I'm sorry but the concept of a "micro specialist" dealing only with "Latin Christian" manuscripts is really strange, and I can't accept the idea that an art historian would be able to analyse and publish a corpus of known manuscripts from 800 to 1500, without completely understanding the wider context.
This sort of micro-specialism is exactly what one would find in well-informed amateurs or anyone without the solid background of a complete academic curriculum. Or like the dentist assistant, who mainly knows about the specific area of dentistry, while the dentist himself has a complete medical background.
It's the opinion of the dentist we want to hear.
I have a problem with the term "Latin Christian". I don't know what that means. As far as I can tell, it is used only in Voynich fora and blogs, in order to try to push certain people into a corner that they do not see themselves in.
If you say European, then you say Latin and/or Christian.
Anyone reading even just the most basic text books about the history of science understands that in Europe books were circulating in many languages and were translated from one into the other. Herbal MSs have a strong connection with Greek, Byzantine and Arabic sources and were translated into all languages. Astronomical MSs similarly.
There are remarkably few things that are generally accepted about the Voynich MS, but one of them is that the MS has essentially no Christian symbolism, but also not of any other religion.
The word Christian is completely out of place.
It is worth looking into the book of D.Blume before stating an opinion about it. As I already said (as it seems: too briefly), it deals (among many other things) with exactly the topics that are being explored here in this forum: which elements in which MSs trace back to antique sources, which have arabic influences etc etc.
One cannot get much more 'macro' in the already quite specialised field of art history applied to astronomical MSs.
The special reason for asking him about the Voynich MS was because of the long list of MSs that he has seen. If there is still some little-known manuscript hidden somewhere in a little known library or archive, that has illustrations more similar to the Voynich than what we, as amateurs, have been able to dig up so far, he is one of the likely people to have seen this.
The answer to that, so far, remains negative.
The more general purpose of obtaining such expert opinions is to have information about the MS which is:
- relevant (it is specifically referring to the Voynich MS)
- meaningful (it comes from someone with accepted credentials)
- traceable / falsifiable (the argumentation is presented)
These are not the truth, to be followed like a dogma. They are more pieces of the puzzle.
But they are big important pieces.
One can discard at ones own risk.
This sort of micro-specialism is exactly what one would find in well-informed amateurs or anyone without the solid background of a complete academic curriculum. Or like the dentist assistant, who mainly knows about the specific area of dentistry, while the dentist himself has a complete medical background.
It's the opinion of the dentist we want to hear.
I have a problem with the term "Latin Christian". I don't know what that means. As far as I can tell, it is used only in Voynich fora and blogs, in order to try to push certain people into a corner that they do not see themselves in.
If you say European, then you say Latin and/or Christian.
Anyone reading even just the most basic text books about the history of science understands that in Europe books were circulating in many languages and were translated from one into the other. Herbal MSs have a strong connection with Greek, Byzantine and Arabic sources and were translated into all languages. Astronomical MSs similarly.
There are remarkably few things that are generally accepted about the Voynich MS, but one of them is that the MS has essentially no Christian symbolism, but also not of any other religion.
The word Christian is completely out of place.
It is worth looking into the book of D.Blume before stating an opinion about it. As I already said (as it seems: too briefly), it deals (among many other things) with exactly the topics that are being explored here in this forum: which elements in which MSs trace back to antique sources, which have arabic influences etc etc.
One cannot get much more 'macro' in the already quite specialised field of art history applied to astronomical MSs.
The special reason for asking him about the Voynich MS was because of the long list of MSs that he has seen. If there is still some little-known manuscript hidden somewhere in a little known library or archive, that has illustrations more similar to the Voynich than what we, as amateurs, have been able to dig up so far, he is one of the likely people to have seen this.
The answer to that, so far, remains negative.
The more general purpose of obtaining such expert opinions is to have information about the MS which is:
- relevant (it is specifically referring to the Voynich MS)
- meaningful (it comes from someone with accepted credentials)
- traceable / falsifiable (the argumentation is presented)
These are not the truth, to be followed like a dogma. They are more pieces of the puzzle.
But they are big important pieces.
One can discard at ones own risk.
![[+]](https://www.voynich.ninja/images/collapse_collapsed.png)