(14-02-2026, 09:47 PM)Koen G wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Even though I'm sometimes an instigator of associations with locations, I haven't figured out in the least yet where I think the MS was made. Being aware how international everything was, and the immense draw of Italy on intellectuals at the time, puts everything in perspective.
Maybe someone who grew up in a German-language (and art) environment, but was in Italy at the time. That could even be Tuscany, apparently. Florence, Siena... Maybe Bologna, Padua, Venice...
Ik fairy certain that the Zodiac symbols come from a German language source (details are known), but that was clearly not the only type of source. It has long been suspected that they are not entirely from the same background as other things in the MS. The Laufenberg connection may be from the same.
True, and that pushes it further North, but then the broader point is maybe Natio Germanica. It's clearly not northern Italian alone, and it's clearly not Allemanic alone, so you're left with someone who was German and studied in Italy as the most likely example in my opinion. That means a student at Bologna or Padua most likely. The challenge is treating Germany like some amorphous mass. It's a huge country and in particular in those days. And it's difficult to reconcile the Allemanic with the Bavarian, I agree.
As for the Diane O'Donovan arguments,I think she confuses inspired by, with directly sourced. There is a lot of material with ancient roots that finds its way in to both Italian and German drawings in that period. This is very different from Stolfi's Chinese theory or some of her theories on Michael Scot or Indian precedent.. the most honest answer is this stuff was widely available and copied (badly in this case)
...but it's a very personal view... And in the end we have almost zero hard facts about Voynich, so it's actually no less stupid than any other...