17-05-2023, 02:56 PM
I think it must be a scrappy personal notebook as when one compares it with the professionally produced manuscripts of the time the Voynich drawings look so crude and so poorly done that they must be drawn by an amateur not concerned about the artist or visual details. (Even an amateur could have made more effort with some of the drawings.) Because it looks so rough and ready it seems unlikely it would have been produced for sale at that time. Obviously it was very saleable much later in its history, but if I were producing something for sale at the time I would not have produced something so crude looking.
So on that basis it counts against the idea that it was a hoax meant for sale to a collector as it would have been made more visually appealing. Similarly if it was meant to impress some people to obtain membership of some society I think more effort would have been made on its visual appearance. As Voynich said himself it was an "ugly duckling" when compared with other manuscripts.
So I don't think it was intended to be seen by other people. I think it was just a personal scientific notebook. This would account for the fact that we don't see references by others at the time to the manuscript as it wasn't intended to be seen and so was seen by very few people. It may have just been lying around, so to speak, not noticed and with little interest until time had made it a historical curiosity the likes of which Emperor Rudolph might be interested in.
Of course this is speculation.
So on that basis it counts against the idea that it was a hoax meant for sale to a collector as it would have been made more visually appealing. Similarly if it was meant to impress some people to obtain membership of some society I think more effort would have been made on its visual appearance. As Voynich said himself it was an "ugly duckling" when compared with other manuscripts.
So I don't think it was intended to be seen by other people. I think it was just a personal scientific notebook. This would account for the fact that we don't see references by others at the time to the manuscript as it wasn't intended to be seen and so was seen by very few people. It may have just been lying around, so to speak, not noticed and with little interest until time had made it a historical curiosity the likes of which Emperor Rudolph might be interested in.
Of course this is speculation.