Mark Knowles' theories of pharma and other labels

[ReneZ]

Fontana's cipher has a few systematic aspects that seem to be particular for him. For example: using very similar symbols for the vowels.
Apart from that, it seems to me not to be fundamentally different from other systems that use alternative symbols for simple substitution.
In particular the example in the well-known Heidelberg MS Pal.Germ.597 is very similar, and contemporaneous with Fontana's work.

So while these two are similar, the Voynich MS does two things that are very different.
One is that it has something like glyph harmony or a curve-line system, as currently discussed in this forum.
The other is that it has a tendency to cursive writing. This is facilitated by the first point.

These two points are not found in Fontana, the alchemical cipher or any cipher I am aware of.
I could ask if anyone has any examples, but especially the first point seems essentially impossible to achieve with a cipher alphabet.