes that one opinion cancels another simply because it comes later, but an opinion is worth as much or as little as the level of analysis and the appropriateness of comparisons and documentation.

It has been made abundantly clear to me that despite my formal qualifications, a thirty-five year career as a professional, and almost eight years spent in explaining and documenting in detail the reasons for my opinion,  the ideas expressed by Sniezynska-Stolot and which are plainly uninformed by any prior, or in-depth or apparently by any later research into this particular manuscript, are preferred.

Take me out of the equation and consider how rarely we see it asserted that the manuscript must be southern Jewish - an opinion we have on the expert authority of Irwin Panofsky, and one all the more weighty because the history of medieval and renaissance art in Germany was his field of expertise!

Note also, that in representing Panofsky's opinion, Prinke says in the same note to the mailing list:


"Thus she [Sniezynska-Stolot] confirms the opinion of Panofsky (and my own amateurish feeling) that the VMS should be dated to mid-15th Germany/Poland/Bohemia."


Panofsky's expert opinion was that the manuscript was a Jewish product, influenced by Islamic culture, from "Spain or somewhere southern" and that it referred to Kabbalah.  After 1492, Spanish and southern Jews took refuge in various parts of Europe, Germany included.   But in fact, the only reason for having to argue the later date was the publication of an erroneous opinion that the manuscript included the New world's sunflower.. post 1492 by definition.

Rather than picking and choosing "names" to drop, in order to add an air of spurious authority to a theory about the imagery or place of manufacture, it is far better in my opinion to emulate the meticulous and analytical approach which we see habitually applied in studies of the manuscript's written text.

Then, whether a person is, or isn't, a professional in the field hardly matters: the evidence itself speaks.  If permitted.