I am not convinced by the provenance history of the VMS

[proto57]

For instance, you, as many have, suggest apothecary jars. Here is one from your link:  This jar has curved sides, which are of a gradually changing diameter.

But apothecary jars can have a zillion different shapes.  While the most common seems indeed to be a simple cylinder with slightly concave profile (perhaps for more comfortable and safe gripping), You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., including two stacked cylinders with straight sides, with a ridge or painted line between the two.

Well that would be great, and I have heard this before- many times. Yet I never see the examples of them. None with all of the features I point out DO exist on early microscopes show up in anywhere the same number on any of the jars I've been shown- nor on any of many other suggestions. Sure, some have straight sides, but where are the stacked cylinders, with straight sides, with different diameters? This is needed in microscopes, telescopes, and other optical devices, to allow focusing (sliding of tube diameters withing one another). And so on. And yes, I've looked at all the ones you suggested, in the above link... but probably have seen hundreds more. No jars of any kind have the parallel sides, with the multiple diameters, with the ridged rings, with the recessed tops, with the "delphini" legs, with patterns and colors so similar to the VMs cylinders.

Moreover, don't forget the artistic limitations of the Scribe. As in other illustrations, his mental model of "apothecary jar" must have been only loosely based on real ones, and his renderings of it were probably as realistic as the Zodiac scorpion or the volcanoes on the Rosette page.

Well it is true that here we now have the relative and speculative problem as to "how much different or similar" is any one comparison to the Voynich illustration being compared to. My thoughts on this frequent critique of my own comparisons:

I feel there is an overall range of artistic ability in the illustrations of the Voynich, and all must be considered in that range. That is, one's opinion about the level of ability should not vary according to the desired comparison... your point, of course. But I believe these optical comparisons do fall within that range, as much as the more or less identifiable illustrations of the Zodiac do, or the animals do. I mean, saying the Zodiac are NOT realistic enough to mean some cylinders cannot be optical, well I disagree, because to me, 1) both are identifiable as what they were intended to be, and 2) both have a similar level of fanciful adjustment to be "off" by a bit. I wrote about this overall effect in a blog post years ago, making the point that it must have been intentional for the artist to have drawn so many objects "And again, I propose, to accidentally miss on thousands of individual elements, over 200 plus pages of text, without giving away one concrete connection to anything real… this, in my opinion, would be almost impossible to have happened by chance, and must have been intentional, and therefore is our biggest clue… a clue never followed."

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Vagueness is a form of protection by the forger, as it makes it difficult for one- me, for one- to claim any of the objects are what they actually are, because concrete such identifications would reveal the ruse. Well, I think it does reveal the ruse... to me, there are two reasons I am convinced this is a modern forgery, and they work in perfect unison: 1) sheer number of anachronistic similarities which place the work in modern times, and 2) a clear and cohesive context (as a fake book meant to look as though it was owned or written by Horcicky in the Court of Rudolf II) which explain why one would find all these things in one book. I mean by the latter, it is not cannons and swords and kings and architectural elements and farrier tools and snowmen and cats and dogs.

It is (probable, to varying degrees) microscopes, microscopic cells and animals, armadillo, zodiac, New World plants, Jewish iconography, microcosm/macrocosm, bizarre plants and animals, unknown writing, Horcicky's name, Rosicrucian symbolism, healing baths, alchemical symbolism, magic wheels, anatomical organs, astronomy, astrology, and so much more, which (seemingly) was pulled from Wilfred's favorite book, as it is ALL in there, "Follies of Science at the Court of Rudolf II":  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

What the 1420 Genuine Paradigm lacks is that context, because... as often admitted... it bears little to no similarity to other works of that era. It has no context in the early 15th century, that is... despite some broad claims to that end.

many people, and times, for many decades, have actually suggested that many of the illustrations in the Voynich have been favorably compared to microscopic plant and animal cells, diatoms, and more!

But the resemblances are very weak (like the alleged resemblance of f68v3 and a spiral galaxy). The diagram of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. also resembles an orange sliced in half, a carriage wheel, a cathedral's round vitral, a Lullian volvelle, ...

And the details are not consistent with those interpretations.  Why would the rays of a diatom's cell have labels on them?  If f86v4 is an cross-section of a plant stem, why are there four "angels" and a moon-face in it?  

Conversely, two essential features of a high-power microscope (capable or seeing the internal structure of diatoms) are a smaller objective lens at the bottom and a support that holds the tube raised and steady with a space under the objective.  The marginal "things" of the Pharma section have neither.

But again, in these I see a selective setting of the "Level of Similarity Slider", in which there is a demand for a very high level of comparison for anything anachronistic, and a very low level of the slider for anything that meets the pre-conception of 15th century. My point, in contrast, is that if one is consistent in their application of levels of similarity, then at the top setting nothing but the women and zodiac can be said to be women and zodiac, and at the bottom of the level, anything can be anything. And, again I argue that my setting is consistent... while fitting in a context which allows it all.

A great example of what I mean is in one case you just used... that "Why would the rays of a diatom's cell have labels on them?" to dismiss my diatom comparison. But if we apply that same standard, that level, to other illustrations, then "why?" are the cylinders jars? Why are the wheels magic wheels? Why are the baths baths? Why is the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. animal a wolf, instead of an armadillo... it has labels. For that matter, why is my interpretation, a diatom, wrong because of the labels, but not wrong as an orange slice... also with the labels? No, it is clear that whatever the Voynich is, it is sick with labels, and this feature does not logically mean anything is or is not the thing it most looks like. The level of acceptance/rejection must be consistant.

Anyway, the first microscopes capable of seeing cells were made in the late 1670s by Dutchman Leeuwenhoek  They were just You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..  Double-lens tubular microscopes were developed mostly in the 1700s.  So if the Pharma "things" are indeed meant to be microscopes, they would be a big blunder by the forger -- who supposedly was trying to forge a book that would have been sold to Rudolf II in ~1600 with the claim that it was a Bacon original from the 1300s.

But I do not agree that Wilfred was first "... trying to forge a book that would have been sold to Rudolf II", rather, as a book by or owned by Horcicky, who supposedly signed it (although we both agree that is probably a forged signature). And again, microscopes would have been very much allowable and even expected in such a book, if based on circa 1910's error-prone understandings of both the history of optics and the Court of Rudolf II's history and contents (ala Bolton's heavily flawed book). Drebbel is mentioned in the book, and he has been (somewhat self-) the claimed inventor of the modern two lens microscope. Also, Kepler was in the Court of Rudolf, and in his 611 "Dioptrice" actually illustrated the function of a two lens microscope!:

   

No, it would not be a blunder at all. The presence of microscopes would, and I feel does, fit perfectly into the context of a work from that Court, as understood in the time it was forged.

You claim that the forger was You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. But that itself would be a mistake hard to justify.  No matter how much Wilfrid enjoyed that book, like any antiques forger he should have done a good deal of research, outside that source, in order to figure out what paleographers expected a "Bacon's original" to look like.

... partly answered in my answer just above, but again, I do not in any way believe this was intended, when created by Wilfrid, to have anything to do with Roger Bacon. I speculate as to why his desired authorship was changed, and how it was changed:

"I further propose that is was created first as a Jacob Horcicky botanical, which was meant to appear as though it was created in the Court of Rudolf II in the early 17th century, and as such was falsely “signed” by him. At some later point (by about 1910/11?), the intended author and time was changed to Roger Bacon and the 13th century, probably by removing many of the now missing pages (which may have run counter to a Roger Bacon claim). Sometime later, the 1666 Marci to Kircher letter was forged, in order to strengthen this new, intended, Bacon authorship."

From: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(On the other hand, I now think that Jacobus's "signature" on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is more likely to have been forged by Wilfrid than to have been there before he acquired the book.  I will post the reasons eventually.)

Well, as above, again, we have common ground. On the probable fake nature of the "signature", along with the culprit who put it there. Also, you have proposed the possibility that the "men of the letters", Baresch/Marci/Kinner/Kircher, were all describing and discussing some book other than the Voynich... you call it "Book A", I have called it, "The Baresch Manuscript".

So to the "signature", I'll add a possibly supporting, although entirely speculative concept, involving the situation with the "chemical treatment", and the faint nature of the signature to begin with: What if Voynich, at first, did just what I suggest, which would have been to tie the book to Horcicky... back when, as I hypothesize, he wanted it to look as though it came from the Court? But then, when he changed his attribution to Roger Bacon, he was like, "Oops", gotta erase that sucker. Then, he made it faint, but could not remove it?

What to do? Well, figure out a way to allow for that signature in a bogus Bacon timeline: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(sp?) which Arthur Dee described as belonging to his father, John Dee. THAT would "get it into the Court" again, and validate the signature being there. And then, for good measure, forge that atrocious 1665/66 Marci letter, to further buttress that new, desired provenance.

But now it was all faint and stuff, while still readable... well, spill some chemicals on it! And voila! A new path into the hands of Kircher, through the Court. Of course, the problems are still rife with this new fantasy saga: The Men of the Letters would have seen the signature, and mentioned it; the earliest pictures of the Voynich show the "signature" was actually readable; the 1665/66 Letter inexplicably mentions things that the Marci would have mentioned decades earlier, and not waited to the practical eve of his death to reveal... and more. But, it has sufficed all this time, for most. I don't buy it, and for some different, and some the same reasons, neither do you.

I appreciate the discussion, as always, Mr. Stolfi. All the best, Rich