Voynich manuscript created by Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici's sons

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Whoever created the VM was well educated in art, languages and most likely music.

The person who actually wrote the text on vellum was quite probably not the Author (the person who chose the contents, composed the text, and invented the script), but a Scribe recruited by the Author.

This Scribe apparently had some experience with a pen, but probably only for purposes where the handwriting had to be clear but not beautiful -- like letters, accounting logs, petitions, etc.   

We can infer that the Scribe was not used to write books, because he did not score guide lines to get even margins and evenly spaced lines.  And he had zero artistic education: we can see on the Zodiac pages how his drawings of the nymphs progressed from "6-year-old style" to maybe "11-year-old style", and basically stopped there.  

He knew how to use a compass and a straightedge, but could not divide a circle into four equal parts, nor plan space for the text and figures -- so much so that his Herbal pages often have the roots extending all the way to the bottom edge if the page or flowers that extend across the binding fold, his round diagrams often run into the side edges, and in some of his Zodiac pages he had to put the last 4-5 nymphs on top of diagram.

In fact, this Scribe apparently was either not very bright or quite uneducated, because we have found that he copied many illustrations from other manuscripts without understanding some details.  Like turning a rosary or light chain into three linked flower garlands(?), or a urine sample flash into a perfume bottle.

The Author probably knew more than one language, but that is just a guess -- there is nothing in the VMS itself that supports that conclusion.  The "marginal writing" on some pages probably was written by later owners (like most marginal writing on most manuscripts).  If the Zodiac month names are original (which they may not be), they suggest, if anything, that he did not quite know the language that he was trying to write them in.

The creator would most likely have been wealthy to afford the time required to create the VM and able to afford the vellum and inks.

Quite the opposite.  The vellum is of rather poor quality, probably offcuts or rejects that he may have got from other scribes.   

There is evidence that the ink was not the permanent and waterproof iron-gall one that was normally used on vellum, but some improvised formula that came off by rubbing and was washed off by water (or sauce) spills.   

The colored paints were probably applied (rather crudely) by a later owner too, and anyway they do not use any expensive pigments.

All that, together with the unprofessional Scribe, indicates that the Author was not wealthy at all.

It's my opinion that the creator was not an adult. The art is not particularly good and the script seems unstructured. I think the creator was an early teen.

Change "creator" to "scribe", and I will agree.  

The Scribe could well have been the Author's 13-year-old nephew who had learned to use a pen but not much else, and was willing to do the job for candy money.

That would fit his style on the nymphs -- that suggests keen interest on the naked female body, but no real experience with the same...

It's been pretty well accepted that the VM originated in Italy in the 15th century, there is little doubt about that.

Carbon-14 dating indicates that [most of] the vellum was manufactured around 1420, although one of the tested sheets may have been a couple of decades older.  The styles of dresses in the Zodiac are consistent with a date shortly after that.  (Except for the dresses of most nymphs and the absence of fig leaves, that suggest instead a date around Saturday October 30, 4004 BCE.) 

If we have correctly identified the source of some illustrations, the date may be a couple decades later, say 1430-1450.

However, I am not aware of any evidence that puts the creation of the book in Italy.  IIUC, people who have put a lot of work into that question say that the dress styles and the presumed sources of some drawings rather point to an area just north of the Alps, in Switzerland or Germany.

It would also be reasonable to assume that their father being a collector of manuscripts would have in his collection a manuscript written by Roger Bacon and that the boys would have seen that manuscript and have been influenced by it. I know that the Roger Bacon connection to the VM has been ruled out. I'm not suggesting that Bacon had anything to do with the VM, only that the Medici boys may have been influenced by it.

But there is nothing in the VMS that indicates even some remote influence by Roger Bacon.  Rapahel Mnishovsky's claim about Rudolf and "Bacon's book" was probably based on hearsay; and even if Rudolf did buy the VMS thinking it was Bacon's, we know now that he was just mistaken.

The story is about a star travelling through the heavens. It would seem that the VM s not in order.
The story starts with the introduction of the star families with the astronomical illustrations and the cosmological illustrations. ...I doubt that the plants actually have anything to do with the story.

But the Herbal sections take more than half of the book, and the Astro/Cosmo pages are only a dozen or so.

I think Rene Zandbergen got it right, the VM is a musical transcription.

IIUC, that was just an amusing exercise.  Did he really claim or suggest that Voynichese could be a musical notation?  I don't think so.

I think this is a book of stories illustrated, written and performed by five teenagers for amusement.

 
When I first saw the VMS, I thought of that too.  The "Nine Islands" archipelago on the big fold-out resembles the drawings that I did myself as a kid, of the settings for the fantasy stories that my brother and I used to tell each other.  (Sigh. To think of how much smarter kids were before D&D, videogames, and TikTok...)

However, the language is way too consistent, and the images are in fact too boring, for being the product of kid's imagination.  While the Scribe may have been a teenager, the Author surely was an Adult with a good education, who owned several books of the sort that only a scholar would have.

All the best, --stolfi