Humanist handwriting in the MS?

[MarcoP]

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.

For a change, things could be more complex. I read another passage by Reeds in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Apparently, it is not a closed avenue, but I feel too ignorant to go into the details.

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.