The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[proto57]

Hi Rich, 

Hope all is well.

Yes, thank you... and you, too, I (also) hope.

Just as a very easy example, if you (or others reading) scroll around on here, pick out the era which best matches the writing in the VMS 
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. This is why my opinion would not change other than thinking it must be a copy of a 15th century work made by someone who has practised the style to imitate it well.

This actually leads on quite well to my troubles with the nature of our hoaxer, as by hypothetically imagining the material to be 17th century its not too far of a leap to imagine the aim of creating a 17th century work and ending up with the VMS, and it quite well displays why I can't get my head around the nature of our hoaxer, and also why I call him the "genius idiot". 

The writing, I hope we can agree, does not belong to the 17th century. To achieve the style shown in the VMS someone would have to be practised in the style to imitate it. Does a rare book dealer who practised a style to imitate 17th century writing accidently learn 15th century, then selected 15th century velum to write on, make sense?

No, I don't agree that the writing... in part.. "does not belong to the 17th century". And while the author would have to be somewhat practiced, true, I think they were familiar with the (actually) very wide range of styles, from different sources and ages, that we (actually) see in the Voynich.

As to selecting 15th century parchment, I due not believe they did specifically opt for that age, nor could they, really, as there was no C14 testing. I mean, if blank they could not know the age of it... it was just, as I've opined, "Just some old vellum laying around". If they knew the age of the vellum, or worried it could be dated in their (or Ethel's) lifetime, I think they would have chosen materials from the early 16th century, to better match the content they smeared on it.

Just look at some script-based opinions, from D'Imperio alone:

p.08- "I should go no lower than ca. 1510-1520 because no influence of the Italian Renaissance style is evident. The above date is based on the character of the script, the style of drawing and on such costumes as are evidence on certain pages..."- Panofsky

p.08- "Paleographic experts agree that the nature of the drawings, the writing, the ink and the vellum, etc.... ...Some experts suggest that the probably period in which it was written was 1500, plus or minus twenty years"- Elizebeth Friedman.

"The format and use of certain peculiar symbols (mirror images of the Italian d or di and el, respectively) are evidences that the author was probably familiar with the manuscript of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Anatomy' (written about 1510)"- Leonell Strong.

p.09- "Professor Giles Constable (professor of medieval history, Harvard University)... ...dated the manuscript as sixteenth century and suggested that the script might be a form of private language motivated by the desire to keep such a powerful document from the general public... ... the date of the manuscript was again placed in the sixteenth century by Mr. Rodney Dennis (curator of manuscripts in Houghton Library of the harvard College Library). Mr. Dennis identified the script to be in the style of the sixteenth century humanist script".

p.23, "Some source mention, in passing, the possible derivation of the Voynich symbols from "Roman minuscule characters.". McKaig (n.d.) states that "the text is writing in a beautiful script that slightly resembles writing used in Italy in the 1500's" (p. 481).

p.23, "... and the decorative extensions of letter with tall stems [gallows] int he top line of a manuscript illustrated in Cappelli (Table IV).

(This famous Cappelli gallows-like script is from an obscure 12th century letter, first published in the early 20th century)

Mary D'Imperio made another prescient point, I think, with:

p.24- "Unfortunately for the student, the designer has exhibited a truly remarkable ingenuity in blending and distorting these elements so as to make of them an entirely new writing system, fundamentally independent of and distinct from any of its sources, so that our recognition of similarities to known symbols has not helped us to unlock the secret of the script".

This statement by Mary D'Imperio is emblematic of the very problem I had first noted a decade or so ago, that the Voynich seems to both borrow from many sources, then blur the combination... and she seems to have agreed with me and others in that it was "made" so. But note her phrase, "entirely new writing system"... not identifiable to 13th, not 15th, not 16th, not any era, but "entirely new".

But also, I would again ask, "How exactly did the C14 pare down all of these perceived date ranges into simply 'early 15th century'". Simply explained, I think, by the same exact "C14 Filter Effect" once again: The reality of the history of all paleography has not changed, but it could not be applied to the C14 era, so instead it was simply dropped. It is still there, it just needed to be ignored, and still is ignored. So when someone, today, "sees" only 15c., I mean, they are needing to NOT see all the other, later and some earlier, comparisons. They are still there, they have not changed, the cannot change. And likewise, the value of the pre-C14 opinions should not be simply edited out of the story. But... it is. I think this is science done backwards.

The whole projected vision of the Voynich today has adjusted itself, morphed, to skew these results, and ignore previously valued opinions, edit firm histories, all to align with this "C14-Centric" demand. Then this C14-Centric narrative is fiercely defended by argument by authority, filtered peer review for access to visibility in lectures and forums, formal institutional access and their "official" positions, and so on. And the filter is simple: If the proposed idea accepts early 15th century and genuine (I call it the "1420 Genuine European Cipher Paradigm"), it is allowed; if it is anywhere outside of this paradigm, is it censured through "peer" rejection. That's it.

Well that was not just a rant, but the point is, most of what people accept, now, as factually correct and therefore inarguable, has already been pre-filtered through this process. The general acceptance of the results of this process is, of course, normal, as people tend to trust authority (I don't), and people just cannot apply the time and effort necessary to seek the "truth of the matter". Well most of us all must do this... for any problem or question in life you have layers: The topmost is the generally accepted set of "facts". Dig a few hours or days, and that changes again, and the truth turns out to be something else. But dig for months or years, look back to the whole history of a problem, and look at all source materials, critically, really skeptically and critically, and the reality again is realized to be something entirely different than you have been taught. I mean I have to trust many things in life, and so I am also a frequent victim of filtered and biased results... but in a handful of areas, among them the history of early submersibles and the Voynich manuscript, I have spent years diving for the truth of the matter... in looking at source materials, the practice of the era involved, and questioning everything. And also, as decades go by (!!!) I have noted how the story changes, and change by who, and from that another picture entirely is formed... I mean, the history of research in any field tells us as much or more than the static cross-section of any moment in the process, because it introduces motivation, sources of bias, of various personal agendas... the human side, so to speak. And I have referred to this process, in this case, as I've watched those new to the VMs history come in these different "strata of understanding", having excepting whatever came before as the gospel.

Hey I did, too! I look back and almost can't believe what I accepted as gospel, myself, before doing some of my own research, my own thinking. And despite what is charged against me, often, and heatedly, I do listen to those who criticize my ideas, and have even changed my mind on a great many aspects of this story. When I felt it made sense, that is... where I am now, I have been somewhat, not entirely, unmoved by the arguments offered the past few years. Introspection is the most important tool, I guess I'm saying... or we will all be suffering from Dunning-Krueger, making up our own World, and none of us wants to do or be that.

Anyway, back to the script. Yes, almost everyone believes the processed "truth" that the script is absolutely early 15th century and nothing else. But it is only early 15th century if you ignore everything else. I guess that is the TLDR.

Interesting aside, which throws kudos on the diligent and observant Ms. Nill: D'Imperio wrote (p.26), "Miss Nill declares the last page [marginalia, of course] is written in the same ink as the bulk of the manuscript". Wow, I had missed or forgotten that tidbit. Of course Anne could not have known how correct this turned out to be, for when McCrone tested the inks in 2009, they discovered exactly that. And of course it is important, as illustrated by the fact that the time between Nill and McCrone, it was firmly and repeatedly stated (as evidence the work was genuine, mostly) that the last page marginalia was in a different hand, by a different scribe, and applied much later than the creation of the bulk of the text. When it was revealed to be of the same ink, the official sources quickly corrected themselves, apologized for the very misleading, incorrect information that had led so many astray... oops, just kidding! No, the references to "different scribe, later hand" were very quietly removed. In fact, I was baffled... thinking, "Where did THAT go, now?", which caused me to re-examine the McCrone report, discover the ink being the same, and then I knew why the previous claims vanished.

And this is yet another illustration of just what we are up against, if one wants to determine the Truth of the Voynich: The story of the history of it, the nature of it, and everything that goes into creating the current pretty picture that everyone believes, is actually a very careful and strongly defended construct, which bears little resemblance to what is actually known about it, and what the bulk of the many expert opinions about it actually do say. Those have been selectively stripped away with the "C14 Filter", until all that is left is the appearance, not a reality, of everything being early 15th century and genuine.

In the case of the script, too... no, it is demonstrably not. It is a hodge-podge of scripts and styles from a very wide range of ages and sources, but edited and whittled down to the very narrow and desired era, all because, and based on, the calves dying in the early 15th century.

Anyway, all for the moment. I do appreciate your open mind(s) and value the input and discussion, and especially the very valuable disagreement. I actually often find myself hoping I don't change some people's minds, because then my own path stagnates somewhat. I am inspired by the challenges, that is.

Rich