The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[proto57]

But not only do I think the armadillo is a good match

Given the overall poor quality of the drawings in terms of depicting realistic figures, the strongest point against this animal being an armadillo is that it is too well drawn.

Thank you, Quimqu... I think that is #1 on my list which I posted earlier:

"1) “It looks too much like an armadillo to be one, because the artist was too inexpert to draw one accurately, therefore it is something else badly drawn.”"

The opposite of this has also been claimed:

"2) “It does not look ENOUGH like an armadillo, because the artist was good enough to draw an accurate one if they wanted to, so it is animal X, Y, or Z (which all look less like an armadillo)”."

Which is why I coined the term, "Goldilocks Rule". I prefer to think that things were meant to be what they most look like, which is really in the middle of #1 and #2. But that reasoning would have to be on a "why it probably is an armadillo list":

1) The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. animals has more points of comparison to an armadillo than any other real or imaginary animal
2) It looks more like an armadillo* to anyone who has no Voynich knowledge, or 1420 bias
3) It fits well with the general skills the Voynich artist exhibited in their other illustrations
4) An armadillo would be reasonably expected in the context of work meant to look as though it came from the Court of Rudolf II in the early 17th century, as New World plants, animals, objects were of great interest to the collectors in Europe at this time
5) The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. matches on more points to a specific armadillo illustration in the Gesner book, mentioned in the Bolton book, which Voynich admitted he loved, and "knew by heart"

So I appreciate the feedback on this identification, and admit that it is so far not provable, and of course your opinion on the issue is just as valid as mine. You could be correct. But I do think it is an armadillo we are looking at there. 

Rich

* I can't find it at the moment, but there was actually a discussion on the voynich.net, long before I came on the scene (90's? 00's?), in which someone pointed out that the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. animal looked like a lot like an armadillo, and many of the same arguments we are all having here, and I have had in the past, went back and forth. So I was far from the first person to note this... and, BTW, I noted it long before I came to believe the Voynich was a modern fake, and still believed it was early 17th century, as many of the pre-C14 experts did.