26-07-2016, 06:07 PM
I've discussed the issue of precedence again recently with Nick Pelling, who was the person who first advised me when I asked whether anyone before me had formally analysed the content of that folio or recognised it as a map.
His initial response had been that although there had been a few intermittent 'kites' flown, no suitably qualified person had researched it in depth, or explained each part of the map and the relationship of parts to the whole, nor discerned signs of chronological strata... as I had. Mine was then the first formal analysis of the folio, and the first certain demonstration that it ws a map.
More recently Nick has emailed me with copies of a conversation he had had some years before, in which he theorised that it might be a city-plan, and specifically of Milan. He was so enthusiastic about that theory, at the time, that he flew to Milan to see whether or not an aerial view of the city might show a fair correspondence to the arrangement of streets and remaining medieval buildings.
Apparently he later abandoned that theory, but in my opinion he deserves credit as the person who first took it seriously- not just as "I can make it into anything that suits my theory" fantasizing.
He did not, however, recognise it as a map - rather, as a city plan - and most critically, he had not recognised its scale, nor (from what he tells me) had he oriented it correctly.
My analysis of the folio was published from late 2010 through 2011 and with additional commentary on the evidence since then.
I might add, just by the way, that I'm a formally qualified iconographic analyst who specialises in problematic artefacts and have thirty-five years' specialist practice. (On the other hand I've only had to learn to type my own posts since retiring.)
One of the reasons that Voynich studies goes no-where, and with leaden feet is this curious phenomenon where people think you can explain a six-hundred year old artefact when its imagery is so opaque to modern European eyes, when its text is unknown and unread, and do so without any particular study but just pulling out whatever happens to be in your head already or whatever happens to grab your fancy elsewhere - Pinterest is a particular irritant.
The attitude to imagery which says, in effect, "my guess is as good as yours" is true as far as it goes. The thing is that "guessing" is just a waste of everyone's time. If you wouldn't walk into the Louvre, and think you could just 'out of your head' identify the painter, date the painting, list the pigments with their chemical constituents and recognise from the style of pen- or brushwork whether it was a fake, a copy, or an original - then really, please don't think you can do the equivalent with *this* six-hundred year old drawing.
I'm sorry to be terse, but the manuscript deserves more respect.. and frankly so does my analysis of that folio. By all means debate my evidence or my conclusions, if you feel you have researched the historical, geographical, cartographic, and other relevant matter - including for example which towns and cities were still standing after the early fourteenth century quakes in Asia minor and Italy...
If the frontispiece to the Book of Kells were in the Voynich manuscript, wouldn't you at least try to understand earlier explanations and research before waffling on that it looked like the turkish carpet you happened to read about last week?
Why treat Beinceke MS 408 so cavalierly, then?
His initial response had been that although there had been a few intermittent 'kites' flown, no suitably qualified person had researched it in depth, or explained each part of the map and the relationship of parts to the whole, nor discerned signs of chronological strata... as I had. Mine was then the first formal analysis of the folio, and the first certain demonstration that it ws a map.
More recently Nick has emailed me with copies of a conversation he had had some years before, in which he theorised that it might be a city-plan, and specifically of Milan. He was so enthusiastic about that theory, at the time, that he flew to Milan to see whether or not an aerial view of the city might show a fair correspondence to the arrangement of streets and remaining medieval buildings.
Apparently he later abandoned that theory, but in my opinion he deserves credit as the person who first took it seriously- not just as "I can make it into anything that suits my theory" fantasizing.
He did not, however, recognise it as a map - rather, as a city plan - and most critically, he had not recognised its scale, nor (from what he tells me) had he oriented it correctly.
My analysis of the folio was published from late 2010 through 2011 and with additional commentary on the evidence since then.
I might add, just by the way, that I'm a formally qualified iconographic analyst who specialises in problematic artefacts and have thirty-five years' specialist practice. (On the other hand I've only had to learn to type my own posts since retiring.)
One of the reasons that Voynich studies goes no-where, and with leaden feet is this curious phenomenon where people think you can explain a six-hundred year old artefact when its imagery is so opaque to modern European eyes, when its text is unknown and unread, and do so without any particular study but just pulling out whatever happens to be in your head already or whatever happens to grab your fancy elsewhere - Pinterest is a particular irritant.
The attitude to imagery which says, in effect, "my guess is as good as yours" is true as far as it goes. The thing is that "guessing" is just a waste of everyone's time. If you wouldn't walk into the Louvre, and think you could just 'out of your head' identify the painter, date the painting, list the pigments with their chemical constituents and recognise from the style of pen- or brushwork whether it was a fake, a copy, or an original - then really, please don't think you can do the equivalent with *this* six-hundred year old drawing.
I'm sorry to be terse, but the manuscript deserves more respect.. and frankly so does my analysis of that folio. By all means debate my evidence or my conclusions, if you feel you have researched the historical, geographical, cartographic, and other relevant matter - including for example which towns and cities were still standing after the early fourteenth century quakes in Asia minor and Italy...
If the frontispiece to the Book of Kells were in the Voynich manuscript, wouldn't you at least try to understand earlier explanations and research before waffling on that it looked like the turkish carpet you happened to read about last week?
Why treat Beinceke MS 408 so cavalierly, then?
![[+]](https://www.voynich.ninja/images/collapse_collapsed.png)